Qlik Sense allows the uploading of data via the manual entry method. This is exactly what it sounds like – you can create a data table directly in Qlik by typing in the values you want. This article will cover how to do that.
Manual data entry is inefficient for large datasets. However, it is useful to quickly create small lookup tables instead of having to upload Excel files containing only a few rows that aren’t dynamic.
Adding manual data can be done using the data manager and data load editor.
Using the data manager for manual entry
When in the data manager view of an app, click Add data > Files and other sources. This will launch a pop-up where you can either connect to a data source, directly upload a file or initiate manual entry. Click the ‘Manual entry’ button in the upper left corner. On the resulting screen, you can change the table name and start filling in the table. You can add columns and rows as you need to and fill in the values. Once you are done, click ‘Next’ to load your new table.
Using the data load editor for manual entry
In order to add data manually using the data load editor, you have to write a bit of simple code. The syntax to load typed data is:
load * Inline [
Pet Type, Danger Level, Cuteness Level
Dog, Medium, Max
Cat, Low, Very High
Tarantula, High, Min
];
The data entry part takes place between ‘[‘ and ‘]’.
Pet Type, Danger Level, Cuteness Level
This first line denotes the resulting table column headers. Each column header must be separated by a comma with no punctuation after the last one.
Dog, Medium, Max
The second line denotes the first row of data. Each value must be separated by a comma with no punctuation after the last value in the row. You can then add as many rows as needed below this.
When the app is reloaded, this inline table has the following structure:
Note that manually entered data only exists in the app where it was created. You cannot reuse inline tables in other apps. However, if this is required there are two ways around this. One is to use the data load editor to build the inline table and then copy and paste the code into other apps as needed. The second way is to use the data load editor and save the inline table as a .qvd file in your storage folder data connection. This .qvd file will then become a dataset and be accessible from other apps as well as the data catalog (Qlik Cloud only).
