title: SSRS Adding fields in report headers/footers
body: <p>I am wondering if there is a better way to have fields displayed in the report headers and footers. Currently we are doing this by adding the field to a tablix in the report body and referencing that in the header/footer</p>
  
  <pre><code>=ReportItems!ItemName.Value
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This however means that there are a lot of hidden fields attached to the main tablix used in the report body and if the end user has to edit the report in the future for whatever reason then it is just confusing and complicated to navigate.</p>
  
  <p>The reason that the fields displayed in the header and footer are attached to the main tablix used in the report body is so that we can take advantage of the grouping and page breaks set there so we can make the header update with different data across different pages within the same report</p>
  
  <p>I know this way works and is probabily one of the easiest to implement but we have a lot of fields that need to be displayed in the headers/footers and the body of the report just looks a mess with lot's of tiny columns in the tablix all hidden. It also makes our tablix quite wide with all of the hidden rows that just make the report it self a lot wider than it should be . </p>
  
  <p>Is this the correct way to do it or is there a better more intuitive way of displaying data in the headers or footers?</p>