How do I allow a drop-down list parameter in SSRS to have a default value of “— All — ”?

Question

I have a drop-down list that gets populated based on a stored-procedure - that parts works fine.

Answer 1

I agree with Chris's answer however I would add that sometimes you want to add defaults to a multi value that are not all and not a single choice either. Generally I set two datasets up , each in a table variable for reporting. Similar to this:

'AvailableValues' Data set could be:

declare @Table Table ( personID int identity, person varchar(8));

insert into @Table values ('Brett'),('John'),('Peter');

select *
from @Table

'DefaultValues' Data set could be:

declare @Table Table ( personID int identity, person varchar(8));

insert into @Table values ('Brett'),('John');

select *
from @Table

If I set up a parameter and bind 'Available' values to a 'get values from a query' and choose my available dataset it has the first set. If I then choose 'Default' values and choose 'get values from a query' and choose the default I can select a subset as the default. The only issue is you must ensure your datasources in the second is a legitimate subset of the first.

You may also choose your Default from set one to get a list of all as well to choose all the values you specified.