In addition to symbol columns, OnePager 7.2 also adds the ability to apply conditional formatting rules to row and swimlanes themselves
Conditional Formatting of Swimlanes
OnePager can have up to three nested levels of swimlanes, each of which summarizes information about the tasks that they contain. With conditional formatting, both the swimlane cell and the swimlane background can change colors based on the values of those tasks.
To apply conditional formatting to swimlanes, go to Home > Chart Properties > Rows/Swimlanes and select the swimlane level that you would like to format. In this example, we'll apply conditional formatting to the Left #2 swimlane. Click on the Manage Rules button for that swimlane level:
Here, we've set up three conditional formatting rules that look at the summary task name:
These rules state the following:
- For tasks where the parent is "Phase I", set the swimlane Left #2 cell to dark blue and the background to light blue.
- For tasks where the parent is "Phase II", set the swimlane Left #2 cell to dark red and the background to light red.
- For tasks where the parent is "Phase III", set the swimlane Left #2 cell to dark green and the background to light green.
After applying these rules, conditional formatting updates both the swimlane cells and the swimlane backgrounds like this, giving each phase a distinct color across multiple projects:
Swimlanes with Heterogeneous Tasks
In the example above, we set up the swimlane conditional formatting to use the same field that actually drives the swimlane grouping: Level 1 Summary Name. However, you can choose to group your swimlanes by one field and apply conditional formatting by another.
For example, you might want to continue grouping your swimlanes by Level 1 Summary Name, but apply conditional formatting to your swimlanes based on the status of tasks in each swimlane. In this case, there is a good chance that you will have a mixture of status values in each swimlane, so will need to tell OnePager when the conditional formatting rule should apply.
For example, if you create a task that highlights a swimlane when tasks are late, you can decide whether the swimlane should turn red when one task is late, most tasks are late, or all tasks are late, using the Function for each rule:
Conditional Formatting of Text Columns and Rows
Much in the same way that the colors of swimlanes can be controlled with conditional formatting, OnePager 7.2 also expands conditional formatting to rows and text columns. In fact, symbol columns are one way that conditional formatting can apply to text columns. Here, however, we'll show a more simple example where we use conditional formatting to change the background color of a row, and of the text column cell adjacent to that row.
To set up conditional formatting for rows and text columns, go to Home > Chart Properties > Rows/Swimlanes. In the Text Columns section, click on the Manage Rules button:
In this example, we will estabish conditional formatting rules that turn a row green and text column green when its tasks are complete, and switch to red when tasks are late:
If you're in a timeline layout, there is a good chance that you will have multiple tasks per row, so conditional formatting needs to know how to handle cases where a single row in your chart has a mixture of different statuses. Looking back up at the conditional formatting rules, we have used the Function to refine the rules to:
- Apply a green color if all tasks in the row are complete.
- Apply a red color if any tasks in the row are late.
Here's how the rules look when applied to the project timeline:
In this example, all four of the tasks in the first row are complete, so the row and the text column both turn green. The second row has two completed tasks, but two late tasks as well. Because of this, the row turns red in accordance with the second conditional formatting rule, since even a single late task in a row should turn it red. The third row has a mixture of three different statuses. Neither of the two conditional formatting rules apply, so the row and text column retain their default white color until the statuses of their tasks start to change over the life of the project.