Conditional formatting as a check

[Logarithm n Blues]

One of the checks I've been using on the data is to apply conditional formatting.
I apply a graded colour scale to the cells with data in (green for high, amber for average, red for low) and then I can more easily visually check to see if there are any outlying values.
I can then call out in the audit trail that I have done this and mention that there are no suspicious outlying values
eg. suspicious single high score for a column/row/individual/team that otherwise has very poor scores.

so:

• Is this an okay idea? (in combination with other checks of course.)
• Could the fact that the cells are coloured be considered bad style?
  Perhaps some markers would think that colour should only be used as single block colours for eg. parameter values, cells that shouldn't be coppied down etc?
• I'm guessing that this should be described as a reasonableness check in the audit trail since after the colouring, the human user still needs to check the data visually?

 

[ntickner]

Yes, this approach will work. No question of style issues (unless you use non-standard colours instead of green/amber/red).

This won't count as a reasonableness check unless you can provide explanation of why the results come out the way they do - this normally wouldn't be the case for an auto-check like conditional formatting.