Connect Azure Database for PostgreSQL to Excel, Sheets and AI

PgBouncer is handled, not just tolerated

Azure's flexible server ships an opt-in PgBouncer on port 6432 of the same host, running in transaction mode. Transaction mode is the one that quietly breaks clients, so the agent changes its own behaviour when it sees that port.

• Auto-prepare is switched off. Npgsql's auto-prepare uses named prepared statements, and a named statement does not survive the backend being handed to someone else between transactions.
• The session is not reset on close, because in transaction mode the connection you are returning is not the one you will get back.
• Neither is yours to configure. Choose the pooled mode, or paste a string with 6432 in it, and the right behaviour follows.
• It does have to be turned on at the Azure end first — PgBouncer is a server parameter on the flexible server, not something that is simply there.

The two mistakes this card refuses to let you make

Both of them produce an error message that tells you nothing useful, which is why they are caught in the form instead.

• A port that disagrees with the mode. Pooled with anything but 6432, or direct on 6432, is rejected with the reason rather than passed through to a timeout.
• A username carrying an @servername suffix. That was the retired single server's format; on flexible server it produces an authentication failure that looks like a wrong password, so the card names it as a format problem instead.
• A password with leading or trailing whitespace is flagged too. It is almost always a clipboard artifact and it fails as an opaque auth error.

TLS is not left to the checkbox

The Use SSL box is on by default, but the agent does not depend on you leaving it that way.

• Every .postgres.database.azure.com host is connected to with TLS required, whatever the box says. A string that lost its ?sslmode=require in the clipboard still connects encrypted.
• This is enforcement, not a default: it is a property of the Azure preset in the agent rather than a value copied from the form.
• Certificate chain verification is not performed — the connection is encrypted, and that is the honest description of it.

-- Reads run against the flexible server exactly as written
SELECT   c.name,
         COUNT(o.id)   AS orders,
         SUM(o.amount) AS revenue
FROM     public.customers AS c
JOIN     public.orders    AS o ON o.customer_id = c.id
WHERE    o.placed_at >= now() - interval '30 days'
GROUP BY c.name
ORDER BY revenue DESC;