Almost 3 years ago, I wrote an article on how to enhance the PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environment, or ISE. That seemed adequate for the Exchange admin back then, who mostly connected their PowerShell session to their his on-premises environment, and perhaps occasionally a bit of Exchange Online.
Fast forward to 2015, most modern Exchange administrators not only require a connection – if any – to their Exchange on-premises environment, but likely to one or more of the Office 365 services as well. This includes Exchange On-Premises, Azure Active Directory, Exchange Online Protection and perhaps even Skype for Business Online, SharePoint Online, Azure Rights Management Services or Compliance Center.
All these service use a different PowerShell session, use a different endpoint FQDN, and sometimes even require a locally installed PowerShell module. Likely common denominator is the credential used to access each of these services. So, tired of re-entering my credentials every time when switching from Exchange Online to Exchange Online Protection, I created a script with a set of functions to allow me connect to each individual Office 365 service or Exchange Online:
- Connect-AzureAD: Connects to Azure Active Directory
- Connect-AzureRMS: Connects to Azure Rights Management
- Connect-ExchangeOnline: Connects to Exchange Online
- Connect-SkypeOnline: Connects to Skype for Business Online
- Connect-EOP: Connects to Exchange Online Protection
- Connect-ComplianceCenter: Connects to Compliance Center
- Connect-SharePointOnline: Connects to SharePoint Online
- Get-Office365Credentials: Gets Office 365 credentials
- Connect-ExchangeOnPremises: Connects to Exchange On-Premises
- Get-OnPremisesCredentials: Gets On-Premises credentials
- Get-ExchangeOnPremisesFQDN: Gets FQDN for Exchange On-Premises
- Get-Office365Tenant: Gets Office 365 tenant name (SharePoint)
Note that functions and credentials used in the script are global, and in principle only need to be entered once per shell or ISE session. If you need different credentials, call Get-Office365Credentials again. User interaction is a very basic Read-Host, but it does the job.
Requirements
During initialization, the script will detect the modules which are required for certain Office 365 services. When not installed, it will notify you, and provide a link where to obtain the PowerShell module. The related Connect function will not be made available. The Azure Active Directory module also requires the Microsoft Online Sign-In Assistant to be installed. Needless to say, PowerShell is required to run this script, which is tested against version 4 (but should work with 3)
Usage
The functions are contained in a script called Connect-Office365Services.ps1. You can call this script manually from your PowerShell session to make the functions available. However, more convenient may be to have them always available in every PowerShell or ISE session. To achieve this, you need to edit your $profile, which is a script which always starts when you start a PowerShell or ISE session. By default this file does not exist and you need to create it, including the path. Also note that the files for PowerShell and ISE are different, Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1
and Microsoft.PowerShellISE_profile.ps1 respectively.
Now, of course you can copy and paste the functions from the script file to your own $profile. Better is to call the script from your $profile, as this allows you to overwrite the Connect-Office365Services.ps1 with updates. To achieve this, assume you copied the Connect-Office365Services.ps1 in the same location as your $profile, for example C:\Users\Michel\Documents\WindowsPowerShell. You can then make PowerShell and ISE call this script by adding the following line to the $profile scripts:
& “$PSScriptRoot\Connect-Office365Services.ps1”
Now when you start a PowerShell session, you might see the following:
This shows the Microsoft Online Sign-In Assistant and Azure Active Directory PowerShell module is available, and related connect functions should be available.
When you load the script from ISE, it will show something similar. However, it will also show ISE is detected and make all functions available through the Add-On menu:
Notes
Customize this script to your liking. For example, if you always want to connect to Azure Active Directory when connecting to Exchange Online, add Connect-AzureAD in the Connect-ExchangeOnline function, or when you always want to connect to a fixed FQDN for Exchange On-Premises, insert it in the script or – better – configure your $profile to predefine the FQDN, e.g. $global:ExchangeOnPremisesFQDN=’mail.contoso.com’.
Download / Revisions
You can download the script from the TechNet Gallery here. The TechNet Gallery page as well as the script contains revision information.
Feedback
Feedback is welcomed through the comments. If you got scripting suggestions or questions, do not hesitate using the contact form.
Filed under: Azure Active Directory, Exchange 2013, Exchange 2016, Office 365, Online Tagged: PowerShell, Script
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