Force a manual sync

When should you force a sync?

RingSync keeps contacts up to date through periodic syncs scheduled by your IT admin. In some situations, you may want to trigger a sync immediately:

A colleague was just added to (or removed from) the directory and you need their contact now.
An admin has just finished reconnecting an expired token and wants to confirm everything works.
Your device was offline for an extended period and contacts may be stale.
You have just enrolled a new device and want to populate it immediately.

Force a sync from the mobile app

Open the RingSync app and go to the Directories screen.
Tap the card for the directory you want to sync.
Tap Sync now. The card transitions to a progress view showing the current page and total contacts processed.
Wait for the completion screen, which shows the count of contacts added, updated, and removed in this sync run.

If the directory card shows an error state (red border), resolve the underlying issue first — see Microsoft token expired or Sync stuck at zero.

Incremental sync

After the first full sync, all subsequent syncs — including manual ones — are incremental. Only changes since the last sync (new users, updated fields, removed accounts) are fetched. This is much faster than a full sync.

Force a sync from the back-office dashboard

Admins can initiate a sync job from the dashboard without access to a mobile device. This is useful for verifying that a directory is healthy after a configuration change.

Sign in to the back office and open the Dashboard.
In the directory list, find the directory you want to test.
Click the Run sync now button (the circular arrow icon next to the directory row).
A sync job is queued. The status column updates to Running, then Success or Error within a few minutes.
Click the job row in the Logs panel to see the detailed per-contact outcomes.

Admin sync vs. user sync

A sync triggered from the dashboard is associated with a specific user session on a specific device — it cannot push contacts to all enrolled devices at once. To populate a new device, the user must trigger the sync from their own phone. The dashboard sync is primarily a connectivity and health check.

What happens during a sync

The app calls the RingSync proxy (POST /api/sync) to create a sync job.
The proxy fetches the latest changes from Microsoft Graph using a stored delta link (or performs a full fetch if none exists).
The app receives user pages and writes each contact to the native address book, creating, updating, or deleting as needed.
The new delta link is saved on the device and backed up to the server.
The job is closed with a success or error status.

The phone never contacts Microsoft directly — all Graph calls go through the RingSync proxy.