In my previous post here, we discussed how to assign Office 365 permissions to Azure SQL databases. In this post, I will explain how to setup a ODBC connection with Access 2016. This post assumes you have already setup your Azure SQL database so you have the servername, username and password to login.

 

  1. Download and install Microsoft Online Services Sign-In Assistant from here
  2. Download and install the Microsoft ODBC Driver 13 for SQL Server from here. (At the time of this writing v13 was the latest one.)
  3. Start Microsoft Office Access 2016
  4. Click External Data from the Office ribbon then click ODBC Database
  5. Click Link to the data source by creating a linked table then click
  6. Click the Machine Data Source tab at the top then click New
  7. Select the data source type and click Next
  8. Click ODBC Driver 13 for SQL Server then click Next, then click Finish
  9. Specify the connection Name, Description, Azure SQL Server address, then click Next
  10. Click With Active Directory Password authentication using a login ID and password entered by the user, then enter in your Azure Active Directory Credentials and click Next
  11. Click Change the default database to: and specify a database and click Next. (Note: If you do not specify a database, it will not work
  12. Once the connection is tested, click OK  you should be prompted for your Azure AD credentials again to complete the connection
  13. You should now have a list pulled from Azure SQL which you can link