SSRS 2012 and CSV export

Question

I\'m using SSRS 2012 trying to do the following:

Some columns should only be visible on user request, using a combo box. Visibility of the columns dependes on the select

Answer 1

CSV (and XML) export from SSRS is treated very differently than most export formats. These two are considered data renderers, not page renderers, and are generally written to get at the data underlying the report, disregarding layout options. Part of this is that field visibility isn't handled the same way. I don't know if it's a bug or intentional design, but .CSV apparently doesn't honor visibility set in expressions. One suggested work around is to conditionally set the value to null in the underlying dataset. (This could be based on a parameter.)