In this post, GoodData Customer Success Manager, Ravi, will highlight how to use the Custom Formatting module to enhance the appearance of the numbers to show degrees and tiers. In Ravi's example, he will use the formatting feature, Custom Number Formats, to create report indicators.

Ravi uses stars to represent the percent of tickets solved for a company's help desk. One star indicates < 85%, two stars indicate >= 85% and three stars indicate >= 100%. It is good to note that these buckets can be changed, along with the numbers and colors of the stars. Here is how you can enable star indicators:

Step One: Go into the report and click on "Show Configuration."  
Step Two: The configuration will menu will slide; click on "Custom Number Format."

Step Three: The current formatting is [>1][green]#,# %;[>=0.9]#,# %;[<0.9][red]#,# %. This formatting will show you percent of solved tickers in green or red depending on solve rate. To change the percentages to stars, add the following into the formatting text box: [>=1][green] ★★★(#%);[>=.85][black] ★★(#%) ;[<0.85][red] ★(#%) and click “Apply.”

To note, you can replace the stars with any character. Simply use the character viewer/unicode to create the text and copy and paste into the text box.

Using star indicators to monitor the status of the percent of tickets solved is just the beginning. Other popular indicators are used for survey-based data (like Net Promoter Score). This gives users the ability to show a high-level Headline Report that provides meaningful insight at first glance. No need to dig into the numbers to monitor the status.

The business world is demanding new, intuitive and visual representations of their data. Taking advantage of GoodData's formatting abilities provides users the tools to interact with their data in a new way. What indicators are on your report? Share your report indicator examples in the comment section below.