Managing data contracts

Last updated: 8/28/2026

A data contract is a formal agreement that defines quality checks for datasets in your organization. Data contracts establish rules helping teams rely on data quality before building applications or making business decisions.

High-quality data is essential for accurate analytics and reliable applications. Data contracts protect your organization by:

• Reducing risk: Catch data quality issues before they impact business decisions or applications.
• Increasing trust: Teams gain confidence in data when contracts ensure reliability over time.
• Enabling observability: Contracts trigger alerts when data fails to meet quality checks.
• Clarifying expectations: Contracts document what producers promise and what consumers need.
• Speeding troubleshooting: When data breaks, contracts help identify and locate the problem quickly.

Core concepts

Understanding these key terms helps you work with data contracts:

• Expectation: A specific check that verifies data or metadata compliance.
• Score: The metric's value that indicates how well the data meets the defined quality check.
• Error threshold: A numerical limit that defines acceptable behavior. An expectation fails when the score is below this threshold.
• Warning range: A range of values that triggers a warning when data falls within it, indicating potential issues before reaching the error threshold.
• Alert: An automated notification sent to specified users when a data breach occurs, enabling rapid response to quality issues.
• Dimension: A metric from the Qlik Trust Score™.

Configuring a data contract

1. In Qlik Cloud, navigate to the Catalog section.
2. Click the dataset for which you want to configure the data contract.
3. Click the Data contract tab.
4. Do one of the following:
   • Click Activate all expectations when they are all deactivated.
   • Activate or deactivate an expectation by clicking the tile > Activate expectation or Deactivate expectation.

   The status of the data contract is updated.

5. Click a tile to configure the threshold and warning range for the expectation. For more information, see Defining the error threshold and warning range.
6. When the configuration is complete, click Apply changes.

   The status of the data contract is updated.

Defining the error threshold and warning range

The error threshold establishes acceptable limits for data quality. The warning range lets you define a buffer zone where data quality is approaching the error threshold but the expectation has not yet failed. This helps teams address issues before they become critical.

1. Select the expectation to configure.
2. In the right panel, click the edit icon next to Error threshold.
3. Enter the error threshold.
4. Click Add warning range.
5. Enter the maximum value.
6. Click OK to validate the values. The Evaluation preview shows you the status if you apply the changes.

   

7. Click Apply changes to update the data contract evaluation.

   If you have subscribed to notifications, one is sent when:

   • The score falls in the warning range.
   • The score is below the error threshold.

To remove the warning range, click next to the warning range value.

Status of the data contract

The status of the data contract is automatically updated when:

• Expectations are activated or deactivated.
• The error threshold or warning range is modified.
• The Qlik Trust Score™ is updated.

From the dataset menu, you can quickly know whether the data contract has issues or not. An icon is displayed on the Data contract tab.

Setting up alerts

Configure alerts to notify your team when some events happen on your dataset. Alerts ensure that quality issues are discovered and addressed quickly, preventing unreliable data from being used in dashboards, applications, or business decisions.

1. In Qlik Cloud, navigate to the Catalog section.
2. Locate the dataset with the contract you want to configure alerts for.
3. Click the More actions button > Manage > Notification settings.
4. Select the notification you want to configure.

For more information, see Managing your alerts.