Confused with User Profile Title, Job Title and people picker Title

Question

I'm seriously confused.

I have a User Profile services which is using User Profile Synchronization with two Configured Synchronization Connections. One Business Data Connectivity (BDC) connection, and one Active Directory connection. Under my "Manage User Properties" I have mapped "Title" to the Active Directory connection Source, using Attribute "title" and Direction "Import". I have mapped "Job Title" to my BDC connection also with "Import" direction.

When I look at an individual's "Manage User Profiles" page in Central Admin, the Title field is not updating reflective of what is in AD. However other fields, such as the "Work phone" (also from same AD connection) are updating correctly on Incremental Synch.

However, if I use a people picker, the correct updated job title as in AD is appearing with that user's name. So SharePoint is storing the correct AD title somewhere, it's just not getting picked up by my User Profile synchronization service, in the User's Profile Page and is not in the hidden user information list.

I have been doing only an Incremental Synchronization. What are the risks of doing a Full Synchronization (will I loose changes users have made - ie. uploaded photos, editing location, About Me etc.?)

Thank you!

Answer 1

If there is no change at the AD then User Profile Incremental or Full Sync will not change it even the value is changed in the SharePoint.

User Profile Sync keeps track of the values that have been synced from AD to SharePoint. It does not re-sync values that haven't changed in AD since the last time they were synced to SharePoint. Since you changed it in SharePoint after it was already synced and didn't make changes in AD the value didn't overwrite your changes. It doesn't sync every value every time.

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