The Dashboard builder uses rulesets to set up conditions for modifying the appearance of widgets according to the data they contain. Rulesets can be reused across widgets, aren’t limited to one field, and can have icons as well as colors.
Creating a ruleset
Use the Rulesets tab to create, edit and manage your rulesets.
Each ruleset can contain as many rules as you need. A ruleset uses a single data type which corresponds with the metrics you want to apply formatting rules to. The available data types are: date, string, number.
For example, if you create a tile widget to display an athlete’s current status (unavailable, available or modified), then you could set up a ruleset which colors the tile based on those status values. To do this, you would add a ruleset that uses the string data type and has three rules, as seen here.
Applying conditional formatting to widgets
You can use rulesets to apply conditional formatting to the following widgets:
- Aggregation table widget: from the Columns properties, open the Advanced settings for each series you’ve added as a column to the aggregation table and enable conditional formatting to choose which ruleset should be applied to the column. Use the Inherit conditional formatting toggle to enable conditional formatting on the column summary cell.
- Matrix widget: use the Values properties to enable conditional formatting for the matrix widget, then choose which ruleset should be applied to the matrix contents.
- Table widget: from the Columns properties, open the Advanced settings for each series you’ve added as a column to the table and enable conditional formatting to choose which ruleset should be applied to the column.
- Tile widget: use the Conditional formatting properties on the tile sidebar to choose which ruleset should be applied to the tile.
When applying conditional formatting to a widget, the relevant ruleset color and icon will be applied to the tile or cell’s background. Widgets can be conditionally formatted based on any field within the data source by changing the Conditional field setting in the sidebar.
Note that if a ruleset containing icons is applied to a tile widget that has an icon enabled, the ruleset will override the tile setting- even if there are ruleset conditions with no icon prescribed.
Enabling legible foreground color
It can sometimes be difficult for people to distinguish and understand information if its color doesn’t contrast sufficiently with surrounding colors. For example, when you have dark grey text on a black background or pale yellow text on a white background. Depending on how you choose text and icon colors, background colors and conditional formatting colors for components of your dashboards, you can accidentally create a data visualization which is hard for people to interpret.
For this reason, all widgets which can use conditional formatting have a property to enhance the legibility of information in response to changing background colors. This means that you can set font (and icon) colors and enable conditional formatting without negatively affecting readability.
You can use the legibility feature to improve the accessibility of tiles, table columns, matrix values, matrix summary columns, matrix summary rows, and aggregation table columns.
Steps to create a ruleset
- Go to the Rulesets tab.
- Use the + button in the sidebar to create a new ruleset.
- Give your ruleset a name that describes its purpose
- Choose the data type for your ruleset. The options are:
- Date
- Number
- String
- Add your first rule using the Create rule button. Each rule has the following components:
- Condition
- Comparison value
- If your data type is Date, choose a comparison date of today or enter a custom date.
- Response color
- Response icon
- To add more rules, use the Duplicate button.
- Use the arrows to order your rules into a logical order. Rules are evaluated by the dashboard from top to bottom.
- When you are happy with your ruleset, use the Dashboard tab to return to editing your dashboard.