A Heat map is a visualization technique that allows you to apply colors to certain values, to more easily differentiate them or discover outliers and discrepancies.

To create a heat map view in Ardoq we will make use of Conditional formatting. You can create a Heat map using many different views, such as the Block diagram or the Dependency map. My recommendation however is to use the Capability map.

Step 1.- Open the workspace you would like to apply the heatmap to.

Step 2.- Open the perspectives menu (the eye icon in the bottom left -> Manage) and navigate to the formatting tab.

Step 3.- Add 5 conditional formatting steps, and select them all to be by either component, reference, or tags, depending on what you wish to visualize.

Step 4.- Select the attribute you want to be the indicator of what you visualizing. (in this example we will be using "total direct cost")

Step 5.- Use the type field to set 5 separate levels. The first should be "less than", the second "equals", the third "less than" again, then again "equals" and lastly "greater than".

Step 6.- Use the Value field to set the values you want to filter for. In the first 2 fields, you want to put the value below which the lower value lies. The next 3 fields you want to input the value above which the higher values lie (in our example, we want to create a Heat map based on the cost of the selected Apps. So we will put 10.000 in the first 2 fields, and 100.000 in the latter 3).

Step 7.- Now all that is left, is to select the colors you want you to apply to each level you have set. I would recommend sticking to something simple, like green for the first 2 values, orange or yellow for value 3, and red for the last 2 levels (in our example we have set the lowest values to green, the in-between values in orange, and the highest values in red).

So in the example Heat map we have created, we are showing all Applications in our selected workspace, and we are coloring them based on their total direct cost. Every App with a cost of 10.000 or less will be green, Apps with a cost somewhere between 10.000 and 100.000 will be orange, and any App with a cost of 100.000 or more will be red.

Note: The capability map doesn't support conditional formatting using reference types/fields. You may do this by using either a block diagram or a dependency map.

You can add more than 5 steps, in order to show more complicated heatmaps. Simply add the "less than" then "equals" step for every new level you want to introduce. Keep in mind that only the last value should be "greater than".