Certain synchronized users are missing the User Type value, suspected to be due to Azure AD Connect not populating the attribute during sync

Question

Certain synchronized users are missing the User Type value, suspected to be due to Azure AD Connect not populating the attribute during sync

Answer 1

Hello Wallace,

Thank you for posting question on Microsoft Windows Forum!

Based on the issue description. Well! By default, Entra Connect does not map a UserType attribute from on-premises Active Directory. Because standard on-premises AD does not have a built-in "UserType" field, the sync engine passes a blank value to the cloud. Normally, Entra ID handles this on its end by automatically defaulting any incoming synchronized user to Member.

On one hand, Microsoft introduced the UserType attribute on August 31, 2014. If these missing users are older accounts created/synchronized before that date, and they haven't had any major on-premises attribute changes since then to force a full cloud-side recalculation, Entra ID leaves their UserType completely blank (null). On the other hand, if your environment has custom sync rules deployed. For instance, mapping an on-premises attribute like extensionAttribute1 to UserType to manage B2B internal guests and that attribute happens to be empty for these specific users in AD, Entra Connect will explicitly pass an empty string or a null value. This effectively overrides the cloud's default fallback logic, leaving the user with no type assigned.

The suggestion here is to confirm whether you are using Entra Connect Sync or Cloud Sync. Cloud Sync also leaves UserType unmapped by default unless you add it manually. In Synchronization Service Manager, verify that UserType exists in the Microsoft Entra connector schema and that the inbound/outbound rules are present. It is also worth to check one affected user in the sync engine to see whether UserType is flowing into the metaverse and then to Entra ID.

For further reference, you can consult the following articles for addressing your concerns.

• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/identity/hybrid/cloud-sync/how-to-map-usertype
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/identity/hybrid/connect/how-to-connect-sync-change-the-configuration

Hope the above information is helpful! If it is. Free feel to hit "Accepted" for benefitting others in community having the same issue too.