Forum Discussion

Brass Contributor

Jun 24, 2022

Solved

Need help importing user data from csv

I need to fill in the Manager Attribute for employee accounts using a CSV export from HR. I have the added bonus of the fact that SamAccountNames do not follow a consistent naming convention. So I ne...

Active Directory (AD)

powershell

LainRobertson

Jun 28, 2022

Harm_Veenstra

Hey, Harm.

I'd strongly recommend using the -Filter parameter in the Get-AD* calls, as you're current pulling every single user in Active Directory client-side before filtering anything - twice.

In smaller environments, that won't be an issue, but it'll run into scalability issues rather quickly.

Using your original example, something like this would be more efficient in medium to large directories:

$csv = import-csv c:\scripts\accounts.csv
foreach ($line in $csv) {
    $user = Get-ADUser -Filter "employeeID -eq '$($line.EmployeeID)'";          # Here, we're now leveraging server-side filtering.
    $manager = Get-ADUser -Filter "employeeID -eq '$($line.SupervisorID)'";     # And again here.

    if ($user -is [Microsoft.ActiveDirectory.Management.ADUser] -and $manager -is [Microsoft.ActiveDirectory.Management.ADUser])
    {
        # We only want to be in here where we got precisely one user and one manager, otherwise we have no way to arbitrate who gets updated with what.
        Set-ADUser $user -Manager $manager
    }
}

Cheers,

Lain

Harm_Veenstra

MVP

Jun 27, 2022

Baron164 I've just tested this in my test DC and this should work:

$csv = import-csv c:\scripts\accounts.csv
foreach ($line in $csv) {
    $user = Get-ADUser -Filter * -Properties EmployeeID | Where-Object EmployeeID -eq $line.EmployeeID
    $manager = Get-ADUser -Filter * -Properties EmployeeID | Where-Object EmployeeID -eq $line.SupervisorID
    Set-ADUser $user -Manager $manager
}

together with this CSV file

"LAST_NAME","FIRST_NAME","EmployeeID","SupervisorID"
"User1","Test","1","3"
"User2","Test","2","3"

Which results into this (Test User2 as example having Test user 3 as manager now )

LainRobertson

Silver Contributor

Jun 28, 2022

Harm_Veenstra

Hey, Harm.

I'd strongly recommend using the -Filter parameter in the Get-AD* calls, as you're current pulling every single user in Active Directory client-side before filtering anything - twice.

In smaller environments, that won't be an issue, but it'll run into scalability issues rather quickly.

Using your original example, something like this would be more efficient in medium to large directories:

$csv = import-csv c:\scripts\accounts.csv
foreach ($line in $csv) {
    $user = Get-ADUser -Filter "employeeID -eq '$($line.EmployeeID)'";          # Here, we're now leveraging server-side filtering.
    $manager = Get-ADUser -Filter "employeeID -eq '$($line.SupervisorID)'";     # And again here.

    if ($user -is [Microsoft.ActiveDirectory.Management.ADUser] -and $manager -is [Microsoft.ActiveDirectory.Management.ADUser])
    {
        # We only want to be in here where we got precisely one user and one manager, otherwise we have no way to arbitrate who gets updated with what.
        Set-ADUser $user -Manager $manager
    }
}

Cheers,

Lain

Harm_Veenstra
MVP
Jun 28, 2022
I did think about that, but thought that I couldn't use the Filter command on that 🙂 But this is better for larger environments with more objects of course