Catch datetime exception and custom error message in SSRS

Question

I currently working on create report by using SSRS. I have 2 parameters: [Start date] and [End date] to filter data from database and show it on report. I want to validate 2 datetime parameter as describe above. Please tell me a solution to do this.
For example:
When user type the text like: 4/15/2014mmm => System validation thrown a message: [The From Date not correct type]
But in my case, I want to receive a custom error message by myself.(Look like: [Date Invalid!])

Answer 1

Hi Brain,
According to your description, you have a report with two parameters for user to input. Now you want to validate these two parameters and display custom error message when the date is invalid. Right?
In Reporting Service, it doesn’t provide any interference for us to modify the system error message (the text in grey color). That means we can’t modify the system message when error occurs. However we can create a textbox in this report, use custom code
and expression to display the custom error message. But this all based on the report is successfully running. So if error occurs during report processing, all the custom code and expression will not work. In this scenario, we find a workaround for you. We
use custom code to judge if the date is valid, if the users type an invalid date, we return a default value to make sure this report can successfully run. Then we use expression to control the visibility of tablix in this report and create a textbox to show
the custom error message. Your case has been tested in our local environment. Here are steps and screenshots for your reference:
Go to Report Properties. Put the code below into custom code:
Public Shared a As Integer=0
Public Shared Function IsDate(d1 As String,d2 As String) as Integer
        Try
           FormatDateTime(d1)
           FormatDateTime(d2)
        Catch ex As Exception
                   a=1
        End Try
return a
End Function
Create two parameters. One is StartDate, the other is EndDate. Set the data type of these two parameters Text.
Create a filter for StartDate, put the expression below into Value:
=IIF(Code.IsDate(Parameters!StartDate.Value,Parameters!EndDate.Value)=0,CDate(IIF(Code.IsDate(Parameters!StartDate.Value,Parameters!EndDate.Value)=0,Parameters!StartDate.Value,"1/1/2012")),CDate("1/1/2012"))
Create a filter for EndDate, put the expression below into Value:
=IIF(Code.IsDate(Parameters!StartDate.Value,Parameters!EndDate.Value)=0,CDate(IIF(Code.IsDate(Parameters!StartDate.Value,Parameters!EndDate.Value)=0,Parameters!EndDate.Value,"1/1/2013")),CDate("1/1/2013"))
Ps: In step3 and step4, the date(“1/1/2012”, “1/1/2013”) in the expression are the default we set to make sure the report can successfully process. You can set any date existing in your dataset.
Use the expression below to set the visibility of the tablix:
=IIF(Code.IsDate(Parameters!StartDate.Value,Parameters!EndDate.Value)=0,false,true)
Create a textbox, put the expression below into it:
=IIF(Code.IsDate(Parameters!StartDate.Value,Parameters!EndDate.Value)=0,"","Date invalid")
Save and preview. It looks like below:
Reference:
SSRS Calendar and Date Restriction
Errors and Events Reference (Reporting Services)
If you have any question, please feel free to ask.
Best Regards,
Simon Hou