Office 365 Directory Synchronization

Dirsync is required to support Single Sign On (SSO) and creates Mail Enabled Users (MEU) in the cloud tenant. Installing Dirsync allows you have a unified Global Address List (GAL) between on-premise and cloud (Office 365).  It also allows you to on-board/off-board users to and from Office 365 (this requires a 2 way sync).

Note: When user accounts are first sync’d they are marked as non-activated (therefore do not consume any licenses)

Here are the steps for installing and verifying Disync has completed. Also to verify Dirsync has completed check the event logs for:-

• Source = Directory Synchronisation with an Event ID of 4 ‘The export has completed’

1

Steps	Action
Activate directory synchronisation from the online portal	Sign in to the online portal https://portal.microsoftonline.com, under Admin (as per above steps) click users
Select ‘Activate’ Active directory Synchronization Note: User users that there are no synchronized users from your on-premise AD
Select Step 3 ‘Active directory Synchronization’ and click ‘Activate’
Select ‘Yes’ to activate Directory Synchronization
Now we need to install the Directory Synchronization Tool	Launch the Directory Synchronization Tool by double clicking on Dircync.exe
Click next on the welcome screen
Accept the license agreement and default install location
The Directory Synchronization Tool will install and click finish when it’s completed
On the Directory Synchronization server launch ‘directory Sync configuration’ and click next on the welcome screen
Specify your Office 365 administrator credentials
Specify Enterprise Admin credentials to create the service account Note: The credentials specified here are not saved or cached in memory.
Click Next on the configuration page
Verify the ‘Synchronize directories now’ is selected and click finish
Review the wizard and click ok
Verify users have been synchronized Note: If might take a few minutes for the user appear, if they don’t appear refresh your browser	Sign into the online portal https://portal.microsoftonline.com
All changes to the user account needs to managed on-premise and then the changes will synchronised to Office 365 by the directory synchronization tool.	On the home page, select ‘Admin’ the under management select ‘Users’
Directory synchronization will occur every 3 hours, but you can force synchronization if required	Navigate to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Online Directory Sync and Double-click DirSyncConfigShell.psc1. Then run Start-OnlineCoexistenceSync
Update your domain to a shared domain	On the home page, select Admin and then manage under Exchange Online (this takes you into the Exchange Control Panel (ECP))
	In the ECP, select ‘Mail control’ then ‘domains and Protection’ and select company.com as a shared domain

Written by Daniel Kenyon-Smith