With the announcement that Microsoft is expanding its business intelligence toolset, other BI vendors have been scrambling for a way to position their own analytic products in a new marketplace and prove their value. The only problem with that strategy is that there are some smaller vendors that are delivering simple, innovative solutions at a fraction of the cost without the need for complex data warehouses or data marts. These smaller vendors are eroding the bigger BI vendors' market share from underneath. The established players should consider focusing less on Microsoft and more on one of those underdogs: QlikTech International. With the release of QlikView Enterprise version 6.0, QlikTech is a competitor to contend with.

QlikView Enterprise 6.0 (QlikView) is the latest release of QlikTech's reporting and analytic tool for end users and developers. QlikView presents information using a "workbook" style, which lets you create a document with a number of sheets that contain reports, dashboards, and so on. The presentation can include a variety of objects, including tables, charts, form-style boxes, and buttons.

QlikView can connect to a number of different databases and file formats, starting with databases accessed through standard interfaces such as ODBC and OLE DB. Such databases include SQL Server, Oracle, DB2, Sybase, Informix, and Teradata. You can also access data held within file-based structures, including XML, text files, and spreadsheets — therefore you can open files through the Web or connect to other QlikView documents to report from the data they contain. Another handy feature is the ability to use what QlikView calls "inline" data, which is data you manually enter. This feature is especially convenient for look-up or reference tables that are not stored in a database.

In addition to being able to connect to a number of different data sources, you can combine data from all these connections into one QlikView document. I tested this ability, and it worked well. I extracted data from two different database servers, a couple of spreadsheets, and a text file, for use in a single document. With the explosion of data sources and QlikView's own patented analytic data engine, this capability could solve some of the data consolidation problems that many organizations face, without their having to resort to a data mart or data warehousing strategy in the short term.

For larger projects spanning different facets of an organization, you still may need to consider a data warehouse or data mart given the complexity of the data consolidation and analysis, but for organizations that need answers quickly or for use in a department or division, something like QlikView may be all you need.

Building Analytic Applications

Once you have a connection to your data source, you can start building the sheets that make up the user interface for your QlikView document. You can add a variety of elements to sheets, from basic tables and charts to list boxes, buttons, and so on. The QlikView design interface is easy to use and end users with little or no experience with reporting or OLAP tools should be able to create their own QlikView documents.

When creating QlikView documents, the only real disappointment is the graphing and charting capabilities, which provide 10 basic chart types (two of which are Pivot Tables and Straight Tables, which aren't really charts). The other chart types are as you would expect (pie, bar, line, radar, gauge, and so on) but formatting charts is made difficult by having to look through the property pages to find the formatting option you want.

It would be much easier if you could just click on an element of a chart and change its color, for example, or drag the legend to a new location. With that said, the charting types and options will provide the majority of functions your average end user requires, but the user needs some time to learn how the charting interface works.