Category Archives: Exchange Online

Azure, AzureAD, EMS, Exchange Online, Intune, Office 365

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Pivot table of all Microsoft cloud suites and their features

I’ve updated the Microsoft cloud suites feature comparison page with all other suites Microsoft including all their features. I’ve also added all Education sku’s. You can use the pivot table to sort / mix / match according to your exact needs. If you need any assistance with Microsoft 365, don’t be a stranger 🙂

Exchange 2010, Exchange Online

Name must be unique per owning mailbox. There’s already a request with the name

1 Comment

While migrating some public folders to Office 365 Groups, I kept running into issues with one of the target groups:

“De gebruiker XXX heeft al een aanvraag die in behandeling is. Verwijder de bestaande aanvraag en hervat de huidige batch of start een nieuwe batch voor deze gebruiker. –> Name must be unique per owning mailbox. T”

In english you’ll probably see “Name must be unique per owning mailbox. There’s already a request with the name “.

I figured there was a moverequest hanging / not properly cleaned up; but none to be found with get-moverequest, get-migrationuser or get-migrationbatch; all clean!

In the end, it took almost 2 weeks of patience after contacting support until the Exchange Online backend team reset a hanging job on their end. So if you google above errors and come here, check if you have double jobs, if you don’t, request support and make sure they escalate to the product team immediately.

Automation, Exchange Online, Office 365, Powershell

Exchange Online reconnect script v2

5 Comments

A few weeks ago I posted a script that would automatically, periodically, reconnect to Exchange Online. In field testing it would still prompt for credentials after 1-2 days, whatever I did.

So I took a different route and am now rewriting Microsofts’ module on the fly to no longer prompt for credentials. If you use below function to connect to Exchange Online, you should never receive reconnect prompts 🙂

disclaimer: don’t overwrite $o365Creds with invalid creds elsewhere in your script as those are used globally.


function buildResilientExchangeOnlineSession {
    Param(
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)]$o365Creds,
        $commandPrefix
    )
    Write-Verbose "Connecting to Exchange Online"
    Set-Variable -Scope Global -Name o365Creds -Value $o365Creds -Force
    $Session = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://outlook.office365.com/powershell-liveid/ -Credential $o365Creds -Authentication Basic -AllowRedirection
    Import-PSSession $Session -AllowClobber -DisableNameChecking
    Write-Verbose "Connected to Exchange Online, exporting module..."
    $temporaryModulePath = (Join-Path $Env:TEMP -ChildPath "temporaryEXOModule")
    $res = Export-PSSession -Session $Session -CommandName * -OutputModule $temporaryModulePath -AllowClobber -Force
    $temporaryModulePath = Join-Path $temporaryModulePath -ChildPath "temporaryEXOModule.psm1"
    Write-Verbose "Rewriting Exchange Online module, please wait..."
      $regex='^.*\bhost\.UI\.PromptForCredential\b.*$'
    (Get-Content $temporaryModulePath) -replace $regex, "-Credential `$global:o365Creds ``" | Set-Content $temporaryModulePath
    $Session | Remove-PSSession -Confirm:$False
    Write-Verbose "Module rewritten, re-importing..."
    if($commandPrefix){
        Import-Module -Name $temporaryModulePath -Prefix $commandPrefix -DisableNameChecking -WarningAction SilentlyContinue -Force
        Write-Verbose "Module imported, you may now use all Exchange Online commands using $commandPrefix as prefix"
    }else{
        Import-Module -Name $temporaryModulePath -DisableNameChecking -WarningAction SilentlyContinue -Force
        Write-Verbose "Module imported, you may now use all Exchange Online commands"
    }
    return $temporaryModulePath
}




download: https://gitlab.com/Lieben/assortedFunctions/blob/master/buildResilientExchangeOnlineSession.ps1
Exchange Online, Powershell

Exchange Online Reconnect script

2 Comments

I’ve seen and known many scripts that interact with Exchange Online for extended periods of time. After a while, Exchange Online likes it if you reconnect, this can be an Impliciet Authentication popup, or it can simply drop you based on what command you’re using.

If you call the following function every loop in whatever you’re doing, it’ll automatically force a reconnect to Exchange Online every hour (adjustable if you prefer longer):

Edit: read v2 of this post 🙂

Note: if you run this script in an Exchange Shell, something in the Exchange Shell modules will still prompt for reconnects every 1-2 days. In a normal PS window, I’ve verified it working for up to a week until it asks for a reconnect.