Conditional formatting

Conditional formatting colors rows or individual cells when their field values match a rule you define. Use it to make overdue work red, high priorities stand out, or in-progress rows fade into the background — without writing code or changing any Jira data.

Formatting rules live on a view, so you can have different highlights in a “Delivery” view than in a “Planning” view of the same lens.

How rules are evaluated

• Foundation checks each row against your rules in order.
• The first rule that matches wins — later rules do not stack on top of it.
• Row rules paint the entire row background. Cell rules paint only the matching cell in the specific column the rule targets.
• Rules run live on the client — they never modify a Jira field, and they never affect what other users see unless they open the same view.

What you can highlight

• Status (e.g., paint “Done” rows soft green, “Blocked” rows red).
• Priority (e.g., bold red cells for “Highest”).
• Dates (e.g., overdue rows amber; due this week rows yellow).
• Numeric fields (e.g., story points > 8 in blue).
• Labels or custom fields (match specific tag names, environments, or cost centers).

Set up your first rule

1. Open the view where you want the formatting to apply.
2. Click Conditional Formatting in the toolbar to open the rules dialog.
3. Add a rule — pick a field, an operator, a value, and a color.
4. Click Save to store the rule on the view.

See Create a formatting rule for the full walkthrough.

Design tips

• Use few colors. Two or three well-chosen highlights are easier to scan than a rainbow.
• Reserve red. Keep red for things that demand action — overdue, blocked, failed.
• Prefer cell rules when the signal is column-specific (a late due date should color the due date cell, not the whole row).
• Order rules by specificity. Put the narrowest rule first. General catch-alls go last.

Where rules live

• Per view, stored in the view’s settings in Forge SQL.
• Shared with anyone who loads that view.
• Unaffected by who the lens owner is — anyone with edit permission on a view can change its rules.

Related

• Create a formatting rule
• Operators reference
• Row vs cell scope
• Views overview