Comparing Sets of Cmdlets

Posted on March 12, 2018 by Michel de Rooij

powershell With the speed of development in Office 365, it is sometimes hard to track which changes have been made to your tenant. Of course, there is the roadmap and message board which you can use to keep up to date, but those are in general high level descriptions. Sometimes you may want to see what are the changes at the cmdlet level in your tenant, between tenants, or Azure Active Directory module. And there is also the occasional gem in the form of a yet undocumented cmdlet or parameter which could hint at upcoming features.

For this purpose I have created a simple script which has two purposes:

Export information on the current cmdlets available through Exchange Online or Azure Active Directory.
Compare two sets of exported information, and display changes in a readable way.

The script is in PowerShell (of course), and is called Compare-Cmdlets.ps1. To export information, you need to be already connected to either Exchange Online or Azure Active Directory (or both).

To export cmdlet information, use:

.\Compare-Cmdlets.ps1 –Export

For Exchange Online and Azure Active Directory, separate export files are created. The files are prefixed with a timestamp and postfixed with the Exchange Online build or Azure Active Directory module version, e.g. 201803121814-ExchangeOnline-15.20.548.21.xml or 201803121815-AzureAD-2.0.0.137.xml.

After a few days/week, or when connected to another tenant or using a new Azure Active Directory PowerShell module, run the export again. You will now have 2 sets of Exchange Online or Azure Active Directory cmdlets, which you can compare using the following sample syntax:

Compare-Cmdlets.ps1 -ReferenceCmds .\201801222108-ExchangeOnline-15.20.428.21.xml -DifferenceCmds .\201803120926-ExchangeOnline-15.20.548.21.xml

A progress bar is shown as comparison might take a minute. When the script has finished checking the two sets, you will see output indicating changes in cmdlets, parameters or switches, e.g.

Download
You can find the script on the TechNet Gallery or GitHub.

Multi-Factor Authentication in Office 365 (Part 2)

Posted on July 9, 2014 by Michel de Rooij

Multifactor Authentication is a must-have for services based in the cloud, especially for accounts with administrative purposes. We have already covered what Office 365 Multifactor Authentication is and how to configure it in Office 365 tenants with the Office 365 admin center, and we briefly showed the end user experience. Now we will look at how we can use the Azure Active Directory Module for Windows PowerShell to configure Office 365 authentication with MFA.

Azure Active Directory Module for Windows PowerShell (AADMPS) enables organizations to not only configure MFA for existing end users who use PowerShell, but also enhance their current provisioning process with MFA options. By pre-configuring MFA, administrators can prevent end users from having to go through the initial MFA setup process and use their currently configured mobile phone or office number for verification.

Read the full article over on SearchExchange

Multi-Factor Authentication in Office 365 (Part 1)

Posted on June 17, 2014 by Michel de Rooij

Multi-Factor Authentication identifies an end user with more than one factor. Authentication is based on something you know, such as your password; something you have, such as a security token or smart card; or something that’s a physical characteristic of who you are, such as biometrics. By creating an additional factor on top of the password, identity is better protected. Multi-Factor Authentication is seen as a must-have for cloud-based services, especially for administrative types of accounts.

In this first tip on SearchExchange, I explain how you can configure Multi-Factor Authentication in Office 365, discuss the so-called contact methods, explain app passwords for non-MFA applications as well as show the MFA end user experience.

Read the full article over on SearchExchange