Comparing SharePoint Designer work flows with Visual Studio work flow

The following table provides a side-by-side comparison of the features and requirements for using SharePoint Designer and Visual Studio to create SharePoint workflows.

Feature / Requirement	SharePoint Designer	Visual Studio
Allows rapid workflow development	Yes	Yes
Enables reuse of workflows	A workflow can be used only by the list or library on which it was developed. However, SharePoint Designer provides reusable workflows that can be used multiple times within the same site.	A workflow can be written as a template so that after it is deployed, it can be reused and associated with any list or library.
Allows you to include a workflow as part of a SharePoint solution or app for SharePoint	No	Yes
Allows you to create custom actions	No. However, SharePoint Designer can consume and implement custom actions that are created and deployed by using Visual Studio.	Yes. However, be aware that in Visual Studio, the underlying activities, not their corresponding actions, are used.
Allows you to write custom code	No	No Note This is changed from previous versions. In SharePoint 2013, workflows are declarative only and Visual Studio relies on the visual design surface for workflow development.
Can use Visio Professional to create workflow logic	Yes	No
Deployment	Deployed automatically to list, library, or site on which they were created.	Create a SharePoint solution package (.wsp) file and deploy the solution package to the site (SPWeb).
One-click publishing available for workflows	Yes	Yes
Workflows can be packaged and deployed to a remote server	Yes	Yes
Debugging	Cannot be debugged.	Workflow can be debugged by using Visual Studio.
Can use only actions that are approved by site administrator	Yes	Yes

Announcing Office 365 API Tools for Visual Studio — Preview

Announcing Office 365 API Tools for Visual Studio — Preview

SharePoint Conference 2014 Recap - Doing Business with Office 365

SharePoint Conference 2014 Recap - Doing Business with Office 365

Active Directory and Share Point User List Sync Up

Share Point site collection only sync up the active user information in the user list.An active user is someone who has "contributed" to a site by doing more than just reading the content.  They have either uploaded a file or created a list item or changed some piece of metadata.  So if the user has only read information in a specific site collection then their updated information in their user profile will not be synced to that particular site collection.  The only way to fix it is to either remove them from the whole site collection and re-add them or have them change somethign on that site collection and then wait a couple hours

To sync the user profile information manually use below steps

Manually run the timer job - User Profile Service Application – User Profile to SharePoint Full Synchronization:
Open Central Administration
Click Monitoring
Under Timer Job, click Review job definitions
Click User Profile Service Application – User Profile to SharePoint Full Synchronization
Click Run Now

Share Point 2013 _layout folder location

In SharePoint 2013, there is new 15 hive

Physical Path: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\15\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS

Virtual Path: “/_layouts/15//”