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365AutomatedLab

First Snowfall of the Season

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First snowfall in NY! Tell me about the first time PowerShell just clicked… what was that moment?

Mine was adding new users to AD(it’s usually AD or Exchange, right?) and remembering the standard fields needed to be filled out with their default values. Also when we had multiple new hires it was so time consuming clicking through the GUI. That’s when I learned how to create an AD user with a CSV. It was life changing and realized I needed to do more of this.

Now I have a module that is meant to create Microsoft 365 test environments but can be used in production to create users, groups, and much more from an excel file without even having excel on the computer! You can check out the module below.

We all start somewhere and love hearing that light bulb moment that triggers the snowball effect!

365AutomatedLab
Powershell Gallery: https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/365AutomatedLab/2.11.0
GitHub: https://github.com/DevClate/365AutomatedLab

1k Downloads and more

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Wow, can’t believe it! 1,000 downloads of 365AutomatedLab! Thank you all! And I just want to start out saying apologies for not updating it more. Big work projects, summer, and life got in the way, but learned a lot and can’t wait to spread that info.

Still saddened that Microsoft hasn’t brought back the free Developer tenant program, but you can still use these in production to standardize adding and removing objects when dynamic groups aren’t an option. Please let me know if there are any features you wish it had, and I’ll see what I can do.

I did make a quick update to the module due to the PnP.PowerShell module changes where I removed the Connect-PnP in functions as you cannot use the old way anymore. I didn’t want you or others to be blocked from using those functions because of it, but will be adding back the newer way in the near future, I just want to find the best way to give you options to connect. If you already have a working function, I’d be glad to add it as well.

In addition to 365AutomatedLab, I’d been working on 365AutomatedCheck which is still in beta, but it checks if your 365 tenant is formatted and/or configured correctly to your company standards. Some of its capabilities are making sure that field values follow company standards, making sure phone numbers are filled in, and even on the fly correcting of those fields. This isn’t a Maester replacement, in fact all of the Pester tests work in Maester, and encourage you to add these to your Maester setup, but as of right now the auto correct fields function doesn’t work. Maybe we can make that happen!

Again, thank you for using 365AutomatedLab, as this is a fun side project for me, and never thought it would get this much traction. It’s a dream come true, and can’t wait to start working on it again!

Hope you have a great day!

365AutomatedLab
PowerShell Gallery: https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/365AutomatedLab/2.11.0
GitHub: https://github.com/DevClate/365AutomatedLab

365AutomatedCheck
PowerShell Gallery: https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/365AutomatedCheck/0.0.11
GitHub: https://github.com/DevClate/365AutomatedCheck

Maester
PowerShell Gallery: https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/Maester/0.3.0
GitHub: https://github.com/maester365/maester

PnP.PowerShell Announcement
https://github.com/pnp/powershell/issues/4250

365AutomatedLab and new companion module coming soon

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365AutomatedLab and new companion module coming soon

I promise I haven’t forgotten about 365AutomatedLab, but I’ll be honest after Microsoft made the announcement of no more new Dev tenants it hurt a bit as I know how useful they are on learning and testing features and PowerShell without hurting your production environment. 365AutomatedLab will still be used for people that have Dev tenants whether they are free or not, but you can use these functions in production as well.

Now about the new module, it hasn’t been released yet, but finishing cleaning it up to at least beta stage. I won’t say exactly what it does yet, but it is a companion to 365AutomatedLab in that it helps you keep your 365 tenant organized. A little teaser though, is that some of the parts will work with the amazing module Maester and if you don’t already use it, go install it now. Seriously, go do that and while that is downloading, think of ways you would like to see 365AutomatedLab improved.

Maester.dev – Test Automation Framework to keep control of your 365 security configuration
365AutomatedLab – Setup a 365 Tenant from an Excel Workbook

As always, thank you for taking the time and have a great day!

365Automatedlab V2.10.1 Released!

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I know I said every 2 weeks, but I lied. I wanted to get this out! It is now possible to add a manager when creating a new user. Also added a feature so that when you use the parameter -UseDeveloperPackE5 when creating new users and it will add the Developer license to all added users.

New-CTUser

  • Added “Add Manager” when creating new user
  • Add only Dev licenses option
  • Updated help
  • Allow some parameters to be empty

Added “Discussions” in GitHub for feature requests and general discussions

Let me know what you think and if you have any feedback or suggestions!

Have a great day!

PowerShell Gallery: https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/365AutomatedLab/2.10.1
GitHub: https://github.com/DevClate/365AutomatedLab

2.9.0 Released and Big Update

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I know it’s been a month, all good though! I think I may start doing monthly release, what are your thoughts? I was going to do every 2 weeks, but not sure if that is too quick.

Big update as I’m starting to make it more production environment ready, not that you can’t use it in production now, but I want to add a lot more parameters for the cmdlets. I need your help, please let me know what parameters are most important and feel free to make a contribution. I’m definitely open to PRs.

The reason for this switch is from the Microsoft Developer Tenant not accepting any new tenants, and want to help out the engineers that can’t get a test tenant, but want a way to mass add and remove objects in their 365 production tenants safely.

With that said, your feedback is even more important now as we don’t want to break anyone’s tenant 🙂

Now for the updates:

2.9.0

Updated Features

New-CT365User

  • CompanyName
  • EmployeeHireDate
  • EmplyeeId
  • EmployeeType
    • Employee, Contractor, Consultant, or Vendor.
  • FaxNumber

New-CT365DataEnvironment

  • CompanyName
  • EmployeeHireDate
  • EmplyeeId
  • EmployeeType
  • FaxNumber

Export-CT365ProdUserToExcel

  • CompanyName
  • EmployeeHireDate
  • EmplyeeId
  • EmployeeType
  • FaxNumber

365DataEnvironment.xlsx

  • CompanyName
  • EmployeeHireDate
  • EmplyeeId
  • EmployeeType
  • FaxNumber

Hope this helps you out and have a great day!

PowerShell Gallery: https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/365AutomatedLab/2.9.0
GitHub: https://github.com/DevClate/365AutomatedLab

365AutomatedLab V2.8.0 is released and 365 Dev Tenant Announcement Feelings

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I know it’s been a bit, but life has been a bit hectic. Also a bit saddened about the Microsoft announcement that you can no longer create new Free 365 Dev Tenants. I’m really hoping they revert that decision, or make the Dev Tenant even better. I honestly don’t think it’s a money grab, but more for security. If it is toot easy to create a temp tenant it is a great tool for bad actors. I’ll leave it at that for now, and will probably do a bigger blog post on it in the future.

365AutomatedLab is still here to stay though, as I want to make it quick as possible for you to test any situations you need to, especially if you have to pay for it. As always, you can use these in a production environment for your normal activities, but please test first. If you run into any issues, please create an issue so we can resolve and let others know for their environment.

With that said, you can now add a owner for a group, and if you don’t it will default to the User Principal Name you named in the parameters. It is only for a single owner for now, would you want to have it for multiple owners?

Hope you have a great day 🙂

GitHub: https://github.com/DevClate/365AutomatedLab/tree/main

PowerShell Gallery: https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/365AutomatedLab/2.8.0