Azure SQL

Connects to Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance and SQL Server using the Microsoft SQL client (Microsoft.Data.SqlClient). SQL is sent to the server as written, so the full Transact-SQL dialect is available, including stored procedures.

Connection Properties

The connection settings are the standard Microsoft SQL client properties. The most commonly used ones are listed below; the other properties shown in the property grid behave as described in the Microsoft SqlConnectionStringBuilder documentation.

A new data source starts with Integrated Security = true, Multiple Active Result Sets = true and Trust Server Certificate = true.

Server

Property	Default	Notes
Data Source	—	Required. Server name, e.g. yourserver.database.windows.net or host\instance,1433
Initial Catalog	—	Database name
Connect Timeout	15	Seconds to wait for the connection to open
Command Timeout	30	Seconds to wait for a statement to complete
Application Intent	ReadWrite	ReadOnly routes the connection to a readable secondary replica
Multi Subnet Failover	false	Set to true for availability group listeners and failover groups
Application Name	—	Name shown for the connection in server monitoring tools

Authentication

Property	Default	Notes
Integrated Security	true	Windows authentication (SQL Server on the domain). Set to false for every other method
User ID	—	SQL login, Microsoft Entra user, or application (client) ID, depending on the method
Password	—	Password or client secret
Authentication	NotSpecified	Microsoft Entra authentication method, see below

Typical combinations:

To connect with	Set
SQL login	Integrated Security false, User ID, Password
Windows account (SQL Server)	Integrated Security true
Microsoft Entra user	Integrated Security false, Authentication Active Directory Password, User ID, Password
Entra application	Integrated Security false, Authentication Active Directory Service Principal, User ID = client ID, Password = client secret
Managed identity	Integrated Security false, Authentication Active Directory Managed Identity; User ID = client ID for a user-assigned identity

Azure SQL Database does not accept Windows authentication, so Integrated Security must be set to false there.

Encryption

Property	Default	Notes
Encrypt	true	Encrypt the connection. Azure SQL requires encryption
Trust Server Certificate	true	true: the server certificate is not validated. Set to false to validate it
Host Name In Certificate	—	Expected host name in the server certificate, when it differs from Data Source

Pooling and Resilience

Property	Default	Notes
Pooling	true	Reuse database connections between requests
Min Pool Size	0	Connections kept open in the pool
Max Pool Size	100	Maximum connections in the pool
Multiple Active Result Sets	true	Allows several open result sets on one connection (MARS)
Connect Retry Count	1	Reconnection attempts after a dropped idle connection
Connect Retry Interval	10	Seconds between reconnection attempts

Supported SQL

Tables and columns

• Tables are addressed as Table or Schema.Table. Tables in the dbo schema are listed without the schema prefix.

• Names containing spaces or special characters, names starting with a digit and reserved words are written in square brackets: [Order Details], [User].

• Primary keys and foreign keys are read from the database.

SELECT

Queries are executed by the server as written. Everything Transact-SQL supports is available: joins, sub-queries, GROUP BY, aggregate and window functions, UNION, common table expressions (WITH), TOP, OFFSET … FETCH, JSON functions, and so on.

SELECT * FROM Customers WHERE Country = @country ORDER BY CompanyName
SELECT c.CompanyName, COUNT(*) AS Orders
FROM Sales.Orders o JOIN Customers c ON c.CustomerID = o.CustomerID
GROUP BY c.CompanyName
SELECT TOP 50 * FROM Sales.Orders ORDER BY OrderDate DESC

INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE

INSERT INTO Customers (CustomerID, CompanyName, Country) VALUES (@id, @name, @country)
UPDATE Customers SET Country = 'IE' WHERE CustomerID = @id
DELETE FROM Customers WHERE CustomerID = @id

• Statements are sent unchanged. DDL (CREATE, ALTER, DROP, TRUNCATE), MERGE and multi-statement batches can also be executed.

• Saving records through a workflow target requires the table to have a primary key (used to locate the row to update or delete).

Stored procedures

Stored procedures are supported, with input, output, input/output and return-value parameters. Result sets returned by a procedure are available as records.

Parameters

Named parameters are written @name.

SELECT * FROM Sales.Orders WHERE CustomerID = @customer AND OrderDate >= @from

Transactions

Transactions are supported and are handled by the server.