PowerShell: Manage your O365 - Step by Step

In this article, let’s see how we can use PowerShell and start with the scratch in getting into O365.

The scenario that we are talking about assumes that the user has created a tenant in the office 365 environment. No further changes in terms of domain/users etc. has not been performed.

Import PS Module

Import PowerShell Online Module: Before doing any of the below tasks, we need to download the commands and functions. By default, PowerShell doesn’t include the commands. So run the below command which will load the Online command modules;

Import-Module MSOnline

Login

Login to Office 365 tenant: Now after loading the module, we need to connect to the Office 365. The Connect-MsolService cmdlet will initiate a connection with Microsoft Azure Active Directory.

This first command will prompt for the credentials and pass it on in the second command that will authenticate with your tenant.

$msolCredentials = Get-Credential

Connect-MsolService -Credential $msolCredentials

List down authorized Domains:

The below cmdlet is used to retrieve the associated domains under the given tenant. Here we check the existing domains.

Get-msoldomain | fl

Add Domain:

The cmdlet is used to create a new domain object in the given Office 365 tenant environment. Once completed a domain entry will be displayed under the domain list. However, the verification is still under pending.

New-MsolDomain –Authentication Managed –Name scko.info

Domain Verification

Domain Verification Part 1:

Is used to return the details of the DNS records that need to be set to verify a domain. Values for Mode are DnsMXRecord and DnsTxtRecord where you will use the values in your DNS Registrar.

Get-MsolDomainVerificationDns -DomainName scko.info -Mode DnsTxtRecord

Domain Verification Part 2:

Used to confirm ownership of a domain. Once you have added the above TXT or MX records to your DNS list, you run the below command which will run the verification from Office 365 end to verify and confirm the domain ownership.

Confirm-MsolDomain –DomainName scko.info

List down authorized Domains:

 Now we will use the cmdlet again to retrieve the associated domains.

Get-msoldomain | fl

Note: Please note that after this step, the retrieval of the DNS records associated with Office 365 services (Exchange/SharePoint/S4B etc) needs to be done using the web based Office 365 Admin page. You cannot retrieve the related DNS records through PowerShell.

Note: Adding Licenses needs to be done from the web portal.

Check Office 365 License:

The below cmdlet will list all the SKUs that the tenant owns.

Get-MsolAccountSku

At this point we have finished the following;

• Tenant Creation

• Domain adding and verification

User creation

In the next step we will look at user creation.

Create Single User:

The cmdlet will create an individual account.

New-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName jude@scko.info -City Colombo -State Western -Country "Sri Lanka" -DisplayName "Jude Perera" -FirstName Jude -LastName Perera -Password admin@123 -UsageLocation LK -LicenseAssignment jcpciex:ENTERPRISEPACK

Note: If the license assignment is done at this point the USAGELOCATION and LICENSEASSIGNMENT parameters are required. The value for the LicenseAssignment can be obtained through the Get-MsolAccountSku cmdlet

Office 365 User Attributes

New-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName -City -Country -Department -DisplayName -FirstName -LastName -MobilePhone -PasswordNeverExpires -State -StreetAddress -Title -UsageLocation -LicenseAssignment

Get User Details:

The command will retrieve the user information for the given users UPN

Get-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName jude@scko.info |fl

Now that we have learnt how to add a single user and what attributes we can associate it with, lets see how we can do a bulk import. This is especially useful when you are creating the users at first or having to add multiple users at a single time.

In preparation for this task we need create the users and attributes in CSV format. The below table lists sample data and the attributes that will be imported to Office 365.

Sample CSV file can be downloaded from here.

Bulk Import:

The below cmdlet will import the users and attributes from the given CSV file

Command 01:

$users = Import-Csv "D:\Demo ITPro\Office365Users.CSV"

Command 02:

$users | ForEach-Object{

New-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName $_. UserPrincipalName -City $_.City -Country $_.Country -Department $_.Department -DisplayName $_.DisplayName -FirstName $_.FirstName -LastName $_.LastName -MobilePhone $_.MobilePhone  -State $_.State -StreetAddress $_.StreetAddress -Title $_.Title -UsageLocation $_.UsageLocation -LicenseAssignment $_.LicenseAssignment

}

Password Configuration:

The below command can be used to enable(true) or disable(false) the requirement of Strong Passwords for users

Get-MsolUser | Set-MsolUser -StrongPasswordRequired $false

Password Change:

If you wish to change the passwords of your users in bulk mode, the below import method can be used.

The import method will import a list of users, their UserPrincipleName and the new Password along with the Set-MsolUserPassword cmdlet. You can use a CSV file with below format.

Import-Csv "D:\Demo ITPro\Office365Users.csv" | % {

Set-MsolUserPassword -UserPrincipalName $_.UPN -NewPassword $_.password -ForceChangePassword $false

}

Create Office 365 User Groups:

The New-MsolGroup cmdlet is used to add a new security group to the tenant. Note that creating groups does not mail enable them. Mail enabling a group needs to done with the help of the Microsoft Exchange Online PowerShell module which we will look in a later stage.

New-MsolGroup -DisplayName "Security Group" -Description "Security Group"

View Office 365 Groups:

The below cmdlet will list down with the Groups and all related attributes.

Get-MsolGroup | fl 

Adding users to Group: Adding users or members to a group is not simple as the browser based controls. The Add-MsolGroupMember cmdlet is used to add members to a security group. The new members can be either users or other security groups. The group memberships totally depends on Group and User ID’s under the user/group properties.

Add-MsolGroupMember -GroupMemberObjectId <Guid> -GroupObjectId <Guid> [-GroupMemberType <string>] [-TenantId <Guid>] [<CommonParameters>]

-GroupMemberObjectId <Guid>: The object ID of the member (User or Group) to add to the group. The ID of the group to add members to. To get the value, run the Get-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName singleadd@scko.info | fl command. The Users ObjectID is shown in the below screenshot.

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-GroupObjectId <Guid>: The ID of the group to add members to. To get the value, run the Get-MsolGroup | fl command. The Groups ObjectID is shown in the below screenshot.

Now we will combine the above values to add the User “Single Add” to the new group we created earlier.

Add-MsolGroupMember -GroupObjectId 1a3edbb9-ec64-4184-bd22-5df4ae830158 -GroupMemberObjectId  52db4e40-bd95-426b-9c5a-bc752ceb044e

Once the member is added, now we run the below command to check the member adding

Get-MsolGroupMember -GroupObjectId a0b12555-e840-4f53-a857-91e41b69dbf0

Part 1 is done. In the coming days let's see how we can use PowerShell to connect to Exchange Online services and manage things.

Until then, happy (power)shell'ing :-)