Entra Connect Not Updating Mobile Number

Question

I am having trouble getting a mobile number on an AD-synced Entra account updated. The mobile number attribute is selected to sync in the Entra Connect configuration and shows new values are supposedly updated in the Entra Sync logs but does not reflect on the contact information page in Entra for the user. I'm not seeing any other attributes on the local AD account that would reflect the current value in Entra, so that tells me I am not just updating the wrong value.

I also saw that the mobile number field is 'editable' on the O365 profile, but fails to save after the change. I am assuming that is due to the AD-sync status of the account.

Has anyone else experienced this issue?

Answer 1

@Nick Ziff

Thank you for your time on the call today. As per our discussion you were facing an issue where you were unable to update phone number for few users in Entra ID via Entra connect.

Below are the steps that we took to resolve the issue.

Synchronized users properties cannot be changed from Microsoft Entra ID or Microsoft 365 admin portals, neither through any available PowerShell modules. Up until recently, the exception to this was the Microsoft Entra user’s attributes called MobilePhone and AlternateMobilePhones. These attributes are synchronized from on-premises Active Directory attributes mobile and otherMobile, respectively, but end users used to be able to update their own phone number in MobilePhone attribute in Microsoft Entra ID through their profile page. Changes to MobilePhone and AlternateMobilePhones attributes are no longer possible for Synchronized users except through the use of Microsoft Entra Connect or Microsoft Entra Cloud Sync.

When the Admin uses MsOnline or AzureAD PowerShell module or the user goes to MOP and updates the Mobile attribute, the updated phone number will be overwritten in Azure AD regardless of the object being synced from onpremises AD (DirSyncEnabled=true). Along with this update, Azure AD also sets the attribute "DirSyncOverrides = Mobile (1)" on the object to flag that this user had a Mobile phone set from Azure AD. From this point on, any update to the Mobile attribute coming from onpremises will simply be ignored by Azure AD as this attribute is no longer managed from on-prem AD.

We ran below commands to fix the issue,

• Install-Module Microsoft.Graph
• Connect-MgGraph -Scopes OnPremDirectorySynchronization.ReadWrite.All
• $directorySynchronization = Get-MgDirectoryOnPremiseSynchronization
• $directorySynchronization.Features.BypassDirSyncOverridesEnabled = $true
• Update-MgDirectoryOnPremiseSynchronization -OnPremisesDirectorySynchronizationId $directorySynchronization.Id -Features $directorySynchronization.Features
• Verify the status of the BypassDirSyncOverridesEnabled feature: (Get-MgDirectoryOnPremiseSynchronization).Features.BypassDirSyncOverridesEnabled 
• Once the feature is enabled, start a full synchronization cycle in Microsoft Entra Connect using the following command:  Start-ADSyncSyncCycle -PolicyType Initial

You can refer to below article to get more information,

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/identity/hybrid/connect/how-to-bypassdirsyncoverrides

Let us know if you have any further questions.

Please "Accept the answer" if the information helped you. This will help us and others in the community as well.

Answer 2

Hi @Nick Ziff

By default, On-prem 'mobile' attribute is synchronized to 'Mobile phone**'** attribute in Entra ID there is no configuration changes is needed.
May I know is this happen for one single user or multiple users?
Is your Entra connect server sync is working?
check whether there are any errors with the sync process, and follow the steps in this article to confirm the attribute value "flows" through the connectors/Metaverse:
Troubleshoot an object that is not synchronizing with Microsoft Entra ID

Hope this helps. If you still do not see enough information to isolate the issue, I've initiated a private message for a closer investigation. please let me know by responding in the Private message section.