Saving SSRS multi select parameter value with wildcard

Question

I have searched and searched and have not been able to find the answer to this. I'm no stranger to SSRS, .Net (c# and vb.net), SQL, etc...been in it for years. I currently have a multi-select report parameter that is populated by a dataset in my report. There are hundreds of entries, so I built it to be driven by a wildcard character in a preceding parameter. Everything works fine right now. My question is this: is it possible to enter a wildcard value, select one (or more) of the filtered values and then store that/those value(s) on selection so that a user can go back and enter another wildcard value and select from a newly filtered list? (Basically, remember what has been selected in the overall dataset before report execution and create some sort of comma-separated list as the final parameter value to be passed to the report) I realize this may be better served in a web app w/a reportviewer control, but I'm trying to avoid deviating from the native SSRS server if possible. Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

The way I might approach this (not actually done it but the theory sounds ok)

Have 2 parameters for user input, your current one and a hidden one called say @filter (visible) and @filterHistory (this is the hidden one)

Have a textbox (formatted like button) with something like "Refine" as the text. Set the action to call your report again but set the @filterHistory to be something like @filterHistory & ", " & @filter . Basically we keep appending the last user input to the history.

Then your report would filter based on both parameters. You'll have to do some parsing of the delimited parameter now to split it out into the constituent parts but you get the idea.

I've no time to build a test report but hopefully that will point you in the right direction. If it doesn't help or work then comment and I'll see if I can knock up a quick example.