diff --git a/docs/deployment/reference.md b/docs/deployment/reference.md
index c489c32f..6b880546 100644
--- a/docs/deployment/reference.md
+++ b/docs/deployment/reference.md
@@ -44,6 +44,7 @@ parameters for the [rabbitMQ](https://github.com/bitnami/charts/tree/master/bitn
 | `app.defaultDIDFinderScheme`               | DID Finder scheme if none provided in request. If left blank, template will attempt to guess.                                                                       | -                                              |
 | `app.validateTransformerImage`             | Should docker image name be validated at DockerHub?                                                                                                                 | `true`                                         |
  | `app.defaultUsers`                         | Name of secret holding json file with default users to create on deployment                                                                                         | -                                              |
+| `app.sqlalchemyEngineOptions`              | String that will be interpreted as a Python dict, giving keyword arguments to the `sqlalchemy.create_engine()` function for the internal database. | - |
 | `didFinder.rucio.enabled`                  | Should we deploy the Rucio DID Finder?                                                                                                                              | `true`                                         |
 | `didFinder.rucio.image`                    | Rucio DID Finder image name                                                                                                                                         | `sslhep/servicex-did-finder`                   |
 | `didFinder.rucio.tag`                      | Rucio DID Finder image tag                                                                                                                                          | `latest`                                       |
diff --git a/helm/servicex/templates/app/configmap.yaml b/helm/servicex/templates/app/configmap.yaml
index 17e7bf56..808ad13a 100644
--- a/helm/servicex/templates/app/configmap.yaml
+++ b/helm/servicex/templates/app/configmap.yaml
@@ -54,7 +54,10 @@ data:
     {{ else }}
     SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI = 'sqlite:////sqlite/app.db'
     {{ end }}
-
+    {{ if .Values.app.sqlalchemyEngineOptions }}
+    # SQLAlchemy engine configuration
+    SQLALCHEMY_ENGINE_OPTIONS = {{ .Values.app.sqlalchemyEngineOptions }}
+    {{- end }}
     SQLALCHEMY_TRACK_MODIFICATIONS = False
     SECRET_KEY = 'some-secret-string'
     JWT_SECRET_KEY = 'jwt-secret-string'
diff --git a/helm/servicex/values.yaml b/helm/servicex/values.yaml
index 7d3079b4..b5df4888 100644
--- a/helm/servicex/values.yaml
+++ b/helm/servicex/values.yaml
@@ -28,6 +28,7 @@ app:
   tag: develop
   tokenExpires: false
   validateTransformerImage: true
+  sqlalchemyEngineOptions: null
 
 codeGen:
   uproot-raw: