How syncing works
ADAdmin manages your school's users and groups, but those users also need accounts in the platforms your school uses — Google Workspace, Microsoft Entra ID (Microsoft 365), Active Directory, and Apple School Manager. Syncing is the process that keeps those platforms in step with ADAdmin.
What syncing does
When you make a change in ADAdmin — creating a user, updating a name, adding a group membership, changing a password — that change is queued for provisioning. A background service called realsmart-provisioning processes the queue and applies the change to the relevant platform(s).
The result: the person gets a Google or Microsoft account, is added to the right shared drives or Teams, and has the correct access — all without manual work in each platform.
Supported platforms
| Platform | What ADAdmin provisions |
|---|---|
| Google Workspace | Accounts (create, update, suspend), organisational units, groups and memberships, passwords, Google Classroom classes and rosters, calendar timetables |
| Microsoft Entra ID | Accounts (create, update, disable), groups and memberships, passwords — plus licences, Teams and administrative units where you've switched them on in Microsoft Entra settings |
| Active Directory (on-prem) | Account creation and updates, through the connector on your own server |
| Apple School Manager | Roster export (users and classes), uploaded to Apple by SFTP |
Not every school uses every platform — only enabled platforms are synced. Each one is switched on under School settings → Sync services (see Enable or disable sync services).
When sync runs
There are two kinds of sync, and they run at different times.
Changes you make in ADAdmin are sent within minutes. Saving a user, resetting or setting a password on their page, adding someone to a group, restoring or deleting a user, and Sync now on a user's page all put that change on the sync queue. The provisioning service picks it up within minutes, for Google Workspace and Microsoft Entra alike. Passwords set through a password import are the exception: they wait for the next scheduled run. The one time this doesn't apply is the summer pause — see below.
Everything else runs on a schedule (UK time):
| What | When |
|---|---|
| MIS import — new starters, leavers, name changes and class changes come in from your MIS | Weekdays at 03:00, 05:00 and 15:00 |
| Google Workspace — the whole-school sync of accounts, organisational units, groups and memberships | 04:00, Sunday to Friday |
| Microsoft Entra — the whole-school sync | 06:00, Sunday to Friday |
| Google Classroom — creates new classrooms and keeps rosters in step with groups | 22:00, Sunday to Friday |
| Google Calendar timetables (if your school uses calendar sync) | From 03:45, Sunday to Friday |
| Classroom reporting data (if Classroom reporting is on) is read from Google | 16:00, Sunday to Friday |
| Subject groups (if Provision Subjects is on) | Weekdays at 05:45 |
| Leavers — people marked for suspension at least 24 hours earlier are checked against your MIS one last time and suspended if they're still missing. If Realsmart can't reach your MIS at that moment, nobody is suspended and the next weekday run tries again | Weekdays at 15:00 |
| Purge — suspended accounts past your retention period, and deleted accounts, are removed | Weekdays at 20:00 |
| Profile pictures from your MIS (if switched on) | Weekdays at 21:00 |
| Apple School Manager export (if its daily scheduled sync is on) | 02:00, every day |
| Holiday pauses — pupils' sign-in is switched off and back on as your pause dates start and end (see Holiday pauses) | Checked every five minutes; reaches Google and Microsoft within a few minutes |
Group changes from an MIS import are sent to Google as soon as that import finishes (if your school syncs groups to Google), so they don't wait for 04:00. A new starter from the MIS normally reaches Google straight after the import that brings them in, and at the latest at the next 04:00 Google sync. Microsoft Entra picks up MIS changes at its 06:00 sync.
No MIS import runs at a weekend. The Google, Entra, Classroom and calendar runs skip Saturday only, so Monday morning opens on fresh data. Changes you make in ADAdmin still go within minutes on any day.
To see when things next run, open Sync status → Schedule — see The sync schedule. It's published by the provisioning service itself, so it always matches what actually runs. It lists the main tasks only — Fetch school data, Process pending suspended users, Process profile pictures, Entra sync, Google sync and Subject sync — so Classroom, calendar timetables, Classroom reporting, the purge and the Apple export aren't on it.
Active Directory works differently. The connector on your own server collects changes from Realsmart each time it runs, on the schedule set up on that server. Apple School Manager is updated by its export, either the daily scheduled sync (02:00) or one you run by hand — see Apple School Manager settings.
To run a whole platform sooner than its schedule, use Sync status → Quick run, or Sync now on the Dashboard. See Trigger a manual sync and The Dashboard and Sync centre.
Over the summer, sync is paused from your final provision date until your resume date: no MIS imports run and nothing is sent to Google or Entra. That includes changes you make in ADAdmin — they're saved straight away and sent when sync resumes, or sooner for one person with Send now. See Cloud sync is paused.
What sync does and does not do
ADAdmin is the source of truth. The provisioning service reads from ADAdmin and writes to platforms. It does not read from platforms back into ADAdmin — changes made directly in Google Admin or Entra will be overwritten at the next sync.
Passwords are sent to platforms when set or reset in ADAdmin, and only where that platform's password-sync switch is on. A password set or reset on a user's page goes within minutes; passwords from a password import wait for the next scheduled run (see Password import for the per-platform detail). If a user changes their password directly in Google or Microsoft, that change is not pulled back into ADAdmin — but it will be overwritten if the password is reset from ADAdmin.
Deletions in ADAdmin suspend the person's Google account and disable their Microsoft account. They don't delete either. The deleted record itself is purged from Realsmart at the next weekday evening run (20:00), so Restore user only works until then. See What happens to a leaver's account?.
Groups inside groups are honoured on both Google and Microsoft, but each platform is given what it can accept. In Google Workspace the inner group is added as a member of the outer group, so Google understands the nesting itself. Microsoft 365 groups cannot contain another group, so there the inner group's people are written into the outer group's membership instead. Either way you manage one link in ADAdmin — see Put a group inside another group.
Why a change might not appear yet
- It came from your MIS and is waiting for the schedule. MIS changes arrive at the next weekday import, then reach Google and Entra as described in When sync runs. Changes you make in ADAdmin go within minutes. If you need a whole platform done now, trigger a manual sync.
- Sync is paused for the summer. Look for the Cloud sync is paused until … banner on the Users and Groups pages, or the Sync is frozen for the summer card on your Dashboard. See Cloud sync is paused.
- MIS sync is switched off, or set to Preview. On School settings → Sync services, the MIS sync card says MIS sync is OFF — turned off manually, or its mode is Preview. Either way nothing from your MIS is imported (see How the sync engine works).
- A sync error occurred — check the Sync status page for errors. See View sync status and logs.
- The platform is not connected — the school may not have that integration enabled, or its connection details are wrong. Use Sync status → Test connection (see Test connection).
- Realsmart paused it for safety. Removals from groups can be paused when far more would go than usual — look for a card on your Dashboard (see why). A person's group changes are also held back if their address is an alias on someone else's Google account (see User not syncing), and nobody can be added to a Google group whose address already belongs to a user or alias (see Group addresses in use).
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