Dirsync Filtering: missing-partition-for-run-step

Normally when you install Dirsync (Windows Azure Active Directory Synchronization Service), you synchronize your entire AD forest. This is the default configuration that Dirsync uses. However, sometimes it's useful (or at least comforting) to synchronize only part of your organziation at a time.

When you filter by organizational unit, there are no issues. You can select the specific OUs that you want synchronized an it will work.

When you attempt to filter by domain, you will get the following error that is visible in Synchronization Service Manager:

Step Type: Full Import (Stage Only)

Partition: DC=deselectedSubdomain,DC=domain,DC=com

Status: missing-partition-for-run-setup

Despite the fact the Dirsync graphical interface is perfectly fine with deselecting a domain, the scripts created during the installation for performing synchronization are not. You can view the code for the steps and probably could edit that code, but that's a little risky for my tastes. Instead the suggested work around is:

1. In each domain you want to filter, create an empty OU.
2. Configure OU filtering for each domain you want to filter to include only that empty OU.

It feels like cheating, and not very graceful, but it gets the job done.