Enhancing SSRS Reports with Column-Level Security and Drill-Down Functionality

SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) has come a long way over the years. This post covers two useful techniques: implementing column-level security and creating dynamic drill-down functionality.

Implementing Column-Level Security in SSRS Reports

While SSRS doesn’t offer out-of-the-box support for column-level security, you can implement it manually to control data visibility based on user roles.

Steps to Implement Column-Level Security:

• Step 1: Create a SQL Server table dbo.RightsToColumns to define user/column visibility.
• Step 2: Develop a stored procedure dbo.GetRightstocolumns to return visibility information for the authenticated user.
• Step 3: In SSRS, create a dataset that reads this stored procedure.
• Step 4: Use an internal SSRS parameter, ShowModifiedDate, to collect the results and map this to the dataset.
• Step 5: Set column visibility in the SSRS report designer using the ShowModifiedDate parameter.

Creating Drill-Down Reports in SSRS

Drill-down reports allow users to view summary data and then expand to see more details. This is a practical way to keep reports tidy while still showing the detail when needed.

Steps for Drill-Down Reports:

• Step 1: Create Boolean parameters in the report to control the initial expand/collapse state of the groups.
• Step 2: Define the visibility of groups based on these parameters and enable toggling on user interaction.

Both techniques are straightforward to set up and make a real difference to how reports work in practice.

My other SSRS posts cover building complex multi-dimensional reports and cross-chart filtering with repeating headers.