title: Concatenate always encrypted columns in SQL Server 2016
body: <p>I am trying to concatenate always encrypted columns in SQL server 2016 and I am getting the following exception. Please help...</p>
  
  <pre><code>One:
  
  (ISNULL(SGTC.FIRST_NAME, '') + ' ' + ISNULL(SGTC.MIDDLE_INITIAL_NAME, '') + ' ' + ISNULL(SGTC.LAST_NAME, '')) AS CLAIMANT_NAME 
  
  Two:
  
  SGTC.FIRST_NAME + '' + SGTC.MIDDLE_INITIAL_NAME + '' + SGTC.LAST_NAME AS CLAIMANT_NAME
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>And the error message is as follows:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Msg 206, Level 16, State 2, Line 2
  Operand type clash: varchar(50) encrypted with (encryption_type = 'DETERMINISTIC', encryption_algorithm_name = 'AEAD_AES_256_CBC_HMAC_SHA_256', column_encryption_key_name = 'CEK_POC_CERTSTORE', column_encryption_key_database_name = 'ALWAYS-ENCRYPT-UIM-WV-DB') collation_name = 'Latin1_General_BIN2' is incompatible with varchar
  </code></pre>