Publish / file · All operations

Write a BI extract file

A variant of Write another file format

Write a table to an extract file a business intelligence product loads, such as a Hyper or QVD file.

Status

In arcform

Not built yet

arcform does not do this yet. Its place on the roadmap

What other tools call it

Meridian's classification; an independent blind rating agreed on 95.7% of 324 rows (variant, version 3).

Duckle (1)
  • Qlik QVDread 2026-09-25

    write a Qlik QVD file

EasyMorph (2)
  • Export into Qlik fileread 2026-09-27

    Write the table to a Qlik QVD file

  • Export to Tableauread 2026-09-27

    Write the table to a Tableau Hyper or TDE file, or publish it to Tableau Server or Online

KNIME Analytics Platform (1)
RapidMiner Studio (2)
  • Write Hyper Fileread 2026-09-27

    Write a table to a Tableau .hyper extract file

  • Write QVXread 2026-09-27

    Write a table to a Qlik QVX exchange file

Tableau Prep (1)
Talend (1)
  • tQVDOutputread 2026-09-27

    Write QVD files that can be published to Qlik Cloud

Background

In Tableau Prep Builder, a flow's output can be saved as a Hyper extract (.hyper), the latest Tableau extract file type, to use in Tableau Desktop.[1] A QVD (QlikView Data) file is a native Qlik format that holds exactly one data table exported from Qlik Sense.[2]

When to use it

Reading data from a QVD file is typically 10-100 times faster than reading from other data sources.[2] QVD files can be used to increase load speed, decrease the load on database servers, consolidate data from several apps and load only new records incrementally.[2]

In EasyMorph, numbers are converted into floating-point values in Tableau and in QVD files, which may lose precision because EasyMorph numbers allow more digits after the decimal point.[3][4] In EasyMorph's export to Tableau, Boolean values are converted to numbers, 0 for FALSE and 1 for TRUE, and errors and empty cells are replaced with nulls.[3] After writing an extract, open it in the business intelligence (BI) product and check that amounts, flags and empty cells read as you meant them to. (Meridian's view)

The method

A QVD file can be created explicitly with the store command in a Qlik script, or automatically when a LOAD or SELECT statement is preceded by the buffer prefix.[2] QVD files are read in a standard mode or a faster optimised mode, and transforming the loaded fields or using a where clause that unpacks the records disables the optimised load.[2] The structure of a QVD file is close to EasyMorph's internal data structure, so writing QVD files in EasyMorph is very fast.[4] In the qvd community extension for DuckDB, COPY ... TO (FORMAT qvd) takes a FIELD_NAMES option that gives one field name per column.[5]

Running a Tableau Prep flow results in a Tableau Data Source (.tds) file and a Tableau Data Extract (.hyper) file.[1] In Tableau Prep, flows that include spatial data can only be output to .hyper files or as a published data source.[1] In RapidMiner, the Write Hyper File operator writes into a named schema, public by default, and a named table of the .hyper file, and can append to an existing file instead of overwriting it.[6]

Compared with the alternatives

Tableau Prep Builder can also save output to a CSV file, encoded as UTF-8 with a byte order mark, to share data with third parties.[1] An extract suits a dashboard that one BI product reads; for data that several tools share, an open format such as Parquet is the safer handover. (Meridian's view)

Sources

  1. [1]Save and Share Tableau Prep Work - Tableaudocumentation
  2. [2]Working with QVD files | Qlik Sense on Windows Helpdocumentation
  3. [3]EXPORT TO TABLEAU [EasyMorph Help]documentation
  4. [4]EXPORT INTO QLIK FILE [EasyMorph Help]documentation
  5. [5]qvd – DuckDB Community Extensionsdocumentation
  6. [6]Write Hyper File - Rapidminer Documentationdocumentation