How do I set the visibility of a text box in SSRS using an expression?

Question

I tried the example that you have provided and the only difference is that you have True and False values switched as @bdparrish had pointed out. Here is a working example of making an SSRS Texbox visible or hidden based on the number of rows present in a dataset. This example uses SSRS 2008 R2.

Step-by-step process: SSRS 2008 R2

1. In this example, the report has a dataset named Items and has textbox to show row counts. It also has another textbox which will be visible only if the dataset Items has rows.

2. Right-click on the textbox that should be visible/hidden based on an expression and select Text Box Properties.... Refer screenshot #1.

3. On the Text Box Properties dialog, click on Visibility from the left section. Refer screenshot #2.

4. Select Show or hide based on an epxression.

5. Click on the expression button fx.

6. Enter the expression =IIf(CountRows("Items") = 0 , True, False). Note that this expression is to hide the Textbox (Hidden).

7. Click OK twice to close the dialogs.

8. Screenshot #3 shows data in the SQL Server table dbo.Items, which is the source for the report data set Items. The table contains 3 rows. Screenshot #4 shows the sample report execution against the data.

9. Screenshot #5 shows data in the SQL Server table dbo.Items, which is the source for the report data set Items. The table contains no data. Screenshot #6 shows the sample report execution against the data.

Hope that helps.

Screenshot #1:

Screenshot #2:

Screenshot #3:

Screenshot #4:

Screenshot #5:

Screenshot #6:

=IIf((CountRows("ScannerStatisticsData")=0),False,True)

Should be replaced with

=IIf((CountRows("ScannerStatisticsData")=0),True,False)

because the Visibility expression set up the Hidden value.

This didn't work

=IIf((CountRows("ScannerStatisticsData") = 0),False,True)

but this did and I can't really explain why

=IIf((CountRows("ScannerStatisticsData") < 1),False,True)

guess SSRS doesn't like equal comparisons as much as less than.

instead of this

=IIf((CountRows("ScannerStatisticsData")=0),False,True)

write only the expression when you want to hide

CountRows("ScannerStatisticsData")=0

or change the order of true and false places as below

=IIf((CountRows("ScannerStatisticsData")=0),True,False)

because the Visibility expression set up the Hidden value. that you can find above the text area as

" Set expression for: Hidden "