Connect to SQL Server 2022 and Azure SQL Managed Instance (Beta)

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This documentation describes a public beta feature and is under construction. This documentation should not be considered part of our published documentation until this notice, and the corresponding Beta flag on the feature in the Sigma service, are removed. As with any beta feature, the feature discussed below is subject to quick, iterative changes. The latest experience in the Sigma service might differ from the contents of this document.

Beta features are subject to the Beta features disclaimer.

Requirements

• Your SQL Server 2022 must be either: on a virtual machine, be publicly accessible via Internet, or be an Azure SQL Managed Instance. Other versions of SQL Server are not supported.
• You must be assigned the Admin account type.
• You must have appropriate access in Azure to configure your database network settings.
• You must have a supported instance type. See Verify my instance type.

Verify my instance type

To verify your instance type, run the following query on your database instance:

select serverproperty('ProductMajorVersion'),serverproperty('EngineEdition')")

Instances with an EngineEdition of 1, 2, 3, 4 or 8, and aProductMajorVersion of 16.x are supported.

If your EngineEdition is 5, use the Azure SQL Database connection. See Connect to Azure SQL Database.

For information on interpreting the query output, see the Microsoft documentation on SERVERPROPERTY.

Create a SQL Server or Azure SQL Managed Instance connection

1. Click the user icon at the top right of your screen.
   The user icon is usually composed of your initials.

2. In the drop-down menu, select Add connection. The Add new connection page appears.

3. In the Connection Details section, specify the following:

   Name	Enter a Name for the new connection. Sigma displays this name in the connection list.
   Type	Select the SQL Server tile.

4. You must configure your database network settings to allow Sigma IPs. To do this, refer to the Azure documentation on Network Access Controls. The Sigma IPs can be found under the Server field in the Connection Credentials section.

5. In the Connection Credentials section, specify the following:

   Server	A fully qualified hostname or IP address. Refer to the Microsoft documentation on Connect to SQL Server.
   Port	The port through which Sigma can connect to your SQL Server. The default port is 1433.
   User	The username of the service account set up by your SQL Server administrator.
   Password	The password of the service account set up by your SQL Server administrator.

6. In the Connection Features section, specify the following:

   Connection Timeout	The time before timeout (or cancellation), in seconds, that Sigma waits for the query to return results. The default is 120, or 2 minutes. The maximum is 600, or 10 minutes.
   Use friendly names	This setting, which is on by default, makes column names from the data source more readable. For example, a database column ORDER_NUMBER appears as Order Number.

7. Click Browse Connection, then click Add permission to grant data access for users in your organization.

8. Use the navigation in the left panel to explore the schemas and tables in your connection. The new connection will also appear in the list of connections you have in your account.

   

Feature Limitations

Currently, SQL Server/Azure SQL Managed Instance connections don’t support the following features:

• Dataset warehouse views created in Sigma
• Workbook warehouse views
• Export to cloud storage
• OAuth connections
• Sigma result IDs cache
• User attributes for role and warehouse switching
• Write-back features: CSV uploads and input tables
• Geography data type
• All Geography functions: Area, Centroid, Distance, Geography, Intersects, Json, Latitude, Longitude, MakeLine, MakePoint, Perimeter, Text, Within
• All Passthrough functions
• The following Window functions: CumulativeCorr, MovingCorr, Median
• Custom SQL containing CTE's
• Sample connections