Use environment variables with Entra auth for SQL Server schemas and tables

Business value

When you use custom schema names in the same database to partition your database for dev, test, and prod environments, use environment variables to save time when deploying your application from dev to test and prod. Instead of manually dropping and re-adding data sources between dev, test, and prod environments, use environment variables to speed up the transfer between these environments.

Feature details

Many customers use schemas for development, test, and production environments to manage application lifecycle management (ALM). To access a table, you must specify the schema explicitly because the default dbo schema isn't available. You need a four-part reference that includes the server, database, schema, and table name.

For example:

<myserver>/<mydatabase>/<DEV>/<mytable>

versus

<myserver>/<mydatabase>/<PROD>/<mytable>

Current SQL environment variables support only the server and database name. They work under the assumption that you use separate databases for development and production environments, so you can't use four-part references. This feature enables you to specify the schema name as an environment variable. Power Apps binds to specific table names, so the table name stays the same across environments even if the schema name changes. With this feature, you can use SQL environment variables in your apps when you use schemas for development, test, and production environments.

Geographic areas

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Language availability

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