Built-in collections - Globals and User references in a paginated report (Report Builder)

Article
03/22/2023

Applies to: ✅ Microsoft Report Builder (SSRS) ✅ Power BI Report Builder ✅ Report Designer in SQL Server Data Tools

The built-in fields collection, which includes both the Globals and the User collections, represent global values provided by Reporting Services when a paginated report is processed. The Globals collection provides values such as the name of the report, the time when report processing began, and current page numbers for the report header or footer. The User collection provides the user identifier and language settings. These values can be used in expressions to filter results in a report.

Note

You can create and modify paginated report definition (.rdl) files in Microsoft Report Builder, Power BI Report Builder, and in Report Designer in SQL Server Data Tools.

Using the Globals Collection

The Globals collection contains the global variables for the report. On the design surface, these variables appear prefixed by an & (ampersand), for example, [&ReportName]. The following table describes the members of the Globals collection.

Member	Type	Description
ExecutionTime	DateTime	The date and time that the report began to run.
PageNumber	Integer	The current page number relative to page breaks that reset the page number. At the beginning of report processing, the initial value is set to 1. The page number increments for each rendered page. To number pages within page breaks for a rectangle, a data region, a data region group, or a map, on the PageBreak property, set the ResetPageNumber property to True. Not supported on tablix column hierarchy groups. PageNumber can only be used in an expression in a page header or page footer.
ReportFolder	String	The full path to the folder containing the report. This does not include the report server URL.
ReportName	String	The name of the report as it is stored in the report server database.
ReportServerUrl	String	The URL of the report server on which the report is being run.
TotalPages	Integer	The total number of pages relative to page breaks that reset PageNumber. If no page breaks are set, this value is the same as OverallTotalPages. TotalPages can only be used in an expression in a page header or page footer.
PageName	String	The name of the page. At the beginning of report processing, the initial value is set from InitialPageName, a report property. As each report item is processed, this value is replaced by the corresponding value of PageName from a rectangle, a data region, a data region group, or a map. Not supported on tablix column hierarchy groups. PageName can only be used in an expression in a page header or page footer.
OverallPageNumber	Integer	The page number of the current page for the entire report. This value is not affected by ResetPageNumber. OverallPageNumber can only be used in an expression in a page header or page footer.
OverallTotalPages	Integer	The total number pages for the entire report. This value is not affected by ResetPageNumber. OverallTotalPages can only be used in an expression in a page header or page footer.
RenderFormat	RenderFormat	Information about the current rendering request. For more information, see "RenderFormat" in the next section.

Members of the Globals collection return a variant. If you want to use a member of this collection in an expression that requires a specific data type, you must first cast the variable. For example, to convert the execution time variant into a Date format, use =CDate(Globals!ExecutionTime). For more information, see Data Types in Expressions (Report Builder and SSRS).

RenderFormat

The following table describes the members for RenderFormat.

Member	Type	Description
Name	String	The name of the renderer as registered in the RSReportServer configuration file. Available during specific parts of the report processing/rendering cycle.
IsInteractive	Boolean	Whether the current rendering request uses an interactive rendering format.
DeviceInfo	Read-only name/value collection	Key/value pairs for deviceinfo parameters for the current rendering request. String values can be specified by using either the key or an index into the collection.

Examples

The following examples show how to use a reference to the Globals collection in an expression:

This expression, placed in a text box in the footer of a report, provides the page number and total pages in the report:

=Globals.PageNumber & " of " & Globals.TotalPages
This expression provides the name of the report and the time it was run. The time is formatted with the Microsoft .NET Framework formatting string for short date:

=Globals.ReportName & ", dated " & Format(Globals.ExecutionTime, "d")
This expression, placed in the Column Visibility dialog box for a selected column, displays the column only when the report is exported to Excel. Otherwise, the column is hidden.

EXCELOPENXML refers to the format of Excel that is included in Office 2007. EXCEL refers to the format of Excel that is included in Office 2003.

=IIF(Globals!RenderFormat.Name = "EXCELOPENXML" OR Globals!RenderFormat.Name = "EXCEL", false, true)

Using the User Collection

The User collection contains data about the user who is running the report. You can use this collection to filter the data that appears in a report, for example, showing only the data of the current user, or to display the UserID, for example, in a report title. On the design surface, these variables appear prefixed by an & (ampersand), for example, [&UserID].

The following table describes the members of the User collection.

Member	Type	Description
Language	String	The language of the user running the report. For example, `en-US`.
UserID	String	The ID of the user running the report. If you are using Windows Authentication, this value is the domain account of the current user. The value is determined by the Report Builder security extension, which can use Windows Authentication or custom authentication.

Using Locale Settings

You can use expressions to refer to the locale settings on a client computer through the User.Language value to determine how a report appears to the user. For example, you can create a report that uses a different query expression based on the locale value. The query may change to retrieve localized information from a different column depending on the language returned. You can also use an expression in the language settings of the report or report items based on this variable.

Note

While you can change the language settings of a report, you must be careful about any display issues this may cause. For example, changing the locale setting of the report can change the date format in the report, but it can also change the currency format. Unless there is a conversion process for the currency, this may cause the incorrect currency symbol to be displayed in the report. To avoid this, set the language information about the individual items that you want to change, or set the item with the currency data to a specific language.

Identifying UserID for Snapshot or History Reports

In some cases, reports that include the User!UserID variable will fail to show report data that is specific to the current user who is viewing the report.