You can create a parameterized report with ActiveReports and provide an "All" choice for users who want to see all of the data as well as the ability to select multiple values for those who want to see data for several items.

This walkthrough illustrates how to create a report with multivalue parameters and an option to select all of the data.

The walkthrough is split up into the following activities:

Adding an ActiveReport to a Visual Studio project
Connecting the report to a data source
Adding a Dataset with a parameter
Creating a Dataset to populate the parameter values
Adding a Report Parameter
Adding controls to the report to contain data
Viewing the report

Note:

This walkthrough uses the Movie table from the Reels database. By default, in ActiveReports, the Reels.mdb file is located in the [User Documents folder]\GrapeCity Samples\ActiveReports 9\Data folder.
Although this walkthrough uses Page reports, but this can be implemented using RDL reports also.

When you complete this walkthrough you get a layout that looks similar to the following at design time and at runtime.

Design Time Layout

Runtime Layout

To add an ActiveReport to the Visual Studio project

To connect the report to a data source

To add a dataset to populate the parameter values

SQL Query	Copy Code
SELECT -1 AS ProductionID, "(All)" AS Name FROM Producers UNION SELECT ProductionID, Name FROM Producers;

To add a parameter to the report

To add a dataset with a parameter

SQL Query	Copy Code
SELECT Movie.Title, Movie.YearReleased, Movie.UserRating, Producers.Name FROM Producers INNER JOIN (Movie INNER JOIN MovieProducers ON Movie.MovieID = MovieProducers.MovieID) ON Producers.ProductionID = MovieProducers.ProductionID WHERE (MovieProducers.ProductionID IN (?)) OR (-1 IN (?)) ORDER BY MovieProducers.ProductionID, Movie.YearReleased;

To create a layout for the report

From the toolbox, drag a Table control onto the design surface and in the Properties window, set the following properties.

Property Name	Property Value
Location	0in, 1in
DataSetName	Movies
FixedSize (only for Page reports)	6.5in, 7.5in

Click inside the table to display the column and row handles along the top and left sides of the table.
To visually group the data within the report, right-click the icon to the left of the detail row and select Insert Group.
In the Table - Groups dialog that appears, under Expression select =Fields!Name.Value to group all details from each producer.

Change the Name to Producer.

Note: You cannot change the name of a table group until after you have set the expression.

On the Layout tab of the Table - Groups dialog, select the check box next to Repeat group header to ensure that the header is printed at the top of each page.
Clear the check box next to Include group footer as we will not be using it for this report.
Click OK to close the dialog.

In the Report Explorer, from the Movies dataset drag the following fields into the detail row of the table and set their properties as in the following table.

Field	Column	Width
Title	TableColumn1	3.9in
YearReleased	TableColumn2	1.3in
UserRating	TableColumn3	1.3in

Static labels with the field names are automatically created in the table header row. To improve the appearance of the report, select the table header row, and set the text to Bold and change the FontSize to 11pt.

From the Report Explorer, the Movies dataset drag the Name field into the first column of the group header row of the table and set the following properties.

Property Name	Property Value
FontWeight	Bold
BackgroundColor	Thistle

Tip: Use the Shift key to select all three text boxes in the group header row, right-click and select Merge Cells to prevent long production company names from wrapping.

To view the report