Rather than deleting a column from a table in a report I oftentimes like to leave the column in and just make it invisible so that I can add it back in easily at a later time if needed. This is very simple to do in Reporting Services. Looking at the report below I want to remove the January column but I just want to make it invisible.

To simply make this column invisible just click on the column and go to the Properties window. You want to scroll down to the Visibility section. By default the Hidden property is set to False as seen below.

The Hidden property set to False means that the column will be visible. To make the column invisible just click on the drop-down next to False and choose True as seen below.

Now when you run the report the Jan column is not visible but it does not show as a blank space. It is almost as if you deleted the column.

You can also programmatically make a column or section invisible. This will be detailed in another SSRS tip.

Last updated on November 9, 2011 by Bob