Active Directory and Office 365 Attribute Naming – the Ultimate Guide

Make sure to read this to fully understand Azure AD Connect replication and the Metaverse.

This article will give you a complete overview of the various attribute names that are transformed during the AD to AAD replication.

Attribute Name Changes From AD to AAD Connect Metaverse to AAD (Office 365)

First, let’s get an overview of the entire attribute mapping in the AD to AAD Connect to AAD replication (I used this script to extract the information).

The following table shows you the LDAP display name of AD user attributes, the name of the attributes in the Azure AD Connect Metaverse and the name of the attributes in Azure AD (Office 365):

AD / Metaverse / AAD – Attribute Names

(The list may differ from your installation depending on what Active Directory extensions you have made)

The keen eye will spot in the above table that some attribute names are changing during replication.

The table below lists the attributes that change their name during transit from AD via the Metaverse to Azure AD:

AD / Metaverse / AAD – Attribute Name Changes

Summary

It’s clear from the above table that you need to address certain attributes by different naming depending on your “point of entry”. On-premises Active Directory may use different attribute names than your Azure AD!

This is further complicated by the fact that your PowerShell scripting interfaces also change some of the names as described here.