Start-ADSyncSyncCycle -PolicyType Delta

A very popular Reddit post recently, and for a good reason, named this (in)famous Azure AD Connect synchronization command as the most commonly used PowerShell one-liner.

And honestly: How many times a day do you start a shell and fire off: Start-ADSyncSyncCycle -PolicyType Delta ???

Most likely, you’ve stopped counting long ago…

The “popular” Azure AD synchronization command triggers a manual synchronization between your on-prem Active Directory and your Azure/Office 365 environment. It’s needed to ensure that any change made to user properties on your local Active Directory gets reflected in your Office 365 environment, e.g., after setting a new primary mail address on a user.

The reason the command is needed so often is the fact that the default synchronization schedule only runs every 30 minutes:

PS C:\Windows\system32> Get-ADSyncScheduler

AllowedSyncCycleInterval            : 00:30:00
CurrentlyEffectiveSyncCycleInterval : 00:30:00
CustomizedSyncCycleInterval         :
NextSyncCyclePolicyType             : Delta
NextSyncCycleStartTimeInUTC         : 5/1/2019 12:56:26 PM
PurgeRunHistoryInterval             : 7.00:00:00
SyncCycleEnabled                    : True
MaintenanceEnabled                  : True
StagingModeEnabled                  : False
SchedulerSuspended                  : False
SyncCycleInProgress                 : False

So, unless you (and your users) are willing to wait up to 30 minutes to see your user property changes live in Office 365 – there you go again:

Start up PowerShell, connect to your Azure AD Connect server (if you’re not already logged in to it) and fire off yet another: Start-ADSyncSyncCycle -PolicyType Delta

Single-Click Synchronization with Easy365Manager

Now, wouldn’t it be nice if you could directly fire off AD-to-Azure synchronization after making changes to your users? That’s what we thought!

Easy365Manager is a plugin for AD Users & Computers which will add two new tabs to user properties and one new tab to group properties. The new tabs allow you to trigger Azure synchronization as well as Office 365 mailboxes, Office 365 licenses, and many other items.

Every time you make a change to the on-prem user account you have the option to tick the checkbox in the lower left corner, “Synchronize AD with Office 365”.

Once the checkbox is ticked, clicking OK or Apply will ensure that your Azure AD Connect server immediately starts a synchronization between your on-prem Active Directory and your Office 365 environment.

Basically, this means the end of endless daily runs of the Start-ADSyncSyncCycle command. And perhaps the beginning of using your time more productively?

With Easy365Manager you can edit all mail properties and this eliminates the need for on-premises Exchange (That’s right!).

You can read a full list of Easy365Manager features right here.

Easy365Manager is available as a fully functional 30-day trial here.