I’m lazy, why doesn’t anyone have instructions I can follow already! I guess it’s time to give back to the Google seekers of this world. After going through the process I can understand why no one has written a guide, it’s not a straight forward process.
As this sort of thing can be very version specific I tested these instructions using the following versions of software

• Windows Server 2012 R2 running on AWS
• Qlik Sense 2.2.4
• Oracle instant Client version 12.1.0.2.0 64bit

Two things need to be downloaded for this to work from here Instant Client Downloads for Microsoft Windows (x64)

• Instant Client Package – Basic
• Instant Client Package – ODBC

Once you have the files follow the steps below to get things working:

1. Unzip the instantclient-basic-windows.x64-<version number>.zip
2. Move the folder instantclient_<version number> into a permanent location. In my case c:app
3. Edit the system environment variables on the server add the folder location to the end of the PATH variable.  eg %SystemRoot%system32;%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot%System32Wbem;%SYSTEMROOT%System32WindowsPowerShellv1.0;C:Program FilesAmazoncfn-bootstrap;C:appinstantclient_12_1
4. Add new system variable
   Variable Name:TNS_ADMIN
   Variable Value: <Path to where you want to store tnsnames.ora file>
5. Create a text file called tnsnames.ora in the folder specified in step 4 and create an entry for your desired DB which should follow the below format<addressname> =
   (DESCRIPTION =
     (ADDRESS_LIST =
       (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(Host = <hostname>)(Port = <port>))
     )
   (CONNECT_DATA =
     (SERVICE_NAME = <service_name>)
   )
   )
6. Unzip instantclient-odbc-windows.x64-<version number>.zip
7. Move the contents of the instantclient_<version number> folder into the instantclient_<version number> folder from step 2
8. Run instantclient_<version number>odbc_install.exe
9. To test if things work setup an odbc Data Source (64-bit) as a System DSN and test the conneciton.
10. You may need Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 SP1 Redistributable Package (x64)  if you have the below error when adding a new ODBC Data Source.
    

1. In Qlik Sense you can create a new connection at this point ODBC driver. If you get an error message “You do not have access to the data source” as I experienced the only solution that worked for me was in this post and the solution wasn’t ideal. I intend to talk to Qlik to see if there is a better solution.

All the code, all the fun – Ben