Power BI has a little secret when it comes to colors and hex codes….. 🤫
Do you know that you can make pretty much anything that has a conditional formatting option in Power BI visuals fully transparent?
Yes, that means that you can enforce transparency on any element of visual that has the little conditional formatting option.
In some cases, this means that you can make an entire visual go transparent under certain conditions.
Shown in the picture is a very simple example of a text and shape appearing when gross profit goes under 15%.
I may be thinking, “How is this possible?” I’m not able to select transparent when I go in to select various hex codes within conditional formatting.
Which is where the little secret comes in.
Put this little hex code inside of a measure and call it something like “Hex Transparent.”
Hex Transparent = FORMAT ( “#FFFFFF00“, “0” )
In this eight-digit hex code:
💠 #FFFFFF represents the color.
💠 00 represents the alpha channel, indicating full transparency. A value of 00 means fully transparent, while FF would mean fully opaque.
(the FORMAT function is required to be able to use the measure in conditional formatting as it formats the measure as text).
That’s right. You are able to sneak in an extra two digits into a hex code because you put that hex code into a measure.
Ordinarily, if you were to select the hex code inside of the conditional formatting, you would only be able to get six digits.
This can be used for all kinds of things from visuals suddenly appearing under certain conditions or even layering visuals and hiding part of the visuals with transparency.
I once even hid an entire slicer using conditional formatting transparency and had it only appear when another selection was made. This is a great alternative to using bookmarks, as nobody likes maintaining complex bookmarks. 😲
There are, of course, certain drawbacks to use this little workaround, so make sure you test sufficiently before using in any production reports.
If used correctly, this little trick really does open up a whole new realm of possibilities.
Link to Github PBIX file now included:
https://lnkd.in/gHJYUMB8
PBI’s Little Secret, Transparent Hex Codes
