Creating Office 365 Groups using PnP PowerShell

Using the latest version of PnP PowerShell some new Cmdlets have been introduced.

I’m going to have a look at some of these new commands in this post that help you manage Office 365 groups.

Connecting to Microsoft Graph

First to setup a connection to Microsoft Graph the Cmdlet Connect-PnPMicrosoftGraph has been created.

Connect-PnPMicrosoftGraph -Scopes “Group.ReadWrite.All”

Within this command the permission scope(s) need to be supplied.DEpnding on what you want to do you will need certain permissions. In my case I’m going to take ReadWrite permissions.

After a login window where I’m logging in with my MSDN account I’m now getting a dialog asking me to confirm the required permissions:

Once I click on Yes. The connection has been made.

Now I’m going to see if I can get to my groups using Get-PnPUnifiedGroup

[code lang=text]
Get-PnPUnifiedGroup -Identity “PnP”
[/code]

Ah ok, So I first need to get my access token with the following command

[code lang=text]
$token = Get-PnPAccessToken

So I’ve now got 3 lines of PowerShell
<blockquote>Connect-PnPMicrosoftGraph -Scopes “Group.ReadWrite.All”

$token = Get-PnPAccessToken

Get-PnPUnifiedGroup -Identity “PnP”
[/code]

Get-PnPAccessToken seems to be giving a warning.

WARNING: The Azure AD OAuth 2.0 Access Token has expired. Authenticate again using
the Connect-PnPMicrosoftGraph cmdlet.

And the Get-PnPUnifiedGroup gives another variation of issues.

Get-PnPUnifiedGroup : No Azure AD connection, please connect first with
Connect-PnPMicrosoftGraph
At C:\Users\pveenstra\Downloads\graph.ps1:6 char:1
+ Get-PnPUnifiedGroup -Identity “PnP”
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [Get-PnPUnifiedGroup], InvalidOpe
rationException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : System.InvalidOperationException,SharePointPnP.Powe
rShell.Commands.Graph.GetUnifiedGroup

Get-PnPUnifiedGroup : Exception of type ‘Microsoft.Graph.ServiceException’ was
thrown.
At C:\Users\pveenstra\Downloads\graph.ps1:6 char:1
+ Get-PnPUnifiedGroup -Identity “PnP”
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [Get-PnPUnifiedGroup], ServiceExc
eption
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.Graph.ServiceException,SharePointPnP.Powe
rShell.Commands.Graph.GetUnifiedGroup

Ok, so the connection isn’t setup correctly.

Now I’m trying to use my corporate Triad account (Both accounts have admin rights wherever possibly needed) so there shouldn’t be a difference. However when I run with my company account I’m suddenly getting my groups back.

Creating new groups

Now finally I’ll look at creating new groups. With the New-PnPUnifiedGroup I can create new groups.

New-PnPUnifiedGroup -DisplayName “My Test Group” -Description “This is my group” -MailNickname “Testgroup” -Owners “pieter.veenstra@…”

For more information on the permissions requests see Permission scopes | Graph API concepts