Step-By-Step: Forcing Azure AD to Sync with On-Premise Active Directory

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Azure AD Sync is Microsoft's tool utilized to sync an on-premises Active Directory implementation with Azure AD. Azure AD will sync every 3 hours when implemented in a synchronization model by default. For some, 3 hours is too long of a gap to enable synchronization.

There are two ways to address this to quicken the sync.

  1. Reduce sync intervals by changing the Default 3 hour
     
  2. Forcefully sync data with Azure AD and PowerShell 

This demo uses an on-premise AD server running Windows Server 2016 TP4.

Option 1: Changing Default Sync Schedule

  1. Log on to the On-premises AD server that contains the AD sync tool installed as Domain/Enterprise admin
     
  2. Navigate to > Task Scheduler > Azure AD Sync Scheduler
     
    adsync1
     
  3.  Double click on the schedule > triggers tab. Double click on trigger to edit and define the time to sync.
     
     adsync2
     
  4. When you save it will ask which user account to use for the job. You can define service account to run this task.

Option 2: Forcefully sync data with Azure AD and PowerShell 

  1. Log on to the On-premises AD server which have AD sync tool installed Domain/Enterprise admin and load the PowerShell with admin privileges
     
     adsync3
     
  2. Change directory to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Azure AD Sync\Bin
     
    adsync4
     
  3. Run .\DirectorySyncClientCmd.exe which will run the syncadsync5