Skip to main content Skip to complementary content

Qlik Alerting installation

Information noteEnsure you have installed NodeJS and MongoDB as per the Installation prerequisites instructions.

Validate that your Qlik Sense license includes the Qlik Alerting attribute

Qlik Alerting uses an integrated license module with Qlik Sense. As the data source is setup, Qlik Alerting will read the licensing attributes from the Qlik Sense license data. There should be a Qlik Alerting attribute in this data that will provide all of the details required. In order to check that your license key includes the Qlik Alerting attribute, do the following:

  1. In the Qlik Sense QMC navigate to License management > Site license.
  2. Check the license details.
    1. If you have a token-based license you should:
      1. Expand the LEF access section.
      2. Validate that the QLIK_ALERTING attribute is present in the license details.
      3. If no QLIK_ALERTING license attribute can be found, you may need to re-enter and re-validate your license.
    2. For serial license keys you will need to:
      1. Retrieve the license Key, for example, 1234 0000 0000 1234.
      2. Go to lef1.qliktech.com and enter this license key without spaces.
      3. Click on captcha and click the request LEF.
      4. Validate that the QLIK_ALERTING attribute is present in the license details.
      5. If no QLIK_ALERTING license attribute can be found, you may need to wait for the license to refresh.

Install Qlik Alerting

  1. Check that the MongoDB service is running in the Windows services window or that your server has access to the external MongoDB instance.
  2. Download the Qlik Alerting installer and save it to you hard drive ready for installation. This is accessible from Product Downloads.

    See: Downloading installation files

  3. Right-click the Qlik Alerting Installer.exe file, and then click Run as Administrator.
  4. Click Yes if you get the User Account Control message.
  5. Accept the license agreement and click Next.
  6. Once the installation is finished, open Windows services and check to ensure that all the Qlik Alerting services are running. If any of these are not running, start through this window.

Access Qlik Alerting through the browser on the server, use http://localhost:4551 or https://localhost:4552 for the initial setup. You can also access the server from your desktop browser if you have setup the appropriate firewall and server DNS details.

Qlik Sense connection configuration

  1. Enter the following details for your Qlik Sense site.
    • Qlik Sense hostname is the IP or DNS of the Qlik Sense Server. (This should be an allow-listed value in the Qlik Sense Virtual Proxy is the URL which you use to access the server from any desktop.)

    • Qlik Sense Service listen port HTTPS is the HTTPS connection port for Qlik Sense. This will normally be the default value of 443 but if this has been customized you can change the value here. You can see if this and the following Qlik Ports have been customized in the Qlik Management Console (QMC) in the settings for the proxy you will be connection to.

    • Qlik REST API listen port will default to 4243 as per the standard install of Qlik Sense.

    • Qlik Repository API listen port will default to 4242 as per the standard install of Qlik Sense.

    • Connect as user directory is the Qlik Sense directory that the above user is assigned to.

    • Connect as user id is the Qlik Sense UserID that you will use to test the connection and run some of the background connection tasks.

      Information noteEnsure this user is a root admin in Qlik Sense or a user who can access all users, tasks, and apps. This user must also have a valid license in Qlik Sense.
    • Filter for user fetch (optional) allows the limiting of the users that will sync across from Qlik Sense. See Filter users from Qlik Sense for details on the options and syntax to use.

    • Virtual proxy prefix (optional) will remain blank by default. Qlik Alerting connects using the Windows authentication pattern. In most cases the ‘Central Proxy (Default)’ virtual proxy setup will work in this way so you can leave this field blank. If you have a different authentication setup, or wish to connect to a different virtual proxy, enter the Prefix for the virtual proxy in this field.
    • Session cookie header name will default to X-Qlik-Session. This is the standard setup of the default virtual proxy. If you are connecting to different virtual proxy, this value will be changed (as it is distinct for each virtual proxy). Check the virtual proxy in the QMC to identify the value to enter here. It is common to use X-Qlik-Session-<Prefix> but this is not mandatory.

    • Alias hostname allows you to enter a different URL for user access to the server and is used in all Qlik Sense links in emails and mobile notifications.

      • Ensure that this is the URL that users use to access the Qlik Sense environment from their browsers.

      • If users access with a different virtual proxy to the data connection above, add this virtual proxy to the URL, for example, qliksense.company.com/okta where okta is the user access virtual proxy prefix.

      • If you are using the Qlik Alerting extension and connecting to it with a proxy or reverse proxy, enter the server address in the Reverse proxy URL redirection field.

    • Authentication specifies the authentication pattern. To enable single sign-on authentication using Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows credentials, select SSO. Then add the authentication URL in the Authentication URL field.

      For information on how to set up single sign-on authentication, see Configuring single sign-on from Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows to Qlik Alerting.

  2. On the right hand side use the buttons to upload your certificates that have been exported from Qlik Sense, you need only the client.pem and client_key.pem files.

    See Exporting Qlik Sense certificates for instructions on how to obtain the certificates from Qlik Sense.

    Information noteEnsure you have recently updated certificates from Qlik Sense as these exported certificates can be invalid after a Qlik Sense Enterprise upgrade. The Qlik Sense Enterprise February 2020 release was a release which requires all exported certificates to be regenerated.
  3. Click Test Connection. You should see a message saying connection successful.
  4. Click Save to save your configuration settings.
Information noteDuring this connection process the Qlik Alerting license attribute will be retrieved from Qlik Sense and all users will sync across (for the first time).

Qlik Alerting config settings

Enter the following details in order to ensure that all of the settings for the Qlik Alerting host server are correct.

  1. Enter the Qlik Alerting Host Server Name. This should be the public IP address or fully qualified domain name (DNS) of the server on which you are installing Qlik Alerting. This is used in the generation of the email links, so it should be the external address which you would normally access from your desktop browser.
  2. Check the HTTP and HTTPS Ports.

    The default ports for Qlik Alerting are 4551 and 4552 but you can change those here if necessary. Be sure to open the firewall for your custom ports if you choose to change them. For example, if Qlik Alerting is installed on a stand alone machine the default ports can be changed to 80 (HTTP) and 443 (HTTPS) removing the need for users to specify the port when accessing Qlik Alerting in their browser.

    Information noteIf you do change the port settings there is an additional step where you must manually configure the ports in a config file on the server once you have completed this process.

Email server configuration

Follow the steps below to configure the email server. This is required, even if you do not wish to receive alerts on email, as all password management etc is managed through email.

  1. Enter your mail server details:
    • Address, e.g. smtp.domain.com
    • Port No.
    • Secured: SSL / TLS / None

      Information noteYou may need to check the instructions below even when you have selected None, as later NodeJS versions require specific overrides of TLS versions. Node.js version 11.40 added the tls.DEFAULT_MIN_VERSION attribute, which is set to version 1.2. If the mail server you want to connect to uses TLS 1.1 or earlier, you need to override the default setting. See Allow less secure TLS connections to your mail server for instructions on how to change the default version.
    • Authentication Method: Basic or Anonymous
    • User name, this is typically the email for the account but can be an ID if required (see Test email address below if an ID is used)
    • Password, this can be left blank if not required by your mail server.
    • Default sender, the email address the user will see the email has been sent by which can also include the user name, for example you can enter "Qlik Alerting" <noreply@qlikalerting.com>
    • Test email address, this is required if you are using an ID in the Username field as the test connection validation will attempt to send an email to either the test email address or the username.
  2. Click Test Connection. You will see a message pop-up at the bottom of the screen and should receive an automated email message to the email account entered.
  3. Click Save to save your configurations settings.

To edit these settings outside of the registration process, go to Admin > Channels.

Information noteEnsure you have the correct firewall settings for Qlik Alerting to communicate with your mail server. To review the logs to see the error returned for the failed connection go to the C:\ProgramData\QlikAlerting\email-messenger folder and open the most recently updated file.

Allow less secure TLS connections to your mail server

We have encountered some environments where the connection to the mail server requires an additional setting to enable NodeJS to allow less secure connections. If you have done everything you think necessary to connect to your mail server and there is still an issue please check with your mail server administrator the TLS version that the mail server requires. To update this setting do the following:

  1. Access the Qlik Alerting server via remote desktop.
  2. Navigate to the C:\Program Files\Qlik Alerting\config folder.
  3. Update the default.json file to include a new key "tlsMinVersion":1.1 before the gateway object. The values here can be 1.0 or 1.1 depending on the setup of the mail server and network architecture. The default value is 1.2 at this time.
  4. Update the https key in the gateway object to false.

    { "tlsMinVersion": 1.1, "gateway": { "ip": "localhost", "httpPort": 4551, "httpsPort": 4552, "https": false }, ...

  5. If you have added other custom configuration changes (such as a connection to an external MongoDB instance) you may have multiple other attributes above the gateway object.
  6. Restart the Qlik Alerting email messenger service to pick up the new settings.

Select an administration user

In order to manage the Qlik Alerting site an administration user must be present in the Qlik Alerting repository. Enter the domain\username of the administration user to search for the correct user.

If no email address is present for this selected admin user you will be prompted to add an email to ensure that you can set the password when first logging on.

Information noteThis can occur when there are no emails stored in Qlik Sense.

Qlik Alerting will send you an email directly with a set password link. Click on this to set your password.

Information noteIf for some reason you cannot find this email then go to the logon page https:\\Qlik AlertingServer:4552, click the forgotten password link, enter your username and click Recover Password.

Additional step if ports were changed in Qlik Alerting settings step

Information noteThis step is only required if the ports have been changed from the default 4551/4552 ports.
  1. On the server navigate to C:\Program Files\Qlik Alerting\config.
  2. Open the default.json file in a text editor.
  3. In the gateway object, on line 4 by default, edit "httpPort": 4551; changing the 4551 value to your HTTP port entered in the Qlik Alerting settings step, for example port 80.

  4. On line 5, edit "httpsPort": 4552; changing the 4552 value to your HTTPS port entered in the Qlik Alerting settings step, for example port 443.
    {
    	"gateway": {
            "ip": "localhost",
            "httpPort": 80,
            "httpsPort": 443,
            "https": true
        },
        
  5. Restart the Qlik Alerting Gateway service.

Did this page help you?

If you find any issues with this page or its content – a typo, a missing step, or a technical error – let us know how we can improve!