One of the things that I find useful is to display the selections that a user has made. I usually do this by bringing in a Report Layout into the page header, which would look something like:
If the filter is optional though, it looks neater to only show the data if something has been selected. To do this you need to create a variable that can be used as a render variable in the report.
- Click on the Variable explorer in the centre bar in Report Studio
- Drag a Boolean Variable into the Variables window
- In the Expression Definition window, build an expression that looks something like:
Give the variable a name - in my example I've called it SuppliedItemPrompt. Now go back to your page, and click on the Layout Calculation. In the Properties window you'll see that there's an option of Render Variable. This works by only showing the selected component of the report if the variable is Yes. If you select SuppliedItemPrompt in there you should end up with something along these lines:
Now when you run the report it will only display the selected items in the header if the user chooses some.