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How to Connect to Office 365 using Powershell

Active Directory & Office 365 Reporting Tool

How to Connect to Office 365 using Powershell. Have you ever found yourself needing to manage Office 365 users, groups, and services, but the web based admin center just doesn’t cut it? In this situation, PowerShell is a great help. In this guide, I’ll teach you how to connect to Office 365 with PowerShell in two simple steps.

After, I will show you how to display all available commands for managing O365, and finally, I have some examples of tasks you can perform in Office 365 with PowerShell. 

Let’s start.

Also Read Get-AzureADAuditSignInLogs – Find Sign In Logs Last 30 Days PowerShell

How to Connect to Office 365 using Powershell

Step 1: Install the MSOnline PowerShell Module

As mentioned in my introduction, the first step to connecting to Office 365 via PowerShell is to install the MSOnline module.

Follow the steps below to install the module:

1. Search powershell, then, on the search result, with Windows PowerShell selected, click Run as Administrator. 

Windows will prompt you to allow the app to make changes to your PC; click Yes.

How to Connect to Office 365 using PowerShell. Run PowerShell as Administrator

2. When the PowerShell command console opens, run the command below.

The command opens your PowerShell session with the Unrestricted ExecutionPolicy. This allows you to run commands from the module you will download later. 

				
					powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted

3. Then, to install the MSOnline PowerShell module, enter the command below and press the Enter. 

				
					Import-Module MSOnline

The command may take a while to run. When it finishes, the PowerShell console returns to the prompt. 

run the Import-Module MSOnline

4. Before you proceed, confirm that the module has been installed on your computer by running the command below:

				
					Get-Module MSOnline

If you successfully installed the MSOnline module on your computer, the above command displays results similar to what is in the screenshot below.

Run the Get-Module MSOnline online

5. Finally, to display all the cmdlets (commandlets) in the MSOnline module, run the Get-Module.

				
					(Get-Module MSOnline | Select-Object ExportedCommands).ExportedCommands

The command returns all the cmdlets you can run once you connect to Office 365. The screenshot below shows the cmdlets in the MSOnline PowerShell module.

Note that some of the cmdlets are not shown in my screenshot.

Also Read Top 15 Office 365 PowerShell Commands (Users, Groups, Licensing)

Step 2: Connect To Office 365 With the Connect-MsolService Command

Once you have installed the MSOnline module and confirmed that the cmdlets are available on your computer, proceed with the steps below to connect to Office 365. 

1. Encrypt

Encrypt your Office 365 credentials and save it in a file called Office365.XML by running the command below:

Change UserName@DomainName.com to your Office 365 user name. The name MUST be specified in the UPN format, UserName@DomainName.com. Also, change the path – D:\PowerShellCred\ – to a path on your local computer. 

				
					Get-Credential UserName@DomainName.com | Export-CliXml -Path D:\PowerShellCred\Office365.XML

When you run the above command, Windows PowerShell requests that you enter the account’s password. Enter the password and click OK.

Also  How to Check if MFA is Enabled in Office 365 for Users

2. Decrypt

The next step is to decrypt the password and save it in a variable by running the Import-Clixml command as shown below:

				
					$ImpCred = Import-Clixml D:\PowerShellCred\Office365.XML -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Run the Import-Clixml command to decrypt encrypted password
3. Connect

Finally, connect to your Office 365 tenant by running the Connect-MsolService PowerShell command below:

				
					Connect-MsolService -Credential $ImpCred

If everything goes as expected, the command should run successfully, and PowerShell should return to its prompt.

Effectively, after running the command, it will appear that nothing happens. This means that you have successfully connected to Office 365 with PowerShell.

You can run available PowerShell commands from this point – see some examples in the next section.  

Connect to Officde 365 with the Connect-MsolService PowerShell command

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Also Read Microsoft Office 365 Group Types Explained — Best Practices

Examples of Commands You Can Run After Connecting To Office 365

Now that you’ve successfully connected to your Office 365, I show you common commands you can run. 

Get-MsolUser

The Get-MsolUser command is one of the commands you will likely run in Office 365. The Get-MsolUser command returns all users in your Office 365 tenant.

If you have a large user base, DO NOT run this command without filtering, as it may take too long to return all users in your account.

The screenshot below shows the result of the command against my O365. 

How to Connect to Office 365 using Powershell. Get-MsoIUser command

Earlier, I advised against running the Get-MsolUser command without any parameters. 

If you look closely at my screenshot above, you notice that the command result includes an isLicensed column which includes the boolean value, True or False. Based on this, you can use this command to return all users in your Office 365 tenant that are licensed. 

To return all licensed users, modify the Get-MsolUser command as shown below:

				
					Get-MsolUser | Where-Object {$_.isLicensed -eq $True}

This time, the Get-MsolUser command returned only users that have been assigned an Office 365 license. 

I hope you can clearly see the benefit of this command to you as an Office 365 Admin!

Run the Get-MsolUser command to return only users assigned O365 license

Before moving on to the next example, I share one more important task you can perform with the Get-MsolUser.

Use this command to get the Office 365 users that have been assigned a specific Office license type. 

If you know the license type you want to report for, run the comma below. The command returns all users that have been assigned the “ENTERPRISEPACK” license.

Replace ENTERPRISEPACK with the license type you want to return users for.

The last command works if you already know the license type. However, if you do not know the type of license available in your Office 365, run the command below to return all available licenses. 

Run the command 
				
					Get-MsolAccountSku

The command returns all Office 365 licenses available in your account. Also included with the result is the number of licenses available in your account (ActiveUnits column).

Additionally, you also get how many of the licenses have been used (the  ActiveUnits column).

The Get-MsolAccountSku command returns all available O365 License types

Once you have this information, you use the license name in the command below to return the users assigned to a particular license. Get the name of the license from the AccountSkuId column of the results of the last command. 

				
					Get-MsolUser | Where-Object { $_.Licenses[0].AccountSkuId -eq "ENTERPRISEPACK" } | Select-Object UserPrincipalName, DisplayName

For my Office 365, when I run the command below for a license type, it returns the result shown in the screenshot below:

Run the Get-MsolUser to return licenses types assigned to users

Also Read Azure AD Connect Force Sync PowerShell/ Synchronization Service Manager

Get-MsolDomain

Another important Office 365 command you can run is the Get-MsolDomain. As you would have guessed, this command returns all the domain names you have configured in your Office 365 account.

Here is the result of the command when I run it against my Office 365 account:

Get-MsolDomain command returns all domains in Office 365

Also Read Get-MgUser – Find and Export Azure AD Users with PowerShell

How to Connect to Office 365 using Powershell Conclusion

The Office 365 PowerShell module has a lot to offer. However, before you access the commands in the module, you have to connect to O365. 

In this guide, I showed you the steps to connect to your Office 365 account with PowerShell and run come common commands. 

Connecting to O365 via PowerShell is a simple two-step process:

  1. Install the MSOnline PowerShell module.
  2. Connect To Office 365 With the Connect-MsolService Command.

Once you have successfully connected, you list all the available cmdlets in the MSOnline PowerShell module by running the command below:

				
					(Get-Module MSOnline | Select-Object ExportedCommands).ExportedCommands
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Victor Ashiedu

Victor Ashiedu

Victor is an IT pro based in Manchester, UK. With over 22 years of experience managing Windows Server, Active Directory, and Powershell, and 7 years of expertise in Azure AD and Office 365, he's a seasoned expert in his field. When he's not working, he loves spending time with his family - a wife and a 5-year-old. Victor is passionate about helping businesses succeed in today's fast-changing tech landscape.
Active Directory Reporting

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