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Question

I have a simple script that looks like this

Get-ADUser 12345678 -Properties extensionAttribute11 | Select extensionAttribute11.

What this script does is get me the data which is associated to the extensionattribute11 value from AD, which in my case happens to map to a users card, from that card we get a hex number, which means that when a student scans their card over a card reader, they are automatically picked up in an attendance register.

One thing I cant do is get the script to do do this for a set of users. I can export a list of users into a CSV file but I dont know if that can be imported or if it can, would it work. Someone did suggest using an array and although I know what an array is, my knowledge of powershell is minimal.

In my head this should work Get-ADUser 12345678, 23456789, 12745423 -Properties extensionAttribute11 | Select extensionAttribute11, but obviously this doesnt.

Does anyone have any pointers? I would sort of like to crack this myself as its good to try and work things out but if someone has a ready made solution or something similar, that wouldnt hurt.

CHeers

Ed

Theo · Accepted Answer · 2020-02-24 11:05:59Z

If you can create a CSV file with relevant userdata from the students you want to get the cardnumbers for, something like this:

"SamAccountName", "PossibleOtherData"
"jdoe", "something worth knowing"
"jtrump", "no. 1 snooker player"

You can use that to do the following:

$users = Import-Csv -Path 'PathToYourCsvFile' | Select-Object -ExpandProperty SamAccountName
# or shorter: $users = (Import-Csv -Path 'PathToYourCsvFile').SamAccountName

$students = Get-ADUser -Filter "extensionAttribute11 -like '*'" -Properties DisplayName, extensionAttribute11 | 
    Where-Object { $users -contains $_.SamAccountName } |
    Select-Object DisplayName, @{Name = 'CardNumber'; Expression = { $_.extensionAttribute11}}

# display on screen
$students

# write to new CSV file
$students | Export-Csv -Path 'PathToYourOutputCsvFile' -UseCulture -Encoding UTF8 -NoTypeInformation

Worth knowing is that the Get-ADUser cmdlet will by default return objects with these properties: DistinguishedName, Enabled, GivenName, Name, ObjectClass, ObjectGUID, SamAccountName, SID, Surname, UserPrincipalName. All extra properties you need to ask for using the -Properties parameter.

Also, you can make the code faster if you have a searchbase OU to look for the students. If all students are in a dedicated OU, you can add for instance this -SearchBase "OU=Students,OU=UserAccounts,DC=YourCompany,DC=org" to the Get-ADUser cmdlet

If you have located all your students inside a dedicated OU or Group, there should be no need to create a CSV file first and below should do it:

In case all your students can be found in the same OU:

# put the DistinguishedName of the OU here
$ouDN     = "OU=Students,OU=UserAccounts,DC=YourCompany,DC=org"
$students = Get-ADUser -Filter "extensionAttribute11 -like '*'" -SearchBase $ouDN -Properties DisplayName, extensionAttribute11 | 
            Select-Object DisplayName, @{Name = 'CardNumber'; Expression = { $_.extensionAttribute11}}

# display on screen
$students

# write to new CSV file
$students | Export-Csv -Path 'PathToYourOutputCsvFile' -UseCulture -Encoding UTF8 -NoTypeInformation

If all students are members of an AD group like for instance "Students", you could do:

$students = Get-ADGroupMember -Identity "Students" -Filter "objectClass -eq 'user'" | 
            Get-ADUser -Properties DisplayName, extensionAttribute11 | 
            Where-Object { $_.extensionAttribute11 -like '*' }
            Select-Object DisplayName, @{Name = 'CardNumber'; Expression = { $_.extensionAttribute11}}

# display on screen
$students

# write to new CSV file
$students | Export-Csv -Path 'PathToYourOutputCsvFile' -UseCulture -Encoding UTF8 -NoTypeInformation

What you are saying makes sense so I will look into that today. There is a group in AD for all users, however the group I need to Identify will be for around 290 users as opposed to all of them. One thing I can do is get the CSV from a group and match the details to that of AD. I will let you know how I get on.
@Edmundo If you indeed have located all student accounts in one OU or Group, things would be a lot easier and you wouldn't have to create an intermediate CSV file first. For that I have added new code.

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