Use Exchange Online PowerShell scripts to blaze through routine tasks

Make the connection

Since Exchange Online is an online service, the first step to managing users is to make that initial connection. Download and install the Microsoft Online Sign-in Assistant, and then download and install the Azure Active Directory PowerShell Module. Use the script below to connect a remote PowerShell session to the Exchange Online service and then import the required cmdlets.

$credential = Get-Credential

$session = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange `

                         -ConnectionUri https://outlook.office365.com/powershell-liveid/ `

                         -Credential $credential `

                         -Authentication Basic `

                         -AllowRedirection

Import-PSSession $session -DisableNameChecking -AllowClobber

Connect-MsolService -Credential $credential

The Exchange team used some unapproved verbs in the module. We use the -DisableNameChecking parameter to suppress the warning that will get displayed otherwise.

Managing Office 365 mailboxes

One of the most basic tasks is to find the Office 365 mailboxes and get their information. Run the Exchange Online PowerShell script in Figure 1 to find a mailbox and get its usage statistics.

The script doesn't return much information in Figure 1, but it's just an abbreviated listing. Adding | Get-Member to the end of the script returns the full list of properties from the Get-MailboxStatistics cmdlet. With those properties, administrators can generate the information shown in Figure 2.

Use an Exchange Online PowerShell script to create new Office 365 mailboxes as well. Assume there is a comma-separated values text file with a list of users, as shown in Figure 3.

With the text file in place, the script in Figure 4 can create the users and their mailboxes.

The $newBoxes variable contains the new mailboxes created by the script. Administrators can call that variable to return the new boxes as shown in Figure 5.

As the script creates the users and their corresponding mailboxes, it will likely return an error asking the administrator to issue a license to the users. Fix that with this script:

Get-MSOLUser | Where-object userPrincipalName -in $newBoxes.userPrincipalName | Set-MsolUserLicense -AddLicenses <tenant>:ENTERPRISEPACK

Use the script below to verify owner rights to check what's getting sent and received.

$newBoxes | Foreach-Object {Add-MailboxFolderPermission -Identity $_.UserPrincipalName -User <myusername@domain> -AccessRights Owner}

Since these are test mailboxes, consider lowering the size limit to 5 gigabytes, as shown in Figure 6.

Exchange Online PowerShell scripts for searching

An Office 365 administrator needs to perform a mailbox search occasionally. The Exchange Online PowerShell script below can search through all the mailboxes and gather the results into one place for review.

Get-Mailbox | Search-Mailbox -SearchQuery 'Subject:"Microsoft Office"' -TargetMailbox "Discovery Search Mailbox" -TargetFolder "MSOffice Mail" -LogLevel Full

Connect to the mailbox Discovery Search Mailbox in Outlook to see the results in a discovery mailbox. The Discovery Search Mailbox should have a new folder called MSOffice Mail that contains the search results. If the query finds a match, it puts a copy of the message to that mailbox folder; the messages can be viewed in Outlook like any other mailbox.

While this query is simple, administrators can build complex ones using this Keyword Query Language syntax reference guide.

Deactivating Office 365 mailboxes

Disabling a mailbox is easy, but this procedure requires caution. An inexperienced Exchange administrator may not know that disabling a mailbox detaches it from its Active Directory object. When you are prepared to proceed, use this script:

Get-Mailbox -filter 'Name -like "test*"' | Disable-Mailbox -Archive