Gain data model insights quickly during its development and validation phases. This tool is useful when you want to explore your data model for whatever reason; maybe you are creating a complex load script, maybe you want to investigate associations.
For catwalk to work there are two things needed:
- The UI
- A Qlik Associative Engine app
You can use catwalk from catwalk.qlik.dev, where the latest master build is deployed. It can be used against any Qlik Associative Engine, local or hosted.
If you want to run/develop the catwalk UI locally, you need Node.js installed. Then run these commands in Git Bash/command prompt/terminal and follow the instructions on your screen:
git clone https://github.com/qlik-oss/catwalk.git
cd catwalk
npm install
npm startYou need to provide catwalk with a websocket URL to the app. The URL is set with the engine_url query parameter.
For convenience, there is an example app and docker-compose.yml in the catwalk repository
ACCEPT_EULA=yes docker-compose up -dThe docker-compose.yml in the repository will expose the Qlik Associative Engine app at:
ws://localhost:9076/data/drugcases.qvf
and is viewable in catwalk with e.g. https://catwalk.qlik.dev/?engine_url=ws://localhost:9076/data/drugcases.qvf
For connecting to a Qlik Sense Desktop the websocket URL will be:
ws://localhost:4848/app/<app-name>
In order to connect to an app residing in Qlik Cloud Services or Qlik Sense Enterprise on Kubernetes, the qlik-web-integration-id has to be provided. You can create web integrations to add origins that are whitelisted to access the tenant. When a request arrives, Qlik Sense Enterprise confirms that the request derives from a whitelisted domain and then approves the request, else not. This is administered by tenant admins from the management console on the Integrations page. More info about this can be found here. The id is provided to catwalk by adding it as url parameter to the websocket address, e.g. wss://tenant.qlikcloud.com/app/<app-guid>?qlik-web-integration-id=<web-integration-id>.
The catwalk UI doesn't provide a login to the Qlik Sense app, but as long as there has been a login to the app in another tab/window the X-Qlik-Session cookie is set, and catwalk can "reuse" that session. The URL catwalk.qlik.dev has to be white listed in the QMC -> virtual proxy (per virtual proxy being used) for the Sense Proxy to allow sessions from catwalk. Since catwalk is running client side only, there is nothing other then the browser session and the engine that accesses the data in the app. This means that catwalk can be seen as any externally hosted mashup which also needs to be whitelisted.
We created a Qlik Sense extension that can be found in the sense-extension folder that will create a link to the Qlik hosted catwalk UI with the current open app if "dragged" onto a sheet of you Qlik Sense app. To install the extension you have to zip the folder and import it into you Qlik Sense installation, read more about how to do this here.
We created a javascript bookmark that can be found in the bookmark folder that will open up a new tab to the Qlik hosted catwalk UI with the current open app. To setup, create a bookmark and paste the content of bookmark.js in the URL field.
catwalk is running in a browser environment only, and creates a websocket connection directly to the QIX engine specified with the engine_url query parameter. This means that nothing other than the browser session and the engine will ever access the data in an app.
|-----------------|
| Browser running |
| catwalk |----|------------|
|--------|---|----| |
| | |
|-----|---|-| |---|----|
| you | | engine |
|-----------| |--------|
The only data collected is via Google Analytics which stores cookies on the users` PC. This is to gain insight into how catwalk is used, how much and by whom. Examples of this information could be how long the users are staying, where the users are coming from (e.g. social media links, but also where in the world), and errors and exceptions.