Conditional formatting by a different field does not work when there is a single value in the table
Thanks, Kamarto for your feedback.
This is by design so far.
Conditional formatting, Gradient/Rule-Based, with same/different measure, has this limitation.
The reason is, we allow setting "Auto" ranges, which uses Min/Max of the data. It was a dicision that is not particularly useful, and maybe ambiguous, in case of a single row (or more precisely, no grouping). We consider that single row as a GrandTotal.
Don't get me wrong, you concern is still valid. I'll forward your feedback to the team and re-evaluate our decision.
To get you unblocked, you can create a new Column as a constant value, and add it as a Group to the Table. Good news is it will work, bad news is you will have a redundent Column which you can decrease the column width to Minimum for.
Thanks again for your feedback!