diff --git a/smardigo/templates/connect/secret.yml b/smardigo/templates/connect/secret.yml
index 38cc55f..a948714 100644
--- a/smardigo/templates/connect/secret.yml
+++ b/smardigo/templates/connect/secret.yml
@@ -7,14 +7,17 @@ apiVersion: v1
 kind: Secret
 metadata:
   name: "{{ $secret_name }}"
+  annotations:
+    "helm.sh/resource-policy": "keep"
 data:
   # retrieve the secret data using lookup function and when not exists, return an empty dictionary / map as result
   {{- $secretObj := (lookup "v1" "Secret" .Release.Namespace "connect-secrets") | default dict }}
   {{- $secretData := (get $secretObj "data") | default dict }}
   # set $jwtSecret to existing secret data or generate a random one when not exists
   {{- $someSecret := (get $secretData "some-secret") | default (randAlphaNum 32 | b64enc) }}
-  some-secret: {{ $someSecret | quote }}
-  some-secret1: {{ $someSecret | quote }}
+  some-secret: {{ $someSecret | b64enc | quote }}
+  some-secret1: {{ $someSecret | b64enc | quote }}
+  some-secret2: {{ $someSecret | b64enc | quote }}
 
   JWT_SECRET: "{{ .Values.connect.jwt.secret | b64enc }}"
   ADMIN_PASSWORD: "{{ .Values.connect.database.password | b64enc }}"