Everything You Need to Know
When Lord Abbett began their migration journey, they had the same questions you might have now. Watch their testimonial to see how Vortex transformed their migration experience.
Vortex FAQs
General Information
What is Vortex?
Vortex is a proprietary tool that helps companies assess, plan for, and, most importantly, accelerate your migration from Qlik or Tableau to Power BI. Vortex does this through a metadata Harvester that produces outputs such as report details, backend data details, report rationalization, and ultimately, migration and conversion. The tool helps companies with:
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Employee BI usage behavior
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Data lineage
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BI assets classified in priority from high value assets to recommendations for deprecation
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Business logic behind all data and reports
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Migration planning and strategy
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Automatic migration of Qlik reports into PowerBI
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Why should I consider Vortex?
Vortex helps our clients achieve an unparalleled perspective on your Qlik environment, including data backends, UI front ends, and will even automatically migrate data and reports to Power BI.
How much of my environment will Vortex automatically migrate?
Vortex will automatically transform all of your Qlik data models into dbt and SQL code that can be migrated to a number of new data platforms. It can also migrate an average of 80% of your reports without intervention. This translates to significant cost and time savings for our customers.
What outputs will I receive after running Vortex?
Clients can expect to receive a complete and detailed set of documentation from Vortex that includes data lineage, runbooks for every Qlik report, a final readout presentation, Qlik data model converted into dbt, SQL, and converted Power BI dashboards for every report in your Qlik environment.
Runbooks
What are the Documentation Runbooks?
Runbooks provide very complete details for each report in your Qlik environment. This will include everything from measure logic to report layout and even data sources for each report. Many developers find this to be an extremely valuable tool for migration as a “one-stop-shop" blueprint for each report.
What format are the runbooks delivered in?
Runbooks are delivered in HTML format.
Are runbooks created for the final Power BI solutions?
At this time, runbooks are only created from Qlik reports.
Is there an overall summary runbook?
An overall summary runbook is available which provides total counts for items such as: script sections, data connections in apps, fields, measures, sheets, and objects.
Vortex Harvester
How is the Harvester licensed?
The harvesters are licensed for the duration of your engagement. Axis will provide raw Vortex outputs, documentation on your environment for each report, and a live final readout presentation with all insights and data gathered.
What are the Harvester outputs?
Axis will provide raw Vortex outputs, documentation on your environment for each report, and a live final readout presentation with all insights and data gathered.
How long does a harvester take to scan my environment?
Vortex harvests are efficient and can usually run in one to two days (24-48 hours). We try to schedule the harvest during off-peak hours so that there is no impact to normal operations.
Data Lineage
What is data lineage?
Data lineage is a detailed map and flow of your data lifecycle from source tables, through transformations, enrichment, target tables, and ultimately where these measures, dimensions, and KPIs are displayed in reports.
How is the lineage information presented?
Data lineage is usually displayed in a Power BI app but can also be reviewed in dbt lineage graphs.
How can this lineage information help us?
Data lineage allows clients to understand the data lifecycle from source, through transformations, enrichment, target state, and ultimately where these data are shown in reports.
Vortex Rationalization
What benefits does rationalization provide before migration?
Rationalization provides critical strategic insights that prevent wasteful migration of unused or redundant assets. By identifying your highest-value applications and understanding real usage patterns, you can prioritize migration efforts for maximum impact. This data-driven approach dramatically reduces migration time and costs while creating a cleaner, more effective analytics environment in Power BI. Most importantly, rationalization helps secure stakeholder buy-in by demonstrating tangible ROI for your migration investment.
How does the rationalization work?
Vortex's rationalization process performs a comprehensive analysis of your Qlik or Tableau environment in two key dimensions. First, it automatically extracts and analyzes all technical aspects including business logic, data transformations, data lineage, models, and calculations used within metrics and KPIs.
Second, it examines user engagement patterns to identify which reports are actually delivering value by analyzing access frequency and usage patterns. The output is a comprehensive Power BI report that serves as your strategic migration guide, with detailed runbooks for each application, data lineage maps, complexity scores, and prioritization recommendations organized into tiers (migrate, consolidate, or retire) - giving you a systematic plan that reduces risk, optimizes outcomes, and ensures you're focusing migration efforts on the most valuable assets first.
What are the outputs of the Rationalization phase?
The rationalization data is produced in raw form through Vortex, data are then visualized and analyzed as CSV and a Power BI dashboard. Insights are gathered, fine-tuned by one of Axis’ migration experts and then shared through a readout presentation.
Last-Mile Development
What is the Conversion phase of Vortex?
Vortex has the ability to automatically convert Qlik data models and reports into dbt and Power BI (respectively).
What is the average conversion rate?
We usually find that automatic conversion can reach up to 80% of the migration without intervention. We usually then have one of our expert BI Engineers do final checks and clean-up so that reports are production ready.
What are the outputs of the Conversion Phase?
All ETL logic and transformations will be automatically transformed into dbt projects containing SQL code can be confidently adapted to deploy in other data environments. The BI conversion will produce Power BI files in PBIP format.
We don't have PBI developers—can you help us after conversion?
Yes! We have high level experts and developers across the data lifecycle including Power BI!
Security
What information does the Vortex Harvest collect?
The Vortex Harvest phase captures structural information about your platform and applications, reload logs, and session information. These files are stored locally, and are encrypted to ensure security during transit.
Can you provide security or virus scans for the Harvesters?
Yes, virus scans can be used on the Harvesters.
Can this process be audited?
Yes, the process can be audited.
Is my underlying data being collected or viewed by the harvesters?
No. Vortex captures only the solution metadata. No data from within your table data models is captured. The harvested metadata is stored locally and is stored in a compressed, and encrypted state to ensure security during transit.
How is my metadata kept secure?
Metadata being conveyed to Axis Group for processing captured using official Vortex harvesters uses public key cryptography to encrypt data at rest and in transit to Axis for processing.
Who at Axis has access to my metadata?
Only Architects and some individuals on the project team will use and have access to your metadata.
How long does Axis keep my data?
We will perform data destruction of client metadata files within 30 days of project closure.
Setup and System Requirements
What is required to set up the Harvester?
The harvesters are lightweight, portable utilities that can be dropped onto an environment, and executed with minimal setup required. Please note that some provisioning may be required to access the analytics platforms and required metadata.
Where do the Harvesters run?
The harvesters can be run locally on the source BI platform or remotely from a standalone VM or instance, assuming that logical access to the platform is available (ports, file shares, etc).
How do Harvesters connect to my Qlik environment?
The harvesting utilities are installed directly on your environment and leverage officially documented APIs, with connections varying based on the platform. Currently, authentication types include: windows user context (QV), certificate authentication (QS), or personal access tokens (PATs).
What are the system requirements to run the Harvester?
The Vortex Harvest utilities require Windows OS w/ .NET Framework 1.7.2. More information can be found in our Technical Briefs for each platform-specific harvester.
What if my existing analytics platform is not supported?
If your analytics platform is not currently supported, do not worry! Please reach out to us, and we can discuss additional options for harvesting the required information from your platform.
Vortex Support
How can we perform data validation?
Our engineers will perform unit testing during last-mile development. After that is complete, a collaborative effort between Axis and client resources will validate development as UAT.
What if my existing analytics platform is not supported?
If your analytics platform is not currently supported, don't worry! Please reach out to us, and we can discuss additional options for harvesting the required information from your platform.
What if we want to use a different data transfer technology?
We're happy to discuss further options if looking to use a specific SFTP system, BLOB storage, etc.
What other services can Axis Group provide?
We offer platform modernization services to help you streamline your analytics ecosystem without starting from zero. We transform your existing infrastructure into a modern, scalable data platform designed for innovation, optimizing what works and modernizing what doesn’t. Our Analytics-as-a-Service solution provides enterprise-grade analytics without complexity, combining proven technology, expert teams, and efficient processes to deliver faster insights. Additionally, our tailored strategies align your analytics initiatives with measurable business outcomes, helping you turn data into actionable results and sustained value.