The January 2025 Update for Oracle Analytics Cloud is out, and in this article, I’ll take a deep dive into an underrated yet highly useful feature: the ability to hide columns in workbook visualizations.

Hide Columns in Visualizations

Hide columns in visualizations is straightforward. After selecting a visualization by clicking on it, simply right-click on the column you want to hide in the Grammar Panel and choose the Hide option (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Hiding a column in a workbook visualization

Hidden columns appear grayed out in the Grammar Panel, and both their names and values are not displayed in visualizations (Figure 2).

Figure 2. The column Category is hidden in the visualization

Why are hidden columns useful? Although users cannot see their values, hidden columns affect the granularity of the visualization query (and therefore the result set) and can be used to define and apply custom sorting criteria (Figure 3) and/or conditional formatting rules (Figure 4) to the data.

Figure 3. Sorting data based on a hidden column
Figure 4. Applying conditional formatting rules based on a hidden column value (Technology)

Quirks and Considerations

The new feature extends beyond simply hiding columns in tables, as seen in Classic Analytics, and also allows columns to be hidden from other visualizations, providing greater flexibility and customization (Figure 5).

Figure 5. Hiding a column in a bar visualization

When hiding columns in visualizations other than tables, it’s important to note that:

  • Measure columns in the Values section of the Grammar Panel cannot be hidden. As a workaround, you can create a calculated column to transform the measure into an attribute and move it to a different section, such as Category, in the Grammar Panel. Although the documentation states that calculations cannot be hidden for any visualization type, it actually works!

  • In bar visualizations, data is sorted by evaluating the columns in the Category section of the Grammar Panel from top to bottom. If one or more custom sorting criteria are applied, they will be layered on top of the default sorting based on the preceding (top) columns. This means that consumer users cannot sort the data in Figure 5 alphabetically by Sub-Category, as Oracle Analytics will always prioritize sorting by Category first (using a default criterion when none is specified), since it appears at the top.

Hidden columns (from any visualization type) are included in the result set when exporting to CSV, as well as in global and visualization filters when using the Use as Filter and Keep/Remove Selected features. While this may be acceptable in some cases, it would be helpful to have additional settings in the Properties panel to control whether hidden columns are included in exports or as filters during interactions.

Conclusion

It’s great to see support for hiding columns in workbook visualizations, similar to what has been available for years in Classic Analytics. In Data Visualization, columns can be hidden from both tables and charts, which is a significant improvement over Classic Analytics where hiding was limited to tables. This is especially useful for users who want to sort data in charts based on a custom calculation without displaying it, and it also integrates well with the new feature to format data in workbooks using conditional formatting rules based on attribute values.

If you are looking into Oracle Analytics and want to find out more, please do get in touch. I can help you with a product demo, training and assist within the upgrade process.