Category Archives: Automation

Populating Sharepoint Choice Column with Entra Group Names

If you want to allow users in Sharepoint to select e.g. security groups or teams from a dropdown in a List and don’t want to manually keep that list of choices up to date….this is for you!

I’ve used Power Automate Flow for this specific scenario, but Logic Apps will of course work just as well.

First, define some variables and retrieve all the groups you want to show up in the Choice column:

Then, create a string with all the group’s names using a simple loop:

Then use ‘Send an HTTP request to Sharepoint’ to retrieve current columns (fields) defined in the list if you don’t know the GUID yet. This step is optional and uses GET to the _api/web/Lists/GetById(”)/Fields method.

Finally, use another Send an HTTP request to Sharepoint to Patch the column definition of the Choice column with the new group names.

Note we’re using PATCH for the _api/Web/Lists(guid”)/Fields(guid”) method and that I’m removing the trailing comma (,) from the data we’re patching in.

Also note that if you’re not using multiple choice but single choice you’ll need to adjust the SP.FieldMultiChoice and 15 values.

Multi threading in ADDRS

I’ve added basic multi-threading to ADDRS: https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/ADDRS/1.1.8

This solely ensures that the most compute intensive task (caching sizes/performance) is not repeated between jobs. You’ll still have to handle running multiple jobs using your own preferred method, e.g. foreach -parallel, runspaces or start-job. Example:


$scriptBlock = {
    Param(
        $vm,
        $measurePeriodHours,
        $workspace,
        $token
    )
    import-module ADDRS -force
    Login-AzAccount -AccessToken $token.Token -AccountId $token.UserId -Tenant $token.TenantId
    set-vmRightSize -doNotCheckForRecentResize -targetVMName $vm.Name -domain "lieben.nu" -measurePeriodHours $measurePeriodHours -workspaceId $workspace.CustomerId -Verbose -maintenanceWindowStartHour 22 -maintenanceWindowLengthInHours 3 -maintenanceWindowDay 6
}

Publishing an MSIX as CIM to AVD in a Pipeline

I wanted to put this out there as it felt like a nifty way to pipeline AVD MSIX files into AVD without any user interaction (other than a pipeline kicking off the script).

https://github.com/jflieben/assortedFunctionsV2/blob/main/publish-MSIXPackageToHostpool.ps1

Basically, above will grab the MSIX file from a known Azure Fileshare (after mounting). It’ll read the MSIX’s primary CIM file for meta data, use the Azure Rest API to add it to the hostpool and then updates a param file of an ARM template which can be used to e.g. update the appgroup in Azure.

You’ll need some background knowledge to re-use above in your specific situation 🙂

Code example:

#create the MSIX package object in the hostpool. Ensure the lastUpdated value is always unique otherwise it will fail to overwrite an existing package with the same value
$apiPostData = @{
    "properties" = @{
        "displayName" = if($packageMeta -match "(?<=<DisplayName>)(.*?)(?=<\/DisplayName>)"){$matches[1]}else{Throw "No display name found in AppManifest"}
        "imagePath" = $imagePath
        "isActive" = $True
        "isRegularRegistration" = $False
        "lastUpdated" = (get-itemproperty $packageFolder.FullName).LastWriteTimeUtc.AddSeconds((Get-Random -Minimum "-150" -Maximum 150)).ToString("yyyy-MM-ddThh:mm:ss")
        "packageApplications" = $packageApplications
        "packageDependencies" = @()
        "packageFamilyName" = "$($packageShortName)_$($packageFamily)"
        "packageName" = $packageShortName
        "packageRelativePath" = "\MSIXPackages\$($packageFolder.Name)"
        "version" = $packageVersion
    }
}

#send the actual API request to register the package in the hostpool using the pipeline serviceprincipal
try{
    $context = [Microsoft.Azure.Commands.Common.Authentication.Abstractions.AzureRmProfileProvider]::Instance.Profile.DefaultContext
    $token = [Microsoft.Azure.Commands.Common.Authentication.AzureSession]::Instance.AuthenticationFactory.Authenticate($context.Account, $context.Environment, $context.Tenant.Id.ToString(), $null, [Microsoft.Azure.Commands.Common.Authentication.ShowDialog]::Never, $null, "https://management.azure.com")          
    Invoke-RestMethod -Uri "https://management.azure.com/subscriptions/$((get-azcontext).Subscription.id)/resourcegroups/rg-common-$($environment)-weeu-01/providers/Microsoft.DesktopVirtualization/hostPools/vdhp-common-$($environment)-weeu-01/msixPackages/$($packageFolder.Name)?api-version=2021-07-12" -Method PUT -UseBasicParsing -ContentType "application/json" -Body ($apiPostData | convertto-json -Depth 15) -Headers @{"Authorization"="Bearer $($token.AccessToken)"} -ErrorAction Stop
}catch{
    Write-Output $_
    closeCIMSession
    Throw
}

Guest report & cleanup new features

My script / runbook to automatically report on stale Guests and clean them up has received some updates

  • Exclusion Groups

Guests in Exclusion groups will never be deleted, even if they are in an Inclusion Group

  • Inclusion Groups

Guests in Inclusion Groups will be deleted if they meet the age requirements, all guests not in an inclusion group will be ignored

  • ReadOnly mode

Will pretend to delete guests are per configured settings, but won’t actually delete anything

download from git: https://gitlab.com/Lieben/assortedFunctions/-/blob/master/get-AzureAdInactiveGuestUsers.ps1?ref_type=heads

Map Onedrive profile Dir to O: at logon

For a basic scenario where users are unwilling or unable to navigate to the Onedrive folder in their profile, the following script will ensure all users on a given machine get their Onedrive profile folder mapped to the O: drive, it auto-installs as scheduled task at logon.

https://gitlab.com/Lieben/assortedFunctions/-/blob/master/set-scheduledTaskToInstallODriveToOnedriveAtLogon.ps1