When creating apps in Qlik Sense, you will need to load in data that you will use in your visualisations. Qlik Sense supports two ways of doing this: via a data connector or a direct upload. A third, albeit less useful, way of bringing data in is by direct entry.
A direct upload is where you upload a file to the Qlik Server. Once a file is uploaded, it remains on the server until deleted. To update the file, you will need to delete the existing file and upload the updated version. This way of loading data is ideal for datasets that aren’t going to change frequently, such as lookup tables.
A data connector is a way for Qlik Sense to connect to external sources and pull the data into Qlik Sense. You can either pull on the connection each time you need to reload an app or you can pull in the data, create a data file and store it in Qlik Sense for later use. Qlik Cloud based products also allow for the creation of ‘datasets’ using ODBC data connectors. A ‘dataset’ is a data asset, such as a specific table in a database, the path to which is stored in the ‘dataset’. Each time a dataset is opened, the data will be refreshed.
You can combine data from directly uploaded files and data connections and use or store the resulting data. The ability to store data files created within Qlik Sense from data connections and/ or direct uploads allows for following of the ETL methodology.
