Hello,
transformations are always synchronous to the code that triggered them, so there is no general setting to switch them between being asynchronous and synchronous. In relation to CMIS there typically is no tranformation of any kind involved, so I don't know what you want to be synchronous when uploading a file via OpenCMIS. You might have set up some (custom) rules / behaviours in Alfresco for transformation which you need to make sure trigger transformation actions synchronously. Depending on the approach you take, this is either configuration at runtime (no file/XML) or coding at development time (XML + Java/JavaScript).
Can you provide some more information on what kind of transformations you are talking about that need to be run synchronously? Then it'd be simpler to give a pointer to the correct / simplest approach…
Regards
Axel