Report Builder optional and obligatory parameters

Question

I have a problem with my report from a live query. In my report i have 5 parameters that allow to pick a date range @DateFrom and @DateTo and 3 parameters which should allow to select specific attributes:

@salesid, @batch, @serial

I want to make date range parameters mandatory and that's working without any problems but last 3 parameters: @salesid , @batch , @serial should be optional.

But they do not work as they should. Last 3 parameters should let you type in value which would work as filters. But when I pick date and one of those parameters Im getting the entire value of the query instead of selected values.

In parameters properties I slected "Allow blank value (" ")" option and just in case I defined a default value as blank.

That's how conditions in my query looks like:

where
    st.custaccount <> 'number%'
    and datepart(year,st.CREATEDDATETIME) >= 2012
    and (ita.VENDORCODE like'producer1' or ita.vendorcode like 'producer2')
    and st.createddatetime >= @FromDate
    and st.createddatetime <= @ToDate  
     or (st.salesid = @salesid or @salesid  is null)
     or (itd.INVENTBATCHID = @batch or @batch is null)
     or (itd.INVENTSERIALID = @serial or @serial is null)

Theoretically it should work but... Well but in practice it's not.

How to set a condition to get the desired effect? I couldn't find anything helpful so far. If any of you know something useful please give me some clues.

Answer 1

You need to change your final 3 or statements to and statements.

At the moment, your query is essentially checking for data items that match your criteria OR that any of those final three parameters is matched/null. This means that even if you data isn't the date range etc it will still be returned:

where st.custaccount <> 'number%'
    and st.CREATEDDATETIME >= '20120101'    -- Try not to use functions in your WHERE clause, as this stops indexes from working, making your query less efficient.
    and ita.VENDORCODE in('producer1', 'producer2')    -- IN has the same effect.
    and st.createddatetime between @FromDate and @ToDate    -- BETWEEN is an inclusive date range.  Equivalent to >= and <=

    and (st.salesid = @salesid
        or @salesid is null
        )
    and (itd.INVENTBATCHID = @batch
        or @batch is null
        )
    and (itd.INVENTSERIALID = @serial
        or @serial is null
        )