Color the world of analytics with a few helpers.

Numbers Don’t Have to be Black & White

Table charts are great to display simple data in ranking order. Typically, we think of basic and boring lists that might not express the same level of enthusiasm as the creator had when he/she built the report. By adding a bit of color, and by that, I mean conditional formatting – not just makeup – a table or list chart immediately appears more exciting and acute.

Heads up! In order to apply conditional formatting, you need to be an administrator or be given access to that feature by an administrator.

What is conditional formatting?

Conditional formatting is rule applied to a field (a measure) based on a certain criterion. For example, orders with sales value greater than 0 should appear in the color green – as simple as that. That said, conditional formatting can be used to create more complex sets of rules for an array of encoded color formats.

When would I use this?

This is a great tool to highlight and differentiate threshold KPI’s. A typical example of this is to track delivery time (not talking about pizza) - but rather unsigned contracts, late projects, on-time delivery on that thing you promised etc.

Let’s apply this

How about one of our most important KPI’s is average deal size. Add dimensions for company name, sales rep, stage name and order description. Then add Sales value as your measure – this is the field to be formatted. On the visualization tab, there’s a cogwheel on the right to design the report. Head to Conditional Formatting -> On -> Add Rule.  

Formatting example

Format = If the value is less than 200 000, then font color = Red (see the image). Simply follow this step to apply several rules to different fields based on your criteria.

Another use is to clean up your database. You might have way too many offers/quotes sitting dormant in your pipeline with no apparent action in sight. Simply create a report with company name, order description, order stage, and close date. Then add a “Table Calculation” to count how late the opportunity is according to the expected close date.

To do so, type “diff_days” then “now()” followed by close date and select the recommended dimension from the list. This will return a count for the number of days since the given close date for each row.

Then, head to the cogwheel on the right-hand side of the Visualizations tab -> Conditional Formatting -> On -> Format = From Low to High.