Overview
Chatbox.qs is a Qlik Sense visualization extension that shows the messages in an app's data model as a conversation — the way a chat app shows one. Support chats, direct-message exports, an agent's tickets, a team channel: anything held as one row per message, with who wrote it and when.
What the object shows
The messages the selections leave, one bubble each, in time order:
- who wrote each one, with an avatar and a colour per person, and their messages grouped under one header while they keep writing;
- who it went to, where the data says;
- when, with a line where each new day starts;
- the message itself — plain text, or markdown — with its kinds as chips, a badge, and its KPIs in its details.
A long transcript stays quick to scroll: the object draws only the messages near the part on the screen. Every message shown is the data itself, so a selection in the app narrows the conversation, and a click on a message selects in the app.
Two ways to model a conversation
| Model | One dimension per | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Participants | Speaker | A group chat, or any conversation where who a message went to does not matter |
| From → To | Sender, and recipient | One-to-one conversations: an agent's chats, a direct-message export |
Either can add a Conversation / thread dimension to keep several conversations apart. Which one fits, and the dimensions and measures each needs, is on The data model.
Ways to read a conversation
- Two-sided: one person on the right of each conversation, as a chat app does it — or everyone on one side, as a transcript.
- Conversations side by side: a lane per conversation, the most recently active on the left, scrolling together in time or each on its own.
- Whole conversations: select a person, and get back every conversation they are in, whole — their own messages drawn as always, the rest dimmed as context.
Working with it
- Highlighting keywords: the values of another field marked wherever they occur in the messages, coloured by category, with a legend and an overview ruler. A click on one selects it.
- Searching: a find box for the conversation shown, stepped through separately from the keywords.
- Selecting: a click on a message selects its sender, its recipients, its conversation or the message — whichever you choose.
- Copying: the conversation as a readable transcript or as JSON, or one message at a time.
Who it is for
Qlik Sense app developers who put it on a sheet, and the administrators who install it. The pages assume you know sheets, fields, dimensions and measures, expressions and set analysis, and the property panel — and that you may have data you did not model yourself.
What it deliberately does not do
- It never changes your data, and never selects on your behalf. It reads the app; the selections are the reader's own. Even whole conversations works in a private selection state of its own and writes nothing to the app.
- It is not a chat client. Messages are read, not written.
- It loads nothing from the internet. Everything it needs is in its archive, so it works the same on a site with no internet access. Avatars load from wherever Avatar URL points.
- It is not tested on Qlik Cloud. It is built and tested on Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows — see Getting started.