How Can I Manually Synchronizing the Learning Environment with Active Directory

Question

Our organization’s Active Directory server became available overnight, around the same time as the synchronization with the learning environment would normally take place. Can I manually synchronize the two systems?

Answer

The short answer is, you cannot manually start the task responsible for synchronizing user profile information in the learning environment with your Active Directory server.

It’s important to understand that if your Active Directory server is strictly used for authentication purposes, there is no need to synchronize it with the learning environment. When a user tries to log in, the learning environment will contact the Active Directory server in real time. If the Active Directory is back to its normal operation, authentication should work.

In the event that the learning environment retrieves data from your Active Directory (e.g. first name, last name, department), the retrieval is generally done overnight, when the server resources are not as busy as usual. The synchronization for an individual user may also be done (on some systems) when that user successfully logs in.

If your Active Directory happened to be unavailable when the learning environment tried to retrieve data from it, the retrieval process will have failed. You will have to wait until the next scheduled task to retrieve the data. If the missing data is for a specific individual, you can ask them to login the learning environment and there’s a possibility that their data may synchronize.