You receive an “Explicit value must be specified for identity column” error message when you use the replication feature to run an INSERT statement on a table in SQL Server 2005

Consider the following scenario. In Microsoft SQL Server 2005, you use the replication feature to run an INSERT statement on a table. You do this by using one of the following methods.

Method 1

You run the INSERT statement manually when the following conditions are true:

• You do not specify the value of the IDENTITY column in the INSERT statement.
• You run the INSERT statement during synchronization.
• The table has an IDENTITY column for which the NOT FOR REPLICATION option is enabled.

Method 2

You run the INSERT statement in a trigger when the following conditions are true:

• You do not specify the value of the IDENTITY column in the INSERT statement.
• You run the INSERT statement during synchronization.
• During synchronization, a replication agent modifies a table. The table that is being modified contains a trigger that inserts a record into a second table.
• The second table has an IDENTITY column for which the NOT FOR REPLICATION option is enabled. Therefore, the INSERT statement in the trigger in the table that is being modified is run as a replication agent user.

When you use either of these methods, you receive the following error message when you try to use the replication feature to run the INSERT statement:NoteTableName is the name of the table on which you are trying to run an INSERT statement.