Select All option with multi-valued parameters - SSRS

A major short coming with multi-valued parameters in SQL Server Reporting Services is that there is no way to disable the 'Select All' option. This may have massive performance issues if 'Select All' is checked and large numbers of records are pulled from the DB. A work-around is to create another parameter and by using the IIF function limit the number of parameters available for selection.
















The first stage is to create a new parameter, in this case, called LimitEstablishmentParameter.















I've decided to limit the number of parameters available for selection using the following code in Default Value for the LimitEstablishmentParameter.



=iif(Parameters!EstablishmentParameter.count<=20,Parameters!EstablishmentParameter.value,"xxx")












Where xxx is a value that will return zero records from the dataset.

Change your dataset to refer to your new 'limiting' multi-valued parameter (LimitEstablishmentParameter in this case).






It's also worth putting a textbox near the top of the report with an expression similar to the following, informing the user of the selection limit:

=iif(Parameters!LimitEstablishmentParameter.Value(0)="xxx","The selection is limited to 20 establishments.",(Join(Parameters!EstablishmentParameter.Value, ", ")))

Display a list of all multivalued parameter values - SSRS

To display a list of all the selected multivalued parameters in a report use the Join function:

=Join(Parameters!Field.Value, ", ")

Multivalued parameter drop down width - SSRS

I was working on a SSRS project where I was using multivalued parameters. This creates a drop down list whereby the user can select the relevant values. Unfortunately in SSRS 2005 (SP3) the width of the dropdown is fixed, which seems to me as a bit of an oversight.

I believe that this may be corrected by altering the HtmlViewer.CSS file or by programmatically fixing the width of the available parameter values.

Neither is ideal.

















I will look into whether this has been rectified in SSRS 2008.

Crystal Reports rebranded

SAP have recently announced that Crystal Reports is to be rebranded as SAP Crystal Reports, hopefully ensuring their long term commitment to the product. Various new products are also in the pipeline. Further details here