Sheet Blurring

Create blurred versions of sheet thumbnails to hide sensitive details while keeping overall layout context. Butler Sheet Icons (BSI) can blur selected sheets using flexible filters and a configurable blur intensity.

• Works with both Qlik Sense Cloud and Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows (QSEoW).
• Blurred images are generated for all sheets and saved to disk alongside regular thumbnails. If a sheet matches any blur filter, its blurred image is set as the sheet icon.

When to use blurring

Consider blurring when:

• Thumbnails may reveal sensitive data (financials, PII, etc.).
• You want to visually differentiate public/published vs. private/development sheets.
• You need to obscure details but still show the general layout/structure.

What sheets to blur

Filters mirror the exclusion options but use the --blur-sheet-... prefix. You can combine multiple filters; they’re additive.

Available in QS Cloud and QSEoW:

• --blur-sheet-number <numbers...> Blur by position in the app (1 = first sheet). Example: --blur-sheet-number 1 3 5. Sheet numbers come from the sheets' display order — see How sheet numbers are decided.
• --blur-sheet-title <titles...> Blur by exact sheet title. Titles with spaces must be quoted.
• --blur-sheet-status <status...> Blur by status. Valid values: public, published.

QSEoW only:

• --blur-sheet-tag <value...> Blur sheets that have one or more specified tags (set in QMC > App objects). Tags don’t exist for individual sheets in QS Cloud.

Sheet numbers were matched incorrectly before BSI 4.0.0

In earlier versions --blur-sheet-number blurred sheets you had not selected — only the last number you listed was used, and it was matched as a text fragment rather than as a whole sheet number. --blur-sheet-number 12 also blurred sheets 1 and 2.

--blur-sheet-title, --blur-sheet-status and --blur-sheet-tag were not affected. See Listing several sheet numbers for the full description, and Sheets you did not select were skipped or blurred for what to check and re-run.

Blur intensity

Control blur strength with --blur-factor <factor>.

• Range: 1–100. 1 is the lightest blur, 100 the heaviest.
• Default: 5. Choose a value that balances privacy with recognizability.

Two things are worth knowing before you pick a value:

• A value above 100 is accepted but capped at 100. --blur-factor 1000 runs without an error or a warning and produces exactly the same image as --blur-factor 100.
• --blur-factor 0 does not mean "no blur". Values below 1 are treated as 1, so the lightest blur you can ask for is 1. To leave a sheet unblurred, do not select it with any of the --blur-sheet-... filters.

A value that is not a non-negative whole number is rejected before Butler Sheet Icons connects to Qlik Sense:

error: option '--blur-factor <factor>' argument 'abc' is invalid. Blur factor must be a non-negative integer.

Blur effect examples

The first row is the unmodified thumbnail, shown for comparison — it is not a --blur-factor value.

Blur Factor	Result
Not blurred
5
10

Examples

QSEoW (client-managed)

Blur specific sheets by number and title, and set a blur factor:

Bash

butler-sheet-icons qseow create-sheet-thumbnails \
  --host <server> \
  --appid <app-id> \
  --apiuserdir Internal \
  --apiuserid sa_api \
  --logonuserdir <dir> \
  --logonuserid <user> \
  --logonpwd <pwd> \
  --prefix form \
  --blur-sheet-number 2 4 \
  --blur-sheet-title "Financial Dashboard" \
  --blur-factor 5 \
  --sense-version 2024-May

PowerShell

butler-sheet-icons qseow create-sheet-thumbnails `
  --host <server> `
  --appid <app-id> `
  --apiuserdir Internal `
  --apiuserid sa_api `
  --logonuserdir <dir> `
  --logonuserid <user> `
  --logonpwd <pwd> `
  --prefix form `
  --blur-sheet-number 2 4 `
  --blur-sheet-title "Financial Dashboard" `
  --blur-factor 5 `
  --sense-version 2024-May

Tip: Use tags in QSEoW to target sheets, then pass --blur-sheet-tag "🔒 Contains sensitive data".

QS Cloud

When updating a published app, you can blur all published (and/or public) sheets:

Bash

butler-sheet-icons qscloud create-sheet-thumbnails \
  --tenanturl <tenant> \
  --apikey <api-key> \
  --logonuserid <user> \
  --logonpwd <pwd> \
  --appid <app-id> \
  --blur-sheet-status published \
  --blur-sheet-number 1 \
  --blur-factor 5

PowerShell

butler-sheet-icons qscloud create-sheet-thumbnails `
  --tenanturl <tenant> `
  --apikey <api-key> `
  --logonuserid <user> `
  --logonpwd <pwd> `
  --appid <app-id> `
  --blur-sheet-status published `
  --blur-sheet-number 1 `
  --blur-factor 5

Files on disk

• BSI captures screenshots and stores thumbnails per app and platform (Cloud/QSEoW).
• Blurred images are saved with a -blurred suffix next to the regular thumbnails.

Related

• Sheet exclusion: See Sheet Exclusion for analogous exclude filters and status nuances.
• How it works: See How it works for an overview of screenshotting and when blurred images get applied.