The Butler family
Butler started out with a very specific need to start Sense reloads from outside systems.
Back in those days the cloud wasn’t a thing, and Sense was only available on Windows servers.
Over the years a few projects (for example Butler SOS, which simplifies day 2 operations of client-managed Sense ([1], [2]) have spun off from the original Butler project, and still other projects have been created from scratch to solve specific challenges around developing Sense apps and running Qlik Sense server environments or developing apps for Qlik Sense Cloud.
All members of the Butler family are available on Ptarmigan Labs’ GitHub page.
Projects with production grade release status
The following tools are actively maintained and have a production grade release status.
Butler
The original Butler. Offers various utilities that make it easier to develop Sense apps, as well as simplifying day 2 operations.
butler.ptarmiganlabs.com. (This site!)
Butler SOS
Real-time operational metrics for Qlik Sense. A must-have if you are responsible for a Sense environment with more than a dozen or so users.
Simplifies day 2 operations of client-managed Sense.
Butler SOS makes it possible to detect and alert on issues as they happen, rather than in retrospect much later.
Several storage and visualisation options available, including InfluxDB + Grafana, and New Relic.
Butler Sheet Icons
Automates the creation of sheet icons for both Qlik Sense Cloud and client-managed Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows (QSEoW) applications.
It’s a cross platform command line tool which given the correct Sense credentials will take screen shots of all sheets in a Sense app (or all apps on a Sense server!), then create thumbnail versions of those screenshots.
Finally those thumbnails will be set as sheet icons.
No more manual screenshot taking, resizing images, navigating hundreds of sheets in dozens of apps.
Start Butler Sheet Icons instead and go get a nice fika.
The tool can be used stand-along or as part of an automated release process.
https://github.com/ptarmiganlabs/butler-sheet-icons
Ctrl-Q
Given the name of this tool it doesn’t sound like a member of the Butler family.
Let’s say Ctrl-Q is a sibling of the Butler bunch.
While the Butler tools are (usually) intended to solve and simplify rather specific use cases, Ctrl-Q is aimed at being the lazy Qlik developer’s best friend.
Let’s say there is some manual, tedious, time consuming and error prone activity that a Qlik Sense developer is faced with.
For example importing dozens of apps from QVF files and creating a hundred associated reload tasks.
Ctrl-Q lets you do this with a single command, using definitions in an Excel file. Instead of spending a day on this the actual execution takes a minute or so.
In other words: Ctrl-Q focus on high-value use cases that are difficult or impossible to solve using other tools.
github.com/ptarmiganlabs/ctrl-q
Projects with not-so-active status
The following tools are no longer actively maintained, but they are still available on GitHub.
If you find them useful, feel free to use them.
Butler CW
Butler Cache Warmer. Cache warming is the process of proactively forcing Sense apps to be loaded into RAM, so they are readily available when users open them.
Using Butler CW is an easy way to make your end users’ experience of Sense a little better.
Now that client-managed Qlik Sense has its own cache warming feature (as of 1st half 2024), Butler CW will eventually be phased out.
github.com/ptarmiganlabs/butler-cw
Butler App Duplicator
No matter if you are a single developer creating Sense apps, or have lots of developers doing this, having app templates is a good idea:
- Lowered barrier of entry for new Sense developers.
- Productivity boost when developing Sense apps.
- Encouraging a common coding standard across all apps.
github.com/ptarmiganlabs/butler-app-duplicator
Butler Spyglass
This tool is mainly of interest if you have lots of QVDs and apps, but when that’s the case it’s of paramount importance to understand what apps use which QVDs. In other words what data lineage looks like.
Butler Spyglass also extracts full load scripts for all Sense apps, creating a historical record of all load scripts for all Sense apps.
github.com/ptarmiganlabs/butler-spyglass
Butler Notifier
This tool makes it easy to tap into the Qlik Sense notification API. From there you can get all kinds of notifications, including task reload failures and changes in session state (user login/logout etc).
github.com/ptarmiganlabs/butler-notifier
Butler Icon Uploader
Visual looks is important when it comes to analytics, and this holds true also for Sense apps.
The Butler Icon Uploader makes it easy to upload icon libraries (for example Font Awesome) to Qlik Sense Enterprise. With such icons available it is then easy for app developers to use professional quality sheet and app icons in their Sense apps.