Power Platform Community Forum Thread Details

Greetings, community. I was very excited to see the arrival of the SQL Server environment variables for Power Apps (blog post), but I'm running into issues actually setting up in conjunction with Fabric artifacts and am hoping this is just temporary. After I set up my server variable using my Entra ID integrated connection, I see this:

If I use the same settings inside a canvas app without trying to go the env. var route, I can connect to our Fabric Datawarehouse or Fabric SQL DB just fine.

Anyone have ideas or have success in their own environments?

Categories:

Building Power Apps

@arpost

You're not alone — several users are reporting issues when trying to use SQL Server environment variables with Microsoft Fabric artifacts (like Fabric Datawarehouse or SQL DB) in Power Apps, especially when using Microsoft Entra ID authentication.

Here’s a summary of what’s going on and what you can try:

What’s the issue?

When using SQL Server environment variables with Entra ID authentication, the connection to Fabric Datawarehouse or SQL DB fails or behaves inconsistently.
However, direct connections (not using environment variables) work fine in Canvas Apps .

What’s supported (as of now)?

According to Microsoft Learn :

Environment variables for SQL Server with Entra ID are supported and intended to simplify ALM (Application Lifecycle Management).
You can define:
- Server name
- Database name
- Table name
This feature is in preview or early access in some tenants, which may explain inconsistent behavior.

Possible limitations or causes

Fabric artifacts (like Datawarehouse) may not yet be fully compatible with SQL environment variables.
Preview feature: If your tenant or region doesn’t have full support yet, you may experience issues.
Connector mismatch: Ensure you're using the SQL Server connector, not the Dataverse or custom connector.
Authentication mismatch: Double-check that the Entra ID connection used in the environment variable is the same as the one that works directly in the app.