How Qlikview works?

The core feature of QlikView is an in-memory, associative data model which feeds the visualization in a very unique way. In a traditional business intelligence application, the data visualization layer interacts with data through queries which are basically scripts executed by the platform. So if you for example select a country to drill-down to the sales numbers in that country, the data visualization layer runs a script, queries the data, retrieves the data from the data layer and updates the charts and reports in the screen.

QlikView on the other hand do not use this query mechanism. Application and data layer are tightly integrated in QlikView and data relationships are handled in engine level not application level. This means the QlikView charts and reports are integrated with in-memory data model and they know how to filter themselves when user drills down.

The mechanism above help QlikView developers to write significantly less software scripts which shortens the development and makes maintenance easy. Plus, in-memory integration of QlikView application layer and data model enables fast execution which usually eliminates the necessity to aggregate the operational data for performance reasons.