Conditional Background and Text Color of Expression Affecting Column Heading

[#1]

Has anyone come across this issue:

I am applying conditional Background colors to an Expression, which is working. However, if a cell that meets the condition is directly under the column heading, then the column heading also gets the new background color, which isn't what we want.

I have already opened a case with Support, but they said QV is working as designed. To me, this is either bad design or a bug. If anyone has also come across this problem, have you found a workaround?

Thanks.

[johnw]

Yes, I've had this problem. I agree with you that it is either bad design or a bug.

Although I love the product overall, one of the problems I have with QlikTech is how quickly they give the "Working as Designed" answer when something is obviously misbehaving. The column heading should not randomly be assigned a color based on which value just HAPPENED to come first in the chart. I don't care if someone DESIGNED it that way, or if it's a bug. That only changes who is at fault for the broken functionality - the designer or the developer. It doesn't magically make everything OK! The software still has a problem!

QlikTech, your customer has a problem, and it's caused by your bad design. Even if it's technically a true response, "Working as Designed" comes across as both arrogant and dismissive. That's not how you want your customers thinking of you.

Anyway, ranting aside, if they won't agree with you that it's a bug, I would suggest submitting it as a feature request. They seem to have the attitude that if it's a bug, they'll fix it based on a bug report. If it's a design problem (i.e., working as designed), they'll fix it based on a feature request. So I would resubmit your problem as a feature request. Perhaps it will get some attention that way.

Unfortunately, I haven't come up with a workaround. I just suffer with it. If someone else has a workaround, I have at least one application I'd like to fix.

[#3]

Thank you John. I will be submitting a feature request.

Rob Wunderlich - I am posting an example. Please check the "Background Example" tab of the qvw file that I'm attaching. I conditionally formatted the background for [Sales Amount] if it is greater than 69,000,000. As you can see, the Central Region has a value greater than 69,000,000 and the gray background color has been applied. However, this same color has also been applied to the column heading.

Thanks.

[johnw]

Smaller example attached.

[boorgura]

Hey,

One workaround, may not be the perfect one though, is to put the partial sums on the top(enable partial summing for the first column).

And then you can place a condition on the expression for the background color as:

if(rowno() <> 0, rgb(x,y,z))

Just in case you dint want the subtotals to appear - you can custom format those cells with text color and background color as the same.

That should work.

[wizardo]

the only problem with using the "rowno()" function is that it cancels the option for user sorting on the chart by dblCliking the header.

the header color problem has another side to it.

you cannot control the header lables to have a difrent color for each.

i (same as john) like the product very much but i think the vilual control of it is very hard on developers. i think a spend atleast 30-35 percent of dev time on silly things like twiking visual options. i am sure i could have saved atleast 50% of this lost time if the options from the product where more rebust.

and its not like visual design havebt changed over the years, if you go look at other products (crystal reports comes to mind) you may think that qlikview was designed in the 18century

Mansyno

[#7]

I dont know if this helps but maybe you can try to use a simple table instead of a pivot.

BR

Alfredo Lau

[#8]

Hi,

has anyone found a solution for this design bug? Putting the subtotals at the top as described by Rocky is not an option for me, need to have them at the bottom with a dynamic background color which works, but I would like to avoid a dynamic color on the column header... thanks!

Thanks, Lukas

[richardpayne]

Bump.

I need a workaround or fix for a pivot table.

[Edit: I used visual cues...]

[pablolabbe]

I'm got the same problem too. To me a workaround was to create new column and set this as a traffic light showing one color only.

I agree with the fact that Qlikview is not so intuitive like other tools to apply conditional coloring and text formating.

Some improvements in this area will be welcome to be more intuititive to the business user.