Customize Color Theme / Reverse Order

nshively · 2023-05-15T03:48:16+00:00

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I recently built a heatmap table where I want the lowest numbers up top. These start around -25 and end at -10 currently, but the numbers will change each time the chart is updated. I also only want to show 10 rows of data, so the table has been limited to the 10 top results.

I want the heatmap to display negative numbers as 'bad' thus using the light pink to red scale. Unfortunately, -25 is showing as light pink and -10 as dark red, but these should be the opposite as the darker color should annotate the worse number. I just want to reverse the way these colors are displayed, but I don't see that option.

Individual color rules won't necessarily work because next month the top number could be -50 and the bottom -1 for all I know and it makes much more sense to let the program do those calculations for color density.

I tried doing this in a normal table with heatmap settings and still have the same problem.

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Accepted answers

GrantSmith

Try using a beast mode to multiply your value by -1 to flip the ordering and thus the color scheme. You can then also use the tooltip 1 for the actual value and display that in the tool tip / data value properties.

All comments

GrantSmith

Or even simpler you could try and check the General > Reverse Color Direction option in the settings.

nshively

Hi @GrantSmith,

I don't see anywhere for a reverse color direction in the general options for either a standard table or heatmap table. I did use the -1 trick to reverse the order and the color is the correct now, but now I'm getting positive values (obviously). I annotated in the column heading that this was now an amount decrease. The 'tooltip' box is greyed out for me and doesn't seem to be an option?

DashboardDude

Hi @nshively,

If you're open to it, I would suggest using the heat map table instead of the table with heat map options. I know sounds confusing. It's like hearing "a rectangle is a square, but a square is not a rectangle"

Anyway, I made you a video to show you how to do so:

https://www.loom.com/share/f5a0f1a3793d4c1eaee1835d3b565561

nshively

Thanks for the suggestion @DashboardDude. I will check out your website later for additional tips.

The problem you demonstrated is exactly my issue. Unfortunately, my internal customer did request multiple columns and only 1 of them be colored. However, they were fine with the numbers being positive (as long as the column header annotated this), so multiplying the values by -1 and flipping the table seemed to be the best solution in this case.

DashboardDude

Ah okay @nshively then yeah your best bet is to do the heatmap as a table. You can also choose "Diverging" and make numbers above zero green or something and below 0 red.

Mary_Moilanen

I was just trying to do this same thing and I think I figured it out. I'm showing # days until a payment is due and wanted the lower numbers to be the darker colors.

I changed my settings to "show diverging" then manually set the midpoint range to a number far higher than I'd ever see. Then I chose the same color theme for the upper and lower ranges.