What is the best way to store secrets in Business Central?

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Posted on by Fatou Kiné

We want to store an azure client secret to be used in a code unit to generate JWT tokens for sending HTTP requests.

We have explored the key vault option but we are using business central online with a Per-Tenant Extension which does not seam to support key vault integration (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/business-central/dev-itpro/administration/setup-app-key-vault).

Which other secure options do we have to achieve this?

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Dynamics 365 Business Central

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Aman Kakkar 3,532 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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Hi,

One option that works well in PTEs is using the SecretText data type. I've used this approach before to store and use client secrets securely inside AL code.

FYI - Protecting sensitive values with the SecretText data type - Business Central | Microsoft Learn

Create a setup field and set ExtendedDatatype = Masked. This ensures the user can enter the value, but cannot read it afterward.

field(7; "Client Secret"; Text[2048]) { Caption = 'Client Secret'; ExtendedDatatype = Masked; ToolTip = 'Azure AD Client Secret.'; }

Inside your codeunit (e.g., when generating JWT or OAuth tokens), convert the stored value into SecretText:

procedure GetSecretKey() var SecretKey: SecretText; begin SecretKey := SecretText.SecretStrSubstNo(Setup."Secret Key"); end;

The advantage of SecretText is:

It cannot be directly converted back to plain text

It avoids exposure in debugging, errors, and telemetry

Do mark as verified if this helps.

Aman K

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OussamaSabbouh 17,521 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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Hello,

For a Per-Tenant Extension, your only secure option is to store the secret using IsolatedStorage + SecretText, or move the JWT generation to an Azure Function that reads the secret from Key Vault.

Direct Key Vault access is not supported for PTEs.

Regards,

Oussama Sabbouh

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YUN ZHU 101,995 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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Hi, hope the following can give you some hints.

Business Central 2025 wave 2 (BC27): ‘Concealed’ text field type for sensitive data (New field-level property: MaskType)

https://yzhums.com/67761/

Thanks.

ZHU

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Fatou Kiné 45 on at

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Hi,

Thanks for your replies.

Regarding Aman's suggestion :

I like this approach but I have a small concern. Between the retrieval from the table and the assignment into the secret text, are there any chances for the secret to be exposed? Is the NonDebuggable attribute enough in this case?

Regarding Oussama's suggestion :

I'm not familiar with IsolatedStorage but from what I read so far, it seams to be very secure with capabilities to encrypt the value stored. To your knowledge, are there any downsides or limitations using this approach? I'll dig further.

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Aman Kakkar 3,532 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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Hi @Fatou Kiné,

Great question — and yes, the NonDebuggable attribute is sufficient to prevent exposure of the secret during assignment. You can safely use this attribute when reading the value from your setup table and converting it into SecretText.

Microsoft explicitly recommends this pattern in their documentation for handling sensitive values within extensions. You can check the below screenshot as well -

Source - Protecting sensitive values with the SecretText data type - Business Central | Microsoft Learn

Do mark as verified if this helps.

Aman K

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Fatou Kiné 45 on at

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Thanks Aman.

Your response was very helpful.

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Gerardo Rentería Ga... 27,054 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Hi, good day
I hope this can help you, and give you some hints.

Securely Storing Secrets in Business Central Using Isolated Storage - Fredborg

Best Regards
Gerardo

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