[reporting-services] How do I set the visibility of a text box in SSRS using an expression?

I have a subtotal field for a calculated column that I want to hide when my report has not ran yet because on days with no data it shows up as NaN on the report.

I have tried two methods but neither are working and I am sure it is almost correct. I just don't know what is wrong with the expression.

I tried hiding if my dataset had no rows.

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

I also tried making a calculation

=iif((fields!Scans.Value / fields!numberOfCases.Value) = 0, False, True)

I also tried checking isnothing on one of the columns in the calculation

=iif(IsNothing(fields!Scans.Value), False, True)

What am I doing wrong?

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:

Visibility of the text box depends on the Hidden Value

As per the below example, if the internal condition satisfies then text box Hidden functionality will be True else if the condition fails then text box Hidden functionality will be False

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

the rdl file content:

<Visibility><Hidden>=Parameters!casetype.Value=300</Hidden></Visibility>

so the text box will hidden, if your expression is true.

Twood, Visibility expression is the expressions you write on how you want the "visibility" to behave. So, if you would want to hide or show the textbox, you want to write this:

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

This means, if the dataset is 0, you want to hide the textbox.

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 " 

=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.

Switch your false and true returns? I think if you put those as a function in the visibility area, then false will show it and true will not show it.