PowerShell & Microsoft Graph for Microsoft 365 Admins

A practical cookbook of complete, runnable PowerShell and Microsoft Graph scripts for real M365 admin tasks—user lifecycle, groups and Teams, licensing, reporting, and production automation. Includes a full migration path off the retired MSOnline and AzureAD modules.

PowerShell & Microsoft Graph for M365 Admins is a cookbook, not a reference manual. Every recipe is a complete, runnable script for a task Microsoft 365 administrators actually perform—delivered with the permissions it needs, the output it produces, and an explanation of why it works so you can adapt it to your own environment. If you manage Microsoft 365 and want to automate real work rather than wade through abstract theory, this book is built for you.

Every Recipe Is Complete and Runnable

There's no pseudo-code here, no "…and handle the rest." Substitute your own values and each recipe runs exactly as written—because a cookbook you have to finish yourself isn't a cookbook. Every recipe follows the same practical shape: the goal in one sentence; what you'll need (scopes, roles, and values to substitute); the script, complete and runnable; what you get, showing real output so you know it worked; how it works, explaining the reasoning behind the code; and variations, pointing to the next thing you'll want to do.

If Your Scripts Just Stopped Working

The MSOnline and AzureAD modules are retired, not merely deprecated—they stopped functioning during 2025, along with the Azure AD Graph API behind them. If you have scheduled tasks calling Connect-MsolService or Connect-AzureAD, they're already failing. This book gives you a clear rescue path: a dedicated section on finding what broke and translating it, coverage of the app-only authentication unattended scripts now require, and a cmdlet-by-cmdlet migration map in the appendices. It's the practical answer to "my automation suddenly broke."

What You'll Automate

The recipes span the full range of everyday and advanced M365 administration:

• Graph fundamentals — scopes and the permission model, paging to avoid silent data loss, server-side filtering, calling any Graph endpoint directly, and surviving throttling on big jobs
• Authentication for automation — delegated vs. app-only, registering an app for unattended automation, and connecting with a managed identity in Azure
• User management — creating users properly, bulk-creating from CSV, complete offboarding in one script, password resets and authentication methods, guest users, and bulk attribute updates
• Groups and Teams — creating groups and adding members in bulk, finding ownerless and empty groups, creating Teams with channels, and reporting on owners
• License management — understanding SKUs and service plans, seeing what you own and use, assigning and removing licenses, and reclaiming licenses from inactive accounts
• Reporting and auditing — MFA registration reports, stale account and guest cleanup, sign-in log analysis, and emailable HTML reports
• Production automation — the production script template, scheduling, and knowing when a job fails
• Mail and calendars — sending mail, managing automatic replies, and the mailbox half of offboarding
• Devices and security posture — device inventory, auditing privileged roles, and reporting on conditional access policies

Built for Real Production, Not Just Demos

This book takes seriously what separates a script from automation. You'll learn to build production-grade scripts with proper app-only authentication and managed identities, schedule them reliably, and get alerted when they fail—along with the fundamentals that trip people up in production, like paging and throttling. These are the details that make the difference between a script that works once on your laptop and automation you can trust to run unattended.

Suggested Paths for Your Situation

The book adapts to where you are. New to Graph? Read the setup and fundamentals sections in order, then dip into the rest as needed. Migrating legacy scripts? Start with the migration section, then authentication, then the recipes matching your old scripts. Building automation? Focus on the authentication and production sections, then the recipes for your task. For day-to-day work, keep the cmdlet and permission references open.

Reference Material You'll Keep Open

The appendices are built for daily use: a cmdlet reference, a permission reference, a migration map from the retired modules, a troubleshooting reference, and a glossary.

Why This Book

The move to Microsoft Graph and the retirement of MSOnline and AzureAD have left many administrators with broken automation and no clear path forward. This cookbook is that path—complete, runnable scripts grounded in real tasks, with the reasoning to adapt them. Substitute your values, run the recipe, and get back to work.