How to Force Manual Azure AD Connect Sync

How to manually force Azure AD to sync with your on premise AD, when they are connected with Azure AD Sync/Connect.

This assumes you’ve already fully, and properly configured your sync to run.

Step 1: Sign into the server (on-prem) where Azure AD Connect Runs…

Either remotely, or physically, log in to the server that syncs with Azure AD..

Step 2: Operations

Navigate to the operations Tab/Pane

Step 3: Running a Step

To run a step, the easy way, highlight a previous instance of it in the list, and press CTRL + F5. When the prompt appears, just press enter.

To avoid conflicts and data loss, always ensure that the previous step has completed before running a new step.

Step 4: Manual Steps

There are 8 Steps/Profiles you’ll need to run to complete a full cycle. It’s imperative to run these steps in this order, to avoid conflicts, and data loss.

In the operations pane, the order of operations is reverse chronological by default (the most recently run profile will be at the top of the list)

1. AAD – Export
2. On-Prem – Export
3. On-Prem – Delta Import
4. AAD – Delta Import
5. On-Prem – Delta Sync 6.AAD – Delta Sync
6. AAD – Export
7. On-Prem – Export

Step 5: Open the Sync Service

On the server Running Azure AD Connect, open the Synchronization Service

Now you’ve successfully run through a full sync cycle (NOT a Full Synchronization), which typically runs, at minimum, every 30 minutes.

There are plenty of situations where this may be useful, but ultimately, if you find yourself reading this, I assume you don’t need to be told what it’s useful for.