Is there a way for me to ignore case when doing a direct mapping join rule in the synch engine? example: SQL MA field DISPLAYNAME joined to metaverse attribute DisplayName.... user might have JOHN DOE in SQL but be John Doe in the metaverse. It won't join on that.

I've not tested this, so, if it doesn't work as-is, then no. You'll want to use an advanced join rule and implement MapAttributesForJoin.My Book - Active Directory, 4th Edition My Blog - www.briandesmond.com

So then, how hard is it to change case to match common provisions....i.e....change the case of the fist letter of each word in Display name to be capital and lower case every other character? Is there an example of this kind of rules extension out there somewhere?

Have a look at this http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms696016(v=vs.85).aspx. What you do is give Sync a list of values it can use to test the join against.My Book - Active Directory, 4th Edition My Blog - www.briandesmond.com

If you're using declarative rules and are therefore limited to the relationship criteria, you tend to run into a bit of difficulty as the data translations are not necessarily available to you. When using declarative rules, I have found it to be beneficial to create "join" values in the Metaverse entries themselves. For example, I have a field that may be all upper case in a SQL server but mixed case in Active Directory. Depending on the sequence of the join, I may consider pushing in an all uppercase version of the data from AD so that the SQL data can easily join on it using the declarative rules. This takes a bit of planning because a non-standard mixed case may cause you heartache. But essentially, I move the data changes that I would make in the map attributes for join and give it its own attribute in the MV. Seems to work in most cases I've had to deal with and that allowed the client to remain happily within the declarative rules and the limitations of the relationship criteria themselves. Thanks B