Add alternating row color to SQL Server Reporting services report

Question

Go to the table row's BackgroundColor property and choose "Expression..."

Use this expression:

= IIf(RowNumber(Nothing) Mod 2 = 0, "Silver", "Transparent")

This trick can be applied to many areas of the report.

And in .NET 3.5+ You could use:

= If(RowNumber(Nothing) Mod 2 = 0, "Silver", "Transparent")

Not looking for rep--I just researched this question myself and thought I'd share.

Using IIF(RowNumber...) can lead to some issues when rows are being grouped and another alternative is to use a simple VBScript function to determine the color.

It's a little more effort but when the basic solution does not suffice, it's a nice alternative.

Basically, you add code to the Report as follows...

Private bOddRow As Boolean
'*************************************************************************
' -- Display green-bar type color banding in detail rows
' -- Call from BackGroundColor property of all detail row textboxes
' -- Set Toggle True for first item, False for others.
'*************************************************************************
Function AlternateColor(ByVal OddColor As String, _
         ByVal EvenColor As String, ByVal Toggle As Boolean) As String
    If Toggle Then bOddRow = Not bOddRow
    If bOddRow Then
        Return OddColor
    Else
        Return EvenColor
    End If
End Function

Then on each cell, set the BackgroundColor as follows:

=Code.AlternateColor("AliceBlue", "White", True)

Full details are on this Wrox article

I got the chess effect when I used Catch22's solution, I think because my matrix has more than one column in design. that expression worked fine for me :

=iif(RunningValue(Fields![rowgroupfield].Value.ToString,CountDistinct,Nothing) Mod 2,"Gainsboro", "White")

I have changed @Catch22's solution A bit as I do not like the idea of having to go into each field if I decide I want to change one of the colors. This is especially important in reports where the are numerous fields that would need to have the color variable changed.

'*************************************************************************
' -- Display alternate color banding (defined below) in detail rows
' -- Call from BackgroundColor property of all detail row textboxes
'*************************************************************************
Function AlternateColor(Byval rowNumber as integer) As String
    Dim OddColor As String = "Green"
    Dim EvenColor As String = "White"

    If rowNumber mod 2 = 0 then 
        Return EvenColor
    Else
        Return OddColor
    End If
End Function

Noticed that I have change the function from one that accepts the colors to one that contains the colors to be used.

Then in each field add:

=Code.AlternateColor(rownumber(nothing))

This is much more robust than manually changing the color in each fields' background color.

One thing I noticed is that neither of the top two methods have any notion of what color the first row should be in a group; the group will just start with the opposite color from the last line of the previous group. I wanted my groups to always start with the same color...the first row of each group should always be white, and the next row colored.

The basic concept was to reset the toggle when each group starts, so I added a bit of code:

Private bOddRow As Boolean
'*************************************************************************
' -- Display green-bar type color banding in detail rows
' -- Call from BackGroundColor property of all detail row textboxes
' -- Set Toggle True for first item, False for others.
'*************************************************************************
Function AlternateColor(ByVal OddColor As String, _
         ByVal EvenColor As String, ByVal Toggle As Boolean) As String
    If Toggle Then bOddRow = Not bOddRow
    If bOddRow Then
        Return OddColor
    Else
        Return EvenColor
    End If
End Function
'
Function RestartColor(ByVal OddColor As String) As String
    bOddRow = True
    Return OddColor
End Function

So I have three different kinds of cell backgrounds now:

1. First column of data row has =Code.AlternateColor("AliceBlue", "White", True) (This is the same as the previous answer.)
2. Remaining columns of data row have =Code.AlternateColor("AliceBlue", "White", False) (This, also, is the same as the previous answer.)
3. First column of grouping row has =Code.RestartColor("AliceBlue") (This is new.)
4. Remaining columns of grouping row have =Code.AlternateColor("AliceBlue", "White", False) (This was used before, but no mention of it for grouping row.)

This works for me. If you want the grouping row to be non-colored, or a different color, it should be fairly obvious from this how to change it around.

Please feel free to add comments about what could be done to improve this code: I'm brand new to both SSRS and VB, so I strongly suspect that there's plenty of room for improvement, but the basic idea seems sound (and it was useful for me) so I wanted to throw it out here.

for group headers/footers:

=iif(RunningValue(*group on field*,CountDistinct,"*parent group name*") Mod 2,"White","AliceBlue")

You can also use this to “reset” the row color count within each group. I wanted the first detail row in each sub group to start with White and this solution (when used on the detail row) allowed that to happen:

=IIF(RunningValue(Fields![Name].Value, CountDistinct, "NameOfPartnetGroup") Mod 2, "White", "Wheat")

See: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms159136(v=sql.100).aspx