Active Directory attributes are not populated in hybrid environment

Modified on: Fri, 19 May, 2023 at 7:52 PM

Problem

You are in a hybrid environment and Active Directory attributes for users are not populated in Signature 365.

Reason

As standard only certain attributes are synchronised from your on-premise Active Directory to Azure AD.

Solution

Completing the steps below will ensure any additional Active Directory attributes you need in Signature 365 are synchronised from Active Directory to Azure AD, using either Azure AD Connect or Azure AD Cloud Sync tools.

Azure AD Connect

For information about the attributes that are synchronised by default see Attributes synchronized by Azure AD Connect.

You can enable Directory extension attribute sync and configure the attributes you wish to synchronise in the Azure AD Connect tool:

Open Microsoft Azure Active Directory Connect
Select Customise synchronisation options and press Next
Enter the credentials of an Azure AD global administrator and click Next
Select your Active Directory details to connect and click Next
Domain and OU Filtering will not need to be updated. Click next to proceed to the next step
On the Optional Features pane, tick the Directory extension attribute sync option and select Next
On the Directory Extensions pane, search for your desired attribute in the Available Attributes search box

You may also want to add extensionAttribute1 (user) through to extensionAttribute15 (user) to Selected Attributes in addition to your required attributes
Complete the wizard

Azure AD Cloud Sync

By default, the AD Cloud Sync tool will map all ExtensionAttribute(1-15) values in AD to the CustomAttribute(1-15) fields in Exchange Online.

The tool is also able to map any internal AD attribute to any of the CustomAttribute(1-15) fields.

To do this, you must follow these steps:

Log on to the Azure AD-AAD Sync portal and click on the Cloud Sync option in the menu
Select your current configuration
Select the Attribute mapping menu item and find the AAD attribute that you wish to synchronise to - for example ExtensionAttribute15, and click the Edit button
You must change the current mapping type to Direct, and map to the AD field that you wish to use - for example ipPhone

At the next sync and import, the fields will be populated in Azure AD, and the data will pull through to Signature 365.