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TJCooper440's avatar
TJCooper440
Copper Contributor
Nov 14, 2023

Script to take accounts in security group with a prefixt, strip prefix, and add accounts to DL

I have a security group with accounts that are formatted with a prefix, such as AB-(sAMAccountName). I need to query the group (easy enough), then remove the first 3 characters in the string. Then use the resulting string (which is now sAMAccountName) to populate a DL. I can do all 3 things separately, but I cannot do them together.

 

I appreciate any help.

$users = Get-ADGroupMember -Identiy "Security Group" | Select-Object Name
Foreach ($user in $users) {

   $sAMAccountName = $user.SubString(3)
   Add-DistibutionGroupMember -Identity "group name" -Member $sAMAccountName
}


Am I close?

powershell script
  • LainRobertson's avatar
    LainRobertson
    Silver Contributor
    Nov 15, 2023

    TJCooper440 

     

    Hi, Theron.

     

    Strictly-speaking, sAMAccountName cannot be used for the -Member parameter:

     

     

    Your process could still work but it would be by accident rather than by good design.

     

    Here's a very simple alternative where it's "good enough" if every user from your source security group is mail-enabled. Also, I'm assuming based on your example that you're working against Exchange Server and not Exchange Online (as this example won't work against the latter).

     

    If the security group contains non mail-enabled users then this script isn't a great outcome since you'd receive an error for each non mail-enabled user. You'd need an entirely different script to avoid such errors.

     

    Anyhow, it's a starting point for you to work from.

     

    Get-ADGroupMember -Identity "Source security group" -Recursive |
    ForEach-Object {
        if ($_.objectClass -eq "user")
        {
            Add-DistributionGroupMember -Identity "Distribution list name" -Member $_.distinguishedName;
        }
    }

     

    Cheers,

    Lain

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