Translation Table Guide
How to Populate the Translation Table in PowerSyncPro
Written by Ethan Robinson
Updated at November 10th, 2025
The Translation Table is often overlooked, yet it is one of the most important parts of a migration project. It maps source users to their target accounts, providing the link needed for a successful transition. When the Migration Agent runs, it relies on this mapping to re-permission user profiles, files, and applications.
Without a populated Translation Table, devices will fail to re-permission and users may lose access to data. Think of it as the glue holding the migration together. Security Identifiers (SIDs) are an integral part of windows permissioning, this unique string helps identify users, groups or computer accounts. During the repermissioning phase of a PowerSyncPro migration the original (source) SIDs are replaced by the new (target) SID. The translation table is used by the migration agent to rewrite the SIDs. Therefore, always check and validate the Translation Table before running any migration batches in a production environment.
The translation table can be found under the migration agent section at the bottom of the navigation panel:
Luckily, it is generated for you provided you follow the steps:
1) Import users
In your directory config make sure you have allowed users to be imported, even if you are only using the Migration agent product and not directory sync you still need to import users to allow the translation table to be populated.
2) Create a sync Profile
- Even if you are only using the Migration Agent feature you still need to use and understand the sync service feature, directory sync is available for everyone for importing directory schema without a directory sync license, the license is only required on exporting objects to a directory.
- PowerSyncPro will need to import the machines that need to be migrated to register the agent successfully, and users will need to be imported to construct the translation table.
- The sync profile shown is only an example of how users can be imported. It should not be copied exactly, as every environment is unique.
- All users that need to be migrated with the Migration Agent need to be in scope of at least one of your sync profiles, to ensure that user appears in your translation table.
- Note the translation table will be created using any sync action, create only, create or update, update only or match only. But if you have only purchased a license for Migration agent, a match only sync profile is the best bet.
- set a matching attribute to link the source and the target users, this example matches on UPN, matches can be done on which ever attribute fits your environment. Provided the attribute value across source and target directories has the same value.
To rewrite your source UPN or mail attribute to the target ("first.last@source.com" -> first.last@target.com) you can raise a ticket with us to get assistance on mapping.
3) Check translation table
Your translation table should now be populated as expected
It is highly recommended to download the CSV and go through and ensure you are happy with the table, this check will prevent incorrect re-permissioning.
From PowerSyncPro version 3.2 onwards, the Batch UI displays the number of user profiles that will be translated when a specific batch is executed.
The Translations column includes a warning icon if no translations are detected (0 translations). When translations are present, the total number of translations for that batch is displayed. This feature is designed to help prevent migrations from being executed without any user profiles being translated.