SSRS with data output separate from "visual" output

Hey Nick,

At one of the SSRS sessions in Dallas last year they briefly discussed a method of doing this. Essentially you create a separate, hidden table in your report that contains all the fields you want to output when saving to CSV/Excel/etc. Then there's a property you set on the table to be displayed in the report so that it isn't included in the output. I believe if you open one of the standard Tessitura reports you can see that in action, (although I think they make the table for data output tiny so as not to clutter the development layout--you'll need to zoom in or resize.)

Here's the PPT from that presentation; the relevant portion starts around page 23. I've experimented with this a little and it seems to work well.

Hey Nick,

At one of the SSRS sessions in Dallas last year they briefly discussed a method of doing this. Essentially you create a separate, hidden table in your report that contains all the fields you want to output when saving to CSV/Excel/etc. Then there's a property you set on the table to be displayed in the report so that it isn't included in the output. I believe if you open one of the standard Tessitura reports you can see that in action, (although I think they make the table for data output tiny so as not to clutter the development layout--you'll need to zoom in or resize.)

Here's the PPT from that presentation; the relevant portion starts around page 23. I've experimented with this a little and it seems to work well.