Office 365 upload users via CSV file

[Davit2005]

A few years ago I got this working with Live@EDU but that was a few years ago now.

 

I'm trying a simple command from the Azure PowerShell window

 

 

Import-Csv -Path c:\apps\office365\1.csv | ForEach-Object {New-MsolUser -FirstName $_.FirstName -LastName $_.LastName -UserPrincipalName $_.UserPrincipalName -DisplayName "$($_.FirstName) $($_.LastName)" -LicenseAssignment 'OUTPUT OMITED' -UsageLocation GB}

 

No matter where I put the -UserPrincipalName it fails saying 'New-MsolUser : You must provide a required property: Parameter name: UserPrincipalName'

 

 

The account is still partially created and the user can login to Office 365.

 

If you put all the settings in the above command instead of reading from the csv then it works perfectly.

 

Please help I can't afford to pull any more hair out

 

How do other people do this ?

[timbo343]

I used to create everything in excel and then import with the import via csv through the GUI. Thats the bulk add option by the way. Edited January 9, 2014 by timbo343

[Michael]

It's better to bulk upload through the GUI (as above). Remember unlike Live@Edu, Office 365 requires you to allocate licenses to users (even if you're using the free A2). You can do this during the import process. I also believe you're limited to 250 users per CSV file too.

[Davit2005]

Thanks Michael,

 

Unfortunately with the GUI it can't be automated, been a college we could have in Excess of 4,000 students enroll every September.

 

I've heard about the 250 limit but we may be able to do something trick with that within SQL for that.

 

With Live@EDU it used to be a right pain through the GUI so we used to do a PowelShell.

[Michael]

Thanks Michael,

 

Unfortunately with the GUI it can't be automated, been a college we could have in Excess of 4,000 students enroll every September.

 

I've heard about the 250 limit but we may be able to do something trick with that within SQL for that.

 

With Live@EDU it used to be a right pain through the GUI so we used to do a PowelShell.

 

I think it's fair to say the interface is definitely 'better' than what it was with Live@Edu.

 

Personally I think with a number like 4000 pupils, (in addition to staff) an SSO solution would be better and everything would sync with your existing Active Directory setup. It can be somewhat fiddly, but would automate the procedure when pupils come and go.

[Davit2005]

Definately looking at the SSO side

 

But still unsure about the provisioning of users i.e. assigning licenses to users.

 

Not looking at rolling out till September 2014 but I know Live@EDU took me a good few months to prepare with other work committments

 

Thanks for help

[jamesbmarshall]

Definately looking at the SSO side

 

But still unsure about the provisioning of users i.e. assigning licenses to users.

 

Take a look at this: Deploying Office 365 Education? You don't need single sign-on, and here's why!

 

You should look at DirSync, that will take care of your user sync, and password sync. As for licences this can be wrapped up in a PowerShell script that you can run whenever you add new users.

[Davit2005]

Anyone got any sample scripts for the powershell,

 

The following command:

 

Import-Csv -Path c:\apps\office365\1.csv | ForEach-Object {New-MsolUser -FirstName $_.FirstName -LastName $_.LastName -UserPrincipalName $_.UserPrincipalName -DisplayName "$($_.FirstName) $($_.LastName)" -LicenseAssignment 'OUTPUT OMITED' -UsageLocation GB}

 

No matter where I put the -UserPrincipalName it fails saying 'New-MsolUser : You must provide a required property: Parameter name: UserPrincipalName'

 

 

The account is still partially created and the user can login to Office 365.

[Davit2005]

Help please, can anyone can point me in the right direction of commands that will upload a csv via PowerShell, we need this method as doing 4000+ a year via the GUI is not reasonable.

 

If this can be done via setting up active directory Sync is it possible default the Licence/subscriptions for users or how would we do that.

 

Also is it possible to tie down the users information page like you could in Live@EDU

 

We are on the A2 Educational Plan if that makes a difference.

 

I have already set up my computer to talk with Office365 via powershell.

 

[Boredguy]

We are using DirSync to create our 365 users since it's easier then worrying about CSV files all the time.

 

We have a powershell script that runs on a regular basis that takes 50 unlicensed student users and applies the relivent A2 permission, as well as the adjusted policies that we created to lock down what users can update in their profile

The full script can be found in this thread

[Davit2005]

Currently we only have a local domain internally within the domain i.e. something.local . Will this cause problems if we use any king of AD Sync tool or can we change the users as they sync with Office 365?

[Boredguy]

If your AD is different to your Office 365 Domain, all you need to do it add your external domain in AD Domains and Trusts as an additional UPN suffix (Right click the AD Domains and Trust top node when you open the console and go to properties ), and then for your users, select that UPN suffix instead of your .local one.

 

Unless you have any other strange programs on your network that use the UPN suffix you should be fine. Test it with a couple of users if you are not sure what might break.

[Davit2005]

Well yesterday I had success at last with the csv upload via powershell

 

I run a script to create a variable to disable Lync and in the upload command I can assign the license. When looking on the Office 365 the user is assigned the correct license with Lync disabled as we wanted.

 

The next thing is to apply an additional licence to apply the Office Plus user license that we have through our VL agreement or maybe create a variable to add the licenses required for the user at time of csv upload. Or alternatively run the script afterwards for all the users.

[Davit2005]

If your AD is different to your Office 365 Domain, all you need to do it add your external domain in AD Domains and Trusts as an additional UPN suffix (Right click the AD Domains and Trust top node when you open the console and go to properties ), and then for your users, select that UPN suffix instead of your .local one.

 

 

I think we should be alright with that obvoiusly will have to test.

 

Whether ADFS would make the authentication any easier I'll have to investigate, I realise that if our ADFS servers are not available users will not be able to authenticate to Office365 but hopefully within the year we should have a bit of resilience for AD, Internet etc. on a second site with any luck.

[Boredguy]

I would go for DirSync first since it keeps it easier (ie if your servers are down they can still login to 365 with their current network password.)

The powershell string for assigning the Office Advantage is in another thread in this forum section and can be set at the same time as disabling Lync.