How to Connect to Office 365 Services with PowerShell

In this post, I will show you to connect to Office 365services including Office 365 tenant, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Skype for Business Online with the help of available PowerShell modules.

Prerequisites

1. Download and install the following PowerShell modules for Office 365, SharePoint Online, and Skype for Business Online on your machine.

2. Work or school account you use to connect to Office 365 should be a member of Global admin role.

3. Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5.x and Windows Management Framework 3.0 or 4.0 should be installed.

Connecting to Office 365

The first step is to create a Windows PowerShell credentials object which will be used in subsequent command while connecting to Office 365.

$credential = Get-Credential

When you are prompted, provide Office 365 work or school account credentials. Click OK when you are done.

Next, verify the creation of PowerShell credentials object.

$credential

Above command will return something to the following screenshot. You can be sure that the object is created successfully.

Figure 2 Credential Command Output

Now, we have saved the users’ credentials. Go ahead and connect to Office 365.

Connect-MsolService -Credential $credential

Let us verify that we are connected with Office 365.

Get-MsolDomain

The command will return something similar to following screenshot (although it depends on how many domains you have configured in your Office 365 tenant).

Figure 3 Get-MsolDomain Command Output

We are now connected with Office 365, we can start managing it with PowerShell. For example, let us create a single user and generate its random password in Office 365 tenant.

New-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName [email protected] –DisplayName “Tome Jerry”

Connecting to Exchange Online

Create a remote Windows PowerShell session with Exchange Online.

$exchangeSession = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri "https://outlook.office365.com/powershell-liveid/" -Credential $credential -Authentication "Basic" -AllowRedirection

Import the remote session.

Import-PSSession $exchangeSession -DisableNameChecking

Above command when executed successfully would return something to the following screenshot.

Verify the connection with Exchange Online by checking all the domains configured for email addresses.

Get-AcceptedDomain

When above command runs successfully, it should return the list of domains similar to the following screenshot.

Figure 5 Get-AcceptedDomain Command Output

Connecting to Skype for Business Online

Import Skype for Business Online module.

Import-Module SkypeOnlineConnector

Now you have imported the Skype for Business Online PowerShell module. Create a remote PowerShell session with one of the Office 365 servers.

$sfboSession = New-CsOnlineSession -Credential $credential

Download the scripts, cmdlets, and other items which are required to manage Skype for Business Online.

Import-PSSession $sfboSession

When you run the above command, you should see a progress bar similar to the following screenshot.

Figure 6 Executing Import-PSSession Command

When all of the commands have been imported and progress bar completes, you will get something similar to following screenshot.

Figure 7 Importing PowerShell Session Created with Exchange Online

Connecting to Security & Compliance Center

Execute the following command to create a remote PowerShell session with the Security and Compliance Center.

$ccSession = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://ps.compliance.protection.outlook.com/powershell-liveid/ -Credential $credential -Authentication Basic -AllowRedirection

When above command is executed, you may receive a warning similar to following screenshot (Ignore it).

Figure 8 Creating PowerShell Session with Security and Compliance Center

Execute the following PowerShell command to import the session.

Import-PSSession $ccSession -Prefix cc

If nothing causes any issue, you will end up with something similar to the following screenshot.

Figure 9 Importing PowerShell Session Created with Security and Compliance Center

Connecting to SharePoint Online

Execute the following command to import the SharePoint Online module.

Import-Module Microsoft.Online.SharePoint.PowerShell -DisableNameChecking

Now you have imported the PowerShell module, next step is to determine the SharePoint Online admin site URL so that you can connect to it.

https://-admin.sharepoint.com

If Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) is alczar.onmicrosoft.com, the hostname is alczar. Similarly, if FQDN is thewinadmins.com, the hostname is ‘thewinadmins’.

When you have determined the site URL, execute the following command to connect to SharePoint Online. 

Connect-SPOService -Url https://alczar-admin.sharepoint.com -credential $credential

To verify the connection, execute the following command.

Get-SPOSite

On successful execution of above command, you will get your SharePoint Online sites something similar to the following screenshot.

Figure 10 Get-SPOSite Command Output

Conclusion

Now you have been connected with Office 365 services, you can start managing them with their related PowerShell commands. For example, you can change the password of an Office 365 user account.