Inconsistent behaviour when setting up parameters

Hi guys,

i am having an issue setting up two parameters in the report designer (SSRS 2005). The report is calling a stored proc, these two parameters are optional, when the user decides to run a report i don't want them to input anything for these parameters, they should both be set to null when calling the stored proc (changing the signature of the sproc is not an option).

So, in the Report Parameter dialog, i set both parameters to "Allow null value", "Internal", and default value of null. This is when the first issue strikes: if i "OK" out of the dialog, then save, then go back into the dialog, the designer has "forgotten" that one of the params was internal (the check box is not checked) - but the other one is still okay. How can i prevent the designer forgetting things like this?

The second problem is that even though (at least one of) the parameters is set to internal, when using IE to connect to the report server and run the report the input fields for those params still show up - i don't want the user seeing them. These param input fields are both hidden if i run the report through the reporting services control (ie just right click on the report in the solution explorer and select "run"). Why the inconsistent behaviour? How can i prevent the user seeing those fields when using IE? (if i just set them to hidden then i get an error message "

The 'poolList' parameter is missing a value" when i try to run the report).

The rdl xml for these two paramaters is:

<ReportParameter Name="poolList">

<DataType>String</DataType>

<Nullable>true</Nullable>

</ReportParameter>

<ReportParameter Name="poolGroupList">

<DataType>String</DataType>

<Nullable>true</Nullable>

</ReportParameter>

Nowhere in there do i see that the parameter is internal - where does the designer stick that sort of information?

Thanks for any answers!

sluggy

A report parameter being internal means that it does not have a prompt. Hence, in the underlying RDL file, there is no <Prompt> element under the <ReportParameter> element. So, from the RDL snippet shown in your posting everything looks correct.

Regarding report server: I recommend that you delete the already published report from the report server before republishing the report with updated parameter information. Otherwise, the old parameter settings and the new parameter settings may get merged (because the administrator on the report server could have decided to change the default value etc. for the published report).

-- Robert

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Hi Robert,

thanks for the heads-up regarding the merging of the reports, i will watch out for it when this project goes live as we won't have control over that report server.

I have fixed one of my problems. To get rid of the "The 'blah' parameter is missing a value" message all i had to do was remove those parameters in the parameters tab of the configure dataset dialog. As they are named params and they are assigned default values in the sproc i didn't even need to try to pass them. This also means i don't have those input fields showing up in IE but not the control.

Although this still doesn't explain why the designer was persistently forgetting settings :)

sluggy