Importing Contacts into Active Directory

Data Sync enables you to import large amounts of contact data in to Active Directory in one simple project. The following page will show you how to configure your project to do this.

The video below shows how you can use Data Sync to import your contacts into Active Directory

Create an OU to hold your Contacts

If you do not already have an OU to hold your contacts, you need to start by creating one.

You can create a new Organisational Unit (OU) in Active Directory by opening 'Active Directory Users and Computers', right clicking onto your container in the left hand menu, then going to New > Organisation Unit.

For this example we have created a new OU called Contacts that we will synchronise our contact data into.

Connect to your Source (Contacts)

You now need to connect Data Source A to your data source that contains your contact data.

You can see an example of the data we are using in this guide below:

Connect to your Target (Active Directory)

Now connect to the AD Contacts OU. To do this you need to use the Active Directory V2 - Users/Contacts/Groups/Computers provider to connect and change the DefaultAttributes dropdown to Contacts.

Make sure to enter any credentials you need to connect to your Active Directory and then enter in the LDAP Path to your contact OU. In this example our LDAP Path would be : LDAP://OU=Contacts,DC=lab,DC=simego,DC=com.

Configure the Schema Map

Add the columns you need to the schema map and map these to their corresponding columns in Active Directory.

For contacts your key column will be the contact name, make sure to map this to the DS-CN column so that Data Sync handles the lookup for you.

Compare and Synchronise the Results

To add the Contacts to your Active Directory you need to click the Compare A > B button. This will enable you to preview the additions or changes being made to your Active Directory.

If it shows delete actions do not panic, these are disabled by default. If you want to enable deletes you will need to set EnableDelete to True on the target.

If you want to run a test on one contact rather than the whole dataset then deselect the check-boxes using the clear all button and then check the check-box against the record you want to add.

Now click the Synchronise button and then Start to begin the sync to add your contacts to Active Directory.

To check the data has been synchronised successfully you can either browse your AD for a user account or you can click onto the Preview data source in the target window.

Your contact data has now been imported into Active Directory.