When using Qlik Sense (Cloud, Personal, or Enterprise) you can load data from several sources, including spreadsheets, text files, Microsoft Access bases, SQL databases, Big Data data lakes, REST APIs, and much more. We can load data without learning a script language, despite the fact that we can use a script to leverage our access to data, and improve our control over the process. We can apply transformations such as creating calculated fields based on pre-existing information or aggregate data. The final goal is to create a data model that can be used to create dashboards and provide information to the users to analyze information.

The data loading process (demonstrated in the following diagram) consists of gathering data from different sources, associating those sources (transformed in tables) by key fields, applying transformations (creating derived fields, clean data, aggregate data, and so on), and finally, creating a data model that consists of a consistent group of tables linked by keys that represent a business model:

We can carry out this entire process on Qlik Sense itself, without any external tool to load or wrangle data.