Skip to main content Skip to complementary content

Data discovery and organization

Qlik Catalog organizes data as hierarchies where objects are represented logically via entities [tables], attributes [columns/fields] and relationship properties [key/value] pairs.

Source Hierarchies are top level folder systems designed for drill in and drill out navigation of Data Sources.

Sources are collections of entities that share source and structural attributes that assist with loading and validation.

Entities are tables comprised of attributes [columns/fields] that answer specific relational queries.

New data is readily incorporated into source folders upon validation, profiling, and inheritance of attributes.

Parent object information

To view source information for an entity or entity metrics for a field, select the object (via tick or checkbox) and note the appearance of a carat next to breadcrumbs trail following Field or Entity at the top of the screen. Select the icon expand collapse parent information (carat) icon to display or collapse parent information for the selected entity or field.

Display source information for an entity

Carat to right of breadcrumb path is collapsed to hide detailed metadata for the object

Display entity information for a field

Carat to right of breadcrumb path is expanded to display detailed metadata for the object

Wildcard behavior for global and local search

Default search behavior is "starts with"—if a keyword (name or other field) begins with the search term, a match results. For example, a search term of "pay" matches a source named "Payroll". By default, Catalog code appends the wildcard when searching on values.

To perform a wildcard search where the search term is prepended with a wildcard, use the multi-character wildcard "%" or the single-character wildcard "_". For example, a search for "%rol" matches the result "payroll".

If a user would like the search behavior to be "contains", set the following core_env property to true:
# Flag to control if the searched term in Catalog will have a percent sign prepended to it implicitly. # The term always has a trailing percent sign appended to it implicitly. If the value of this flag # is set to false, the user must put the percent sign (%) themselves in the search term for the code # to do wildcard search. Default: false #prepend.leading.percent.sign.for.catalog.search=false

Global search

To search on names across a cluster in all grids and areas of the application, the global search field is available in the middle of the top navigation bar.

Global search

Global search on any object name

Preliminary search results display; select View all results in the upper right of the search results to open a screen with more information and drill-in options.

Global search result icons
icon description
icon view parent source View parent source
icon view parent entity View parent entity
icon view source View source
icon view entity View entity
icon view field View field
Global search results: all results view

Global search results display immediate parent and child objects

Information noteInclusion of profile values in global search can impact performance.

Local search

Local search can be found directly above the grid and returns results found in that grid.

Local search results

Local Search Returns Results

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!