Recommended Steps:

In short, the recommended steps to manually do the syncronization is:

1. (Full/Delta) Import from on-premises directories, such as Active Directory
2. (Full/Delta) Import from Azure AD
3. (Full/Delta) Synchronization from on-premises directories, such as Active Directory
4. (Full/Delta) Synchronization from Azure AD
5. Export to Azure AD
6. Export to on-premises directories, such as Active Directory

Understanding the steps

The keys to understand the steps:

• Import (step 1,2) imports things from AAD or on-premise AD to the AAD Connect server for comparing purpose.
• Synchronize (step 3,4) doesn’t really make things change. Imagine it as comparing the things that just imported, and find the differences – it doesn’t change anything!
• Export (step 5,6) does make things change.

Behind the syncronization

If you are also interested in the “Run Statistics”, e.g. “Connectors with Flow Updates”, read the reference [2] below. This document is from an old product FIM 2010, which is renamed as MIM 2016 by now.

Are we talking about “AAD Connect”? Well… I didn’t find a document of AAD Connect about the statistics by now, if you find it, let me know. For now, read the reference [2] and just for reference.

References:

[1] Azure AD Connect Scheduler
[2] Agent Run Statistics (FIM 2010)
[3] Azure AD Connect sync: Configure filtering