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Azure Storage

The Qlik Azure Storage Web Storage Provider Connector lets you fetch your stored data from Microsoft Azure blob repositories. You can add data directly into your Qlik Sense app from your Microsoft Azure account, just as you would from a local file. You can also export and upload compiled table data into your remote Microsoft Azure blobs.

Warning noteWhen you authenticate the Azure Storage Web Storage Provider Connector, access to content is granted based on the Identity and Access Management (IAM) configuration on Microsoft Azure. For guidance on determining an appropriate policy, including the ability to scope to specific files/permissions such as control over read/write see Assign an Azure role for access to blob data. Any user granted Can edit/Can edit data in apps/Can consume data (Shared spaces) or Can consume data/Can manage (Managed spaces) roles to the Azure Storage data connection's space can view files in the configured Azure container as defined by the IAM user's policy.

Supported offerings

  • Qlik Sense Business
  • Qlik Sense Enterprise SaaS (as of v0.69)
  • Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows (as of v4.18.0 / May 2022)
  • Qlik Sense Desktop (as of v4.18.0 / May 2022)

Encryption keys

If you are using this connector on Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows or Qlik Sense Desktop, you will need to set an encryption key.

For more information, see Setting an encryption key.

Limitations

  • Microsoft personal accounts are not supported.

Connecting to an Microsoft Azure account

You need to authenticate the connector with your Microsoft Azure account, and provide the blob container path of your repository.

You can access the connector through Add data and the Data load editor.

  • From Add data, select Azure Storage from the list of data connectors.
  • From the Data load editor, click Create new connection and select Azure Storage.

Authentication

Authenticate the connector with your Microsoft Azure credentials. You need to sign into your Microsoft Azure account to generate an authentication code.

Do the following:

  1. Insert the blob container path, and then select Authenticate to open the Microsoft Azure sign-in page.

  2. Sign in and then copy and paste the authentication code into the connector. Click Verify.

    If the Microsoft Azure log-in page does not open, disable your pop-up blocker in your browser.

  3. The account details are displayed in the connection dialog. This authentication token will expire in 90 days.

  4. You can select Update to change the Microsoft Azure connection credentials.

  5. When you are finished setting up your data connection, click Create. The connection credentials are verified automatically. From the Data load editor, you can also verify the connection before you create it by clicking Test Connection.

Connector location

The location of the connection depends on how you select data.

  • From Add data, it will be saved under File Locations.

  • From the Data load editor, it will be saved under Data connections with the name that you provided.

Selecting data with a Azure Storage connection

When you create a Azure Storage connection with Add data, the data selection step follows immediately. When you create a data connection with the Data load editor, you need to open the data connection before you can select data.

To select data, first, navigate to the file path location on your Microsoft Azure account. Next, locate your files by clicking on the folder names. You can navigate backwards by clicking on the previous folder in the path field or by clicking Undo. You can filter the file types that are shown by using the File type drop-down menu.

Azure Storage folder structure view

Select and load data from any of the supported file types.

First, select a file. Then, select the data tables and the data fields that you want to load. You can rename data fields before loading them into Qlik Sense by clicking on the field name and entering a new name. The new name is mapped by Qlik Sense as an alias to that field name in the database.

Data field renaming by selecting field name above table data

Data file properties

If you are loading data from an excel file or from a delimited file, you may need to adjust the data file properties. The following table describes the data file properties for these file types:

Data file properties available to be configured
Parameter Option Description For file type
Field names Embedded field names Set to specify if the table contains Embedded field names or No field names. Typically, in an Excel spreadsheet, the first row contains the embedded field names.

Delimited files

.xls/.xlsx

Field names No field names Select if the fields are not labeled. If you select this option, fields will be named A,B,C...

Delimited files

.xls/.xlsx

Header size - Set to the number of header rows to ignore. Typically, you want to exclude rows that contain general information that is not in a columnar format.

Delimited files

.xls/.xlsx

Delimiter - Set the field delimiter. Select a standard delimiter (comma, semicolon, space, tab) or a custom delimiter. Delimited files
Quoting MSQ Used to specify modern style quoting which allows multi-line content. End-of-line characters must be enclosed with double quotation marks. Double quotation marks (“) appearing as the first or last character in field content will be interpreted as the start or end of multi-line content. Delimited files
Standard Used to specify standard quoting. Double and single quotation marks accepted only when they are the first and last blank character of a field value. Delimited files
No Quote Used if quotation marks are not to be accepted in the file. Delimited files
Character set - Select the character set for the data you are loading. Select a standard character set or a custom character set. Delimited files
Ignore end-of-file-character - Select to ignore characters with code point 26, which otherwise denotes an end-of-file character, are disregarded and can be part of a field value. Only relevant for .txt files Delimited files
Comment - Data files can contain comments between records. Comments are denoted by starting a line with one or more special characters, for example //. Specify one or more characters to denote a comment line. Qlik Sense does not load lines starting with the character(s) specified here. Delimited files

Load data into your Qlik Sense app

Once you have finished selecting data, you can load your data into your Qlik Sense app. How you proceed will depend on whether you load data with Add data or the Data load editor.

Add data

To load data using Add data, click Add data. This will open the data in the Associations view of the data manager. In the associations view, you can continue to add data sources, transform the data, and associate the tables in Data manager.

Data profiling is enabled by default when you click Add data. Data profiling does the following:

  • Recommends data associations.
  • Auto-qualifies common fields between tables. This adds a unique prefix based on table name.
  • Maps date and time fields to autoCalendar.

Tables are not associated on common field names automatically. You can associate tables in the Associations view.

Managing data associations

Tip note

If you want to load the data directly into your app, click More and then disable data profiling.

When you add data with data profiling disabled, all existing data from data sources will be reloaded when you add the data. Tables will be associated on common field names automatically. Date and time fields will not be created.

Data load editor

To load data with the Data load editor, click Insert script once you are finished selecting the data. A load script is inserted into the script editor of the Data load editor. You can continue to edit the script in the script editor or you can click Load data to run the data load script.

Storing data from your Qlik Sense app in Azure Storage blobs

Using the Data load editor, you can store table data into your Azure Storage blob.

Information noteThe data storage feature is currently only available on Qlik Sense SaaS.

Once you have loaded data into your Qlik Sense app, you can store your table data in an Azure Storage blob, by creating a new load script or editing the existing script. Using the SELECT command, specify a list of fields to be included in the upload, and then write a Store command to set the file path in Microsoft Azure. Click Load data to run the data load script, and Qlik Sense will complete the upload process.

See the Store syntax for more detailed scripting instructions and supported file types.

Limitations and known issues

When authoring load/store scripts for use with the Azure Storage Web Storage Provider Connector, there are specific limitations to be aware of, due to the internal file structure of Azure Storage blobs.

  • In your Microsoft Azure portal, you must enable the following user permissions to access the blob container: Storage Blob Data Contributor, and Storage Blob Data Reader.
  • Accessing folders within the top level blob container are not supported, for load or store syntax.
  • Using the filesize/filetime commands on the 'root' blob container itself is not supported.
  • Wildcard/masking syntax is not supported. You may only load specified individual files, or all files in a specified folder.
  • When using Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows, the Include command is not supported.

Reference - Azure Storage documentation

You can refer to the Microsoft Azure Blob service REST API documentation to learn more about the requirements and restrictions imposed by the API.

Microsoft Azure Blob service REST API

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