Powershell issue

peter-ere · 2022-04-22T05:30:36.000Z

A few thing that i would guess, unsure the use of ‘Format-Table’ in that context when you can just select the parameters you want thru the get-aduser command.

And the parameters you are using seem to not be the right ones.

Try to use

Get-ADUser -filter {SamAccountName -eq "paubry-at"} -Properties *

That’ll show all the parameters you can get out of it.

and then to display the better option would be :

Get-ADUser -filter * -Properties SamAccountName,Name,Description,Title,Department

divanmohr · 2022-04-22T05:34:19.000Z

@roguerabbit yea I saw that now, changed it to title but it’s still no pulling the required info.

@peter-ere Will give that a try.

peter-ere · 2022-04-22T05:34:52.000Z

And testing it, if you want to use a pipe, you have to display all the properties, like so :

Get-ADUser -filter * -Properties *| ft-Property SamaccountName,Name,Description,Title,Department

divanmohr · 2022-04-22T05:49:40.000Z

Peter-Ere:

And testing it, if you want to use a pipe, you have to display all the properties, like so :
Get-ADUser -filter * -Properties *| ft-Property SamaccountName,Name,Description,Title,Department

Doesn’t seem to like that

ft-Property : The term 'ft-Property' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.
At line:1 char:65
+ ... lter {SamAccountName -eq "dmohr"} -Properties * | ft-Property Samacco ...
+                                                       ~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (ft-Property:String) [], CommandNotFoundException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException

divanmohr · 2022-04-22T05:53:01.000Z

This worked though

Get-ADUser -filter * -Properties * | Format-Table SamaccountName,Name,Description,Title,Department

peter-ere · 2022-04-22T06:07:29.000Z

Yeah… sorry missed a space after the FT, my bad

divanmohr · 2022-04-22T06:17:52.000Z

All good.

Now the next challenge, using the output txt file (csv seems to export with a bunch gibberish for some reason) to update users attributes. We’re wanting to update Description, Title, Department and Manager.

We’ll create a file for each department with the correct users, alternatively we’d need to create OUs for each department

Import-Module ActiveDirectory  

$users = Get-Content -Path c:\powershell\ad_users.txt

foreach ($user in $users) {

Get-ADUser -Filter "employeeID -eq '$($user.employeeID)'" -Properties * -SearchBase "OU=Asia_Sales,dc=shellgeek,dc=com" |Set-ADUser -department $($user.department) -title $($user.title) 
}

 Get-ADUser -Filter 'Name -like "*"' -SearchBase 'OU=Sales,OU=UserAccounts,DC=shellgeek,DC=COM' -Properties DisplayName | % {Set-ADUser $_ -DisplayName ($_.Surname + ' ' + $_.GivenName)}

divanmohr · 2022-04-22T07:45:21.000Z

I’m trying to run the following

Import-Module ActiveDirectory  

$User=Import-Csv -Path "c:\test\testusers.csv"

foreach ($user in $User) {

Get-ADUser -Filter 'Name -like "*"' -SearchBase 'OU=Finance,OU=Users,OU=location,OU=domain,DC=RDM,DC=local' -Properties * | Set-ADUser -Replace @{department='Finance'} -description @{$user=.description}

}

With the idea that all users in the Finance OU get their department updated with Finance, but then have the command reference description from the csv file, this results in an error though

.description : The term '.description' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, 
verify that the path is correct and try again.
At line:7 char:192
+ ... r -Replace @{department='Finance'} -description @{$user=.description}
+                                                             ~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (.description:String) [], CommandNotFoundException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException
 
.description : The term '.description' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, 
verify that the path is correct and try again.
At line:7 char:192
+ ... r -Replace @{department='Finance'} -description @{$user=.description}
+                                                             ~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (.description:String) [], CommandNotFoundException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException
 
.description : The term '.description' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, 
verify that the path is correct and try again.
At line:7 char:192
+ ... r -Replace @{department='Finance'} -description @{$user=.description}
+                                                             ~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (.description:String) [], CommandNotFoundException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException

The following command works just fine

Import-Module ActiveDirectory  

$User=Import-Csv -Path "c:\test\testusers.csv"

foreach ($user in $User) {

Get-ADUser -Filter 'Name -like "*"' -SearchBase 'OU=Finance,OU=Users,OU=Somerset West,OU=RDM,DC=RDM,DC=local' -Properties * | Set-ADUser -Replace @{department='Finance'} 

}

But this won’t work when updating titles and description as those values are different for everyone

Any ideas?

Jonathan-Johnson · 2022-04-22T12:40:47.000Z

One thing I notice, your original post uses ‘samAccount’ which isn’t a valid attribute. A later post uses ‘samAccountName’ which is valid (and indicates a successful result).

Just wanted to highlight that as you may have not even noticed the difference if you copied someone else’s example in your trials.

Neally · 2022-04-22T18:03:44.000Z

Yuu should have really posted that in the powershell forum , let me ask a mod to cross tag it.

Neally · 2022-04-22T18:09:15.000Z

divanmohr:

Get-AdUser -Filter * | Format-Table SamAccount,Name,Description,Job Title,Department | Export-Csv -Path c:\Reporting

‘format-table’ breaks the object and ‘export-csv’ expects and object.

Also regarding " System.Object" that usually means there are multiple results returned for a single property.

ALso your properties are wrong

‘samaccount’ should be ‘samaccountname’,‘job title’ should be ‘title’

unless you want to rename them?

Get-AdUser -Filter * -Properties Description,Department,title |
select SamAccountname,Name,Description,title,Department | 
Export-Csv "c:\Reporting" -NoTypeInformation

if you want to rename them, you can use a calculated property.

Get-AdUser -Filter * -Properties Description,Department,title |
select @{n='samaccount';e={$_.samaccountname}},Description,
       @{n='job Title';e={$_.title}},Department | 
Export-Csv "c:\Reporting" -NoTypeInformation

Neally · 2022-04-22T18:15:03.000Z

divanmohr:

Import-Module ActiveDirectory

$User=Import-Csv -Path “c:\test\testusers.csv”

foreach ($user in $User) {
Get-ADUser -Filter ‘Name -like “*”’ -SearchBase ‘OU=Finance,OU=Users,OU=location,OU=domain,DC=RDM,DC=local’ -Properties * |
Set-ADUser -Replace @{department=‘Finance’} -description @{$user=.description}
}

this is terrible for multiple reasons:

you run it for each user, but then you select foreach user with the filter anyone who has any name value, it’s NOT what you want
you run properties *, why load ALL properties is you need like a handful?
replace accepts a hashtable

What does your CSV look like? what column / headers do you have in it?? that really determines how the code should look like.
If you have one called ‘description’ and ‘samaccountname’ :

You can still add the searchbase, but that’s confusing, does the CSV have the finance users you want to update or not?
You should not mix and match
Either have ALL users you want to update in the CSV
or ONLY pull the data from AD with a good filter, I’d not mix and match

$Users = Import-Csv "c:\test\testusers.csv"

foreach ($user in $Users) {
    Get-aduser $user.samaccountname |
    Set-ADUser -Replace @{
        department  = 'Finance'
        description = "$($user.description)"
    } 
}

johnr13 · 2022-04-22T22:13:17.000Z

I would use select- object instead format table. Hopefully that helps with the first step

divanmohr · 2022-04-25T03:46:23.000Z

Neally:

divanmohr:

Import-Module ActiveDirectory

$User=Import-Csv -Path “c:\test\testusers.csv”

foreach ($user in $User) {
Get-ADUser -Filter ‘Name -like “*”’ -SearchBase ‘OU=Finance,OU=Users,OU=location,OU=domain,DC=RDM,DC=local’ -Properties * |
Set-ADUser -Replace @{department=‘Finance’} -description @{$user=.description}
}

this is terrible for multiple reasons:

you run it for each user, but then you select foreach user with the filter anyone who has any name value, it’s NOT what you want

you run properties *, why load ALL properties is you need like a handful?

replace accepts a hashtable

What does your CSV look like? what column / headers do you have in it?? that really determines how the code should look like.
If you have one called ‘description’ and ‘samaccountname’ :

You can still add the searchbase, but that’s confusing, does the CSV have the finance users you want to update or not?
You should not mix and match
Either have ALL users you want to update in the CSV
or ONLY pull the data from AD with a good filter, I’d not mix and match
$Users = Import-Csv "c:\test\testusers.csv"

foreach ($user in $Users) {
    Get-aduser $user.samaccountname |
    Set-ADUser -Replace @{
        department  = 'Finance'
        description = "$($user.description)"
    } 
}

So the request is that we get all the users information from AD

Name	Department	Disabled	Display Name	Email Address	First Name	Last Name	Mobile Phone Number	Office	Parent Container	Parent Container (Reversed)	Primary SMTP Address	Telephone Number	Username	Username (pre 2000)

Not sure why they would want the Parent Container reversed either… but will do what’s asked.

For the above list used the following

Get-ADUser -filter * -Properties * | Select-Object Name,Department,userAccountControl,displayName,mail,givenName,sn | export-csv c:\test\ad1.csv

Get-ADUser -filter * -Properties * | Select-Object mobile,physicalDeliveryOfficeName,telephoneNumber,userPrincipalName,SamAccountName | export-csv c:\test\ad2.csv

Get-ADUser -filter * -Properties ProxyAddresses | select -ExpandProperty ProxyAddresses | ? {$_ -clike "SMTP:*"} | export-csv c:\test\ad3.csv

Get-ADUser -filter * -Properties cn |select canonicalName, @{n='ParentContainer';e={$_.distinguishedname -replace '^.+?,(CN|OU.+)','$1'}} |? { ($_.ParentContainer -notlike '*Builtin*')} | export-csv c:\test\ad4.csv

I know each command exports to a separate csv and I realise now this is rather messy as the SMTP export doesn’t show the results in the same order as the other csv exports. Once all the info has been compiled we’d want to use it to update users that don’t have information populated.

Apologies, my PS skills aren’t great at any measure so trying to learn.

divanmohr · 2022-04-25T09:39:54.000Z

Changed my command a little

Get-ADUser -Identity dmohr -Properties * | Select-Object Name,Department,Enabled,displayName,mail,givenName,sn,mobile,physicalDeliveryOfficeName,distinguishedName,telephoneNumber,userPrincipalName,SamAccountName

The output shows all the info I want but I want to get the primary SMTP address as well, just not sure how to get that info in the same output

adminofthings · 2022-04-25T11:34:02.000Z

For primary smtp address, you can look at the proxyaddresses attribute and extract the SMTP: value

Get-ADUser -Identity dmohr -Properties * |
    Select-Object Name,Department,Enabled,displayName,mail,
        givenName,sn,mobile,physicalDeliveryOfficeName,distinguishedName,
        telephoneNumber,userPrincipalName,SamAccountName,
        @{n='PrimarySMTP';e={@($_.ProxyAddresses) -cmatch '^SMTP:' -replace '^SMTP:'}}

divanmohr · 2022-04-26T03:34:13.000Z

AdminOfThings:

For primary smtp address, you can look at the proxyaddresses attribute and extract the SMTP: value

Get-ADUser -Identity dmohr -Properties * |
    Select-Object Name,Department,Enabled,displayName,mail,
        givenName,sn,mobile,physicalDeliveryOfficeName,distinguishedName,
        telephoneNumber,userPrincipalName,SamAccountName,
        @{n='PrimarySMTP';e={@($_.ProxyAddresses) -cmatch '^SMTP:' -replace '^SMTP:'}}

Thank you, this did the trick, however, once I add

| ft | Out-file c:\test\test.txt

Get-ADUser -Identity dmohr -Properties * |
    Select-Object Name,Department,Enabled,displayName,mail,givenName,sn,mobile,physicalDeliveryOfficeName,distinguishedName,telephoneNumber,userPrincipalName,SamAccountName,
    @{n='PrimarySMTP';e={@($_.ProxyAddresses) -cmatch '^SMTP:' -replace '^SMTP:'}} | ft | Out-file c:\test\test.txt

The results get cut off after distinguishedname, removing | ft displays everything correctly.

Neally · 2022-04-26T04:15:34.000Z

don’t use FT, as mentioned it breaks the object unless it is the last item in the pipe

learn.microsoft.com

Format-Table (Microsoft.PowerShell.Utility) - PowerShell

The Format-Table cmdlet formats the output of a command as a table with the selected properties of the object in each column. The object type determines the default layout and properties that are displayed in each column. You can use the Property...

also, please follow best practice, don’t use ‘FT’ but spell it out to ‘format-table’ if you use it.
PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING! Read if you're new to the PowerShell forum! .

format-table also truncates depending on the max size of the values in each column , so you have to add ‘-wrap’ and or ‘-autosize’

the best use for format-table is to display a few columns in the console.

just export it to a CSV, a nice clean flat-file format.

Get-ADUser -Identity dmohr -Properties * |
Select-Object Name,Department,Enabled,displayName,
mail,givenName,sn,mobile,physicalDeliveryOfficeName,
distinguishedName,telephoneNumber,userPrincipalName,SamAccountName,
@{n='PrimarySMTP';e={@($_.ProxyAddresses) -cmatch '^SMTP:' -replace '^SMTP:'}} | 
export-csv "c:\test\test.csv" -NoTypeInformation

You can open a CSV with notepad or you can rename it to text.

Also, please avoid using ‘-properties *’ I get it, it’s fast and easy but don’t put it into production scripts.

But let me tell you a ‘secret’ (well, it’s not super documented anyways), to show all your columns with ‘format-table’ you use an asterisk.

Format-Table *

basically telling format-table to select ALL properties.

Again, ‘-properties *’ and ‘format-table’ are great for ad-hoc and quick and dirty, but should not be part of a production script, IMO anyways. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Neally · 2022-04-26T04:17:56.000Z

26838b15-c243-49a3-9dcc-892921366f6a-2022-04-25_23-17-15.png800×98 12.1 KB

Just as a side note, this is ridiculously hard to read, from this I have no idea in what order you need them.

I know you already posted the attributes you need, but in general, for us to help you, we need to know what you want, and since it’s scripting the more detailed and the more precise the better. Help us help you and provide better input if possible. Please and thank you!

supaplex-starwind · 2022-04-26T12:03:24.000Z

divanmohr:

The output shows all the info I want but I want to get the primary SMTP address as well, just not sure how to get that info in the same output

Have you considered exporting all the data and properties into a CSV file, visually modifying and checking it, removing the columns you don’t need, and importing it afterward https://www.hyper-v.io/creating-bulk-user-accounts-ad-via-powershell/ ?