What’s New in Qlik Cloud

Key Features & Benefits:

• Visual Editor: Drag-and-drop interface for creating data preparation flows. Data can be loaded from your data catalog or data connection sources and output to files in QVD and Parquet formats. Making this data ready for consumption into analytics or AutoML applications.
• No-Code Processing: Pre-built functions for data manipulation and transformation. Enabling the data to be reshaped to your application requirement through joins, aggregations and filtering. The data can be embellished with string, number, data, and other cleansing functions.
• Data Preview: Validate data output at each step in real-time.
• Script Generation: Auto-generate Qlik scripts with transparency and the ability to convert the data flow into a script enabling customisation options.
• Platform Integration: Fully embedded within Qlik Cloud for governance, collaboration, and scheduling.

By enabling a wider range of users to prepare high-quality, AI-ready data, Qlik is helping organisations reduce dependency on IT resources, accelerate time to insight, and ensure data accuracy, consistency, and governance.

2. Qlik Application Automation: Transition to Third-Party Runs

Qlik introduces the concept of third-party runs in Qlik Application Automation, marking the first step toward a new packaging strategy. In this shift, standard runs will become free, and third-party runs will be the primary focus.

Key Benefits:

• Cost Efficiency: Users can leverage standard runs at no cost.
• Improved Scalability: Third-party runs ensure robust automation handling with external integrations.
• Future-Proofing: A streamlined approach to automation aligns with evolving enterprise needs.

3. Direct Access Gateway: Performance & Connectivity Boosts

The Direct Access Gateway 1.7.0 update introduces:

• New File Connector: A long-awaited solution to securely stream data from file systems directly into Qlik Sense. Finally, Qlik Data Transfer should can be laid to rest!
• Async Command Support: Enhances efficiency by enabling simultaneous command execution, reducing processing time.

These updates provide greater flexibility, improved performance, and enhanced automation capabilities to empower Qlik users worldwide.

4. Custom Groups: Enhanced User and Access Management

Enterprise customers can now take advantage of Custom Groups, a new feature that provides greater control over user and group management within Qlik Cloud. Organisations that do not rely on Identity Provider (IdP) groups can now create and maintain user groups directly in Qlik Cloud.

Use Cases Solved:

• Public Sector Flexibility: Simplify access control by managing group memberships directly within Qlik Cloud.
• Enterprise Autonomy: Remove dependency on IT-managed Active Directory groups for more agile access management.
• Embedded Analytics: Use Custom Groups with qlik-embed and OAuth2 Machine-to-Machine impersonation for seamless REST API-based group handling.

With enhanced usability and autonomy, Custom Groups simplify access management, aligning with organisational structures and security needs.

5. Advanced Edit Mode: Improved Assets Panel

The assets panel in advanced edit mode has been redesigned for an improved look and feel, making it more intuitive and user-friendly.

6. Native Support for Regular Expressions (Regex)

Qlik Cloud Analytics now includes native regex support for load scripts and chart expressions, enhancing data transformation capabilities. Users can now:

• Identify email addresses
• Validate data formats
• Standardise text-based data more efficiently

7. ML Deployment UI Improvements

Qlik AutoML now offers a more streamlined experience for generating batch predictions from ML deployments, ensuring better usability and efficiency.

2. Qlik Application Automation Shifts to Third-Party Runs

In Qlik Application Automation, a run refers to the execution of an automation. With the latest update, Qlik introduces third-party runs, which involve interactions with external services or applications outside the Qlik ecosystem.

For example, automations that send data to Salesforce, retrieve information from Google Sheets, or post messages to Slack are considered third-party runs.

This shift in packaging means that while standard runs — those operating entirely within Qlik — will become free, third-party runs will now be subject to usage-based billing. This approach ensures that core Qlik automations remain cost-effective while providing flexibility for users who need external integrations.

For more details, refer to the official Qlik support article.

3. Changing Owner of a Data Project

Qlik now allows users to transfer ownership of a data project to another user, ensuring seamless continuity of tasks and datasets. This feature is particularly useful in scenarios where:

• A project owner leaves the organisation or their account is deleted.
• Responsibility for a project changes between teams or departments.

By reassigning ownership, all associated tasks and datasets remain intact under the new owner, preventing disruptions in data workflows and maintaining control over ongoing processes. This update improves administrative flexibility, governance, and operational resilience within Qlik environments.

4. AI-Powered Transformations in Snowflake with Qlik

Qlik’s AI Processor now supports Snowflake Cortex AI functions, bringing powerful generative AI capabilities directly into transformation flows. This integration enables automated, intelligent data processing within Snowflake, unlocking four cutting-edge AI functions:

• Sentiment Analysis: Understand the tone of text data at scale.
• Data Classification: Automatically categorise and label data for better organisation.
• Text Summarisation: Condense large text fields into concise insights.
• Translation: Seamlessly convert text between languages for global accessibility.

This marks a major leap in intelligent data transformation, empowering users to enrich, classify, and analyse data within their Snowflake environment, all without needing external AI services.

For more information please see Qlik’s AI processor information.

5. Enhanced Snowflake Connection Control in Qlik

The Snowflake target connector for data replication and pipelines now supports additional ODBC & JDBC connection properties. This gives users greater control over connection configurations, allowing for fine-tuned adjustments beyond standard parameters, including:

• Role & Secondary Role: Manage access and permissions more precisely.
• Custom Connection Properties: Optimise performance, security, and compliance.
• Greater Flexibility: Adapt Snowflake connections to meet specific project needs.

This update ensures more configurable and scalable Snowflake integrations, with additional connectors planned for future releases.

For more important information in this topic including permissions please visit the Additional connection properties page.