Highlighting data with conditional decorations in Oracle Analytics ...

Conditional formatting in Oracle Analytics Cloud (OAC) is commonly used to highlight important data points on visualizations for report end users. Authors can display icons and emojis on tiles, tables, pivot tables, and data values in the tile section of composite visualizations using conditional formatting rules. For each of the conditions in a conditional formatting rule, authors can specify an icon or emoji to be displayed when the condition is met by a data point. Shown below is a dashboard with multiple visualizations having conditional formatting rules with icons and emojis applied:

In this dashboard, a conditional formatting rule is created for the Net Costs data field with a 'Star' icon specified for condition 'Net Costs <=$40,000,000' as shown below:

The icon for each condition can be selected from the Icon tab of the Format dialog as shown below:

After selecting an icon for the condition, you can select a color for the icon from the color picker. Alternatively, you can specify an emoji for the condition by navigating to the Emoji tab under the Icon tab. To locate an appropriate emoji, you can navigate to the emoji sections by clicking the emoji section tabs at the bottom of the emoji grid.

Display Icons on Tile Data: Once icons are specified for a rule's conditions, the rule can be applied to a tile to display the icons for the respective data if the conditions are met. In the previously shown dashboard, 'Net Cost Rule' is applied on the top-left tile, and the rule condition 'Net Costs <=$40,000,000' is met for the Net Costs=$35,000,000 data value. Therefore, the 'Star' icon is displayed just before the Net Costs data value.

Display Icons on Table and Pivot Tables: Just like data in a tile visualization, conditional formatting rules with icons and emojis can be applied on the table and pivot table visualizations to display icons or emojis for the the data values in the cells. For instance, the following conditional formatting rule is created to display a 'Grinning face with big eyes' emoji when Revenue is greater than $3,000,000.

This rule is applied to the data in the pivot table visualization so that the rule's condition is tested for the data value of each cell of the Revenue column. The emojis are displayed before the data values that meet the rule's condition.

Display Icons in Composite Visualizations: Similar to data values in tiles, tables, and pivot tables, the conditional formatting rules with icons or emojis can be applied to data values in the tile section of composite visualizations. Shown below is a conditional formatting rule that displays a solid green triangle when the cumulative Revenue is greater than $25,000,000:

This rule is applied on the Revenue data in the tile section of the composite stacked bar chart in the bottom right of the dashboard, and the green triangle arrow icon is displayed before the data value.

Adjusting the Icon or Emoji Properties: Once the conditional formatting rules with icons or emojis are applied on a visualization, the position and size of icons or emojis can be adjusted per your preference.

Under the Values tab of the property panel of a visualization, you can select the position for the icons or emojis of a conditional formatting rule to display them with respect to the data values in the visualization.

In this example, the author changes the icon position for the conditional formatting rule 'Net Cost Rule' and the icon position in the Net Costs tile is updated per the selected icon position. The default position of the icons or emojis is 'Before Values'.

The icon or emoji size can be adjusted by setting up the 'Icon Size' property of the conditional formatting rule for the respective visualization in the Values tab of the property panel. The default size is set to be 'Match Value', which is the same as that of the data value size. You can select 'Custom' and provide a specific size in pixels as shown in the images below:

Conditional formatting coupled with icons and emojis is a powerful tool in OAC that can bring out hidden insights in your dashboards. The icons and emojis displayed for data values crossing a threshold can help report end-users glean information at a quick glance.

Call to Action

To learn more about conditional decorations in OAC, watch Conditional Decorations in tables and pivots and Conditional Decorations in tiles and composite visualizations. Visit the Oracle Analytics community to post any queries or ideas. See the user assistance documentation for this feature here.

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