Synchronize AD and Azure with PowerShell

Although the Azure AD Connect synchronization happens automatically every 30 minutes, it’s often nice to see your changes reflected in Azure sooner than that.

This means a lot of admins are triggering one or more Azure AD Connect synchronization daily.

There is no graphical user interface available for triggering the Azure AD Connect synchronization, so PowerShell is needed:

To trigger an Azure AD Connect synchronization with PowerShell, log in to your Azure AD Connect server and run the following command:

Start-ADSyncSyncCycle -PolicyType Delta

This PowerShell command will immediately start a delta synchronization of your Azure AD Connect. Easy-peasy!

But what if you’re not logged in to your Azure AD Connect server? Logging in to your Azure AD Connect Server is not very convenient for something you need to do frequently!

Remote Synchronization of Azure AD with PowerShell

In order to trigger a remote Azure AD Connect synchronization you use standard PowerShell remoting.

Create a session to the remote system and run the Start-ADSyncSyncCycle cmdlet using the two following commands:

Enter-PSSession DC-01
Start-ADSyncSyncCycle -PolicyType Delta

If all permissions are set up correctly for your user account you’ll see the following successful output:

PS C:\Windows\system32> Enter-PSSession DC-01
[DC-01]: PS C:\Users\adm.server.joe\Documents> Start-ADSyncSyncCycle -PolicyType Delta
 Result
 ------
Success

If one of the PowerShell commands throw an exception, please consider the following:

Enter-PSSession requires that you have access to perform remote PowerShell on the remote system. If you receive an Access Denied, please refer to this article.

Start-ADSyncSyncCycle requires that you have access to perform an Azure AD Connect synchronization. If you receive an UnauthorizedAccessException, please refer to this article.

Remote Azure AD Sync from AD Users & Computers

Easy365Manager is a snap-in extension to AD Users & Computers. With Easy365Manager, you can trigger an Azure AD Connect synchronization directly from user properties after making changes:

This means you no longer have to switch to PowerShell whenever you want immediate replication of AD user changes to Office 365. Instead, select the check box and click Apply.

With Easy365Manager, you even get automatic synchronization of newly created AD user accounts to Office 365.

This allows you to provision a synchronized AD/Office 365 user account in seconds – all done from within AD Users & Computers.

You can even assign Office 365 licenses from user properties in AD Users & Computers:

So, as you see, Easy365Manager offers a wholly integrated AD and Office 365 management solution that will save you tons of time.

Download your fully functional 30-day trial here. You can download, install and configure it in just a couple of minutes: