Conditional Formatting
- 5 minutes to read
A Pivot dashboard item applies conditional formatting to cell values. You can calculate a format rule by measures placed in the Values section and dimensions placed in the Columns or Rows sections.
You can use hidden measures to specify a condition used to apply formatting to visible values.
Supported Format Rules
Format rules that can be applied to different data item types are as follows:
Data Type | Supported Format Conditions |
|---|---|
numeric | |
string | Value with the condition type set to Equal To, Not Equal To or Text that Contains |
date-time |
A Date Occurring for dimensions with the continuous date-time group interval |
Refer to the Conditional Formatting Basics topic for more information about format rule’s types.
Create and Edit a Format Rule
You can create and edit format rules in the following ways:
Click the Edit Rules button on the Home ribbon tab.
Click the measure/dimension menu button in the Data Item’s pane and select Add Format Rule/Edit Rules.
Refer to the following topic for information on how to create and edit format rules: Conditional Formatting in Windows Designer.
Pivot-Specific Format Condition Settings
You can configure and customize the format condition appearance settings.
Choose a predefined background color/font or click an empty square to add a new preset in the Appearance tab.
Note
The appearance of field values in Raster Skins differs from the background color set in the conditional format rule because field value cells in these skins are raster images.
Add a predefined icon in the Icons tab.
The Appearance tab contains the following Pivot-specific settings:
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Enabled | Enables/ Disables the current format rule. |
| Intersection Mode | Specifies the level on which to apply conditional formatting to pivot cells. |
| Intersection Row/Column Dimension | Applies the format rule to the specified row/column dimension, if you select the Specific Level as the intersection mode. |
| Apply to Row/Column | Specifies whether to apply the formatting to the entire Pivot’s row/column. |
A Pivot item allows you to specify to which field intersection a format rule is applied.
| Intersection Level Mode | Description |
|---|---|
| Auto | Identifies the default level. For the Pivot dashboard item, Auto identifies the First Level. |
| First Level | The first level values are used to apply conditional formatting. |
| Last Level | The last level values are used to apply conditional formatting. |
| All Levels | All pivot data cells are used to apply conditional formatting. |
| Specific Level | The specified measures/dimensions are used to apply conditional formatting. |
The image below displays different intersection levels with the applied conditional format rule:
To apply a format rule to the row or column Grand Total, change the Intersection Level Mode to Specific level and set the [Grand Total] value as the intersection row/column dimension.
Note the following limitations:
- The dashboard cannot calculate conditional formatting in a Pivot for multiple levels of ranges with percentage values. In this case, the “All Levels” intersection mode is not available for a conditional formatting rule.
- The format condition dialog does not contain any Pivot-specific settings for a dimension from Columns and Rows.
Create a Format Rule in Code
Create a PivotItemFormatRule object and specify its settings to add a format rule:
- Create a condition (the FormatConditionBase descendant), specify its settings, and assign the resulting object to the DashboardItemFormatRule.Condition property.
- Assign a data item (measure/dimension) whose values are used to calculate the condition to the CellsItemFormatRule.DataItem property. Use the CellsItemFormatRule.DataItemApplyTo property to select measure/dimension values for which you want to apply a format rule. If this property is not specified, the control applies formatting to the CellsItemFormatRule.DataItem value.
- Use the PivotItemFormatRule.IntersectionLevelMode property to specify the intersection level. If the PivotItemFormatRule.IntersectionLevelMode property is set to FormatConditionIntersectionLevelMode.SpecificLevel, use the PivotItemFormatRule.Level property to set the intersection’s row and column fields.
- Add the created format rule to the GridDashboardItem.FormatRules collection.
Enable the CellsItemFormatRule.ApplyToRow/PivotItemFormatRule.ApplyToColumn properties to apply formatting to the entire pivot row/column.
You can use the DashboardItemFormatRule.Enabled property to disable the current format rule.
The following code snippet shows how to apply the Top-Bottom (FormatConditionTopBottom) format condition to highlight the three top values:
PivotItemFormatRule lastLevelRule = new PivotItemFormatRule(pivot.Values[0]);
FormatConditionRangeGradient rangeCondition =
new FormatConditionRangeGradient(FormatConditionRangeGradientPredefinedType.WhiteGreen);
lastLevelRule.Condition = rangeCondition;
lastLevelRule.IntersectionLevelMode = FormatConditionIntersectionLevelMode.LastLevel;
PivotItemFormatRule topCategoryRule = new PivotItemFormatRule(pivot.Values[0]);
FormatConditionTopBottom topCondition = new FormatConditionTopBottom();
topCondition.TopBottom = DashboardFormatConditionTopBottomType.Top;
topCondition.RankType = DashboardFormatConditionValueType.Number;
topCondition.Rank = 3;
topCondition.StyleSettings = new IconSettings(FormatConditionIconType.RatingFullGrayStar);
topCategoryRule.Condition = topCondition;
topCategoryRule.IntersectionLevelMode = FormatConditionIntersectionLevelMode.SpecificLevel;
topCategoryRule.Level.Row = pivot.Rows[0];
topCategoryRule.DataItemApplyTo = pivot.Rows[0];
pivot.FormatRules.AddRange(lastLevelRule, topCategoryRule);
Tip
Refer to the Conditional Formatting section for more examples.