If you are having issues with connecting your Bamboo products to your SharePoint server, fret not; we’re here to help!  If you go to install a Bamboo product on your server and receive the error “SharePoint was unable to connect to the database server,” this article has helpful information and steps you can take to resolve the error.

To begin, go to the Microsoft SQL Server and make sure that you cannot connect to SQL Server.  Your screen should be displaying the following message:

Next, go to Start > All Programs. In the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 folder, click Configuration Tools and select SQL Server Configuration Manager.

Click on SQL Server Services.  You will notice that the status of SQL Server (SQLEXPRESS) is listed as stopped. This is what is causing the connection error.

To start the service, click on the State of SQL Server (SQLEXPRESS) and select Start.

Verify-in the SQL Server Configuration Manager that the SQL Server (SQLEXPRESS) is running.

Return to the Microsoft SQL Server and connect to it.

You should now be able to successfully connect to the SQL Server.

Now that you are successfully connected to the SQL Server, go back to your startup program.  You should now be able to install your Bamboo products without any problems or error messages.

Questions? Check out our online documentation.