Replace existing distribution group ManagedBy using PowerShell and csv

Franco 0

Trying to create PowerShell for Exchange Online ( running v3)

Need to add Owners (Managed By) to many DLs.

This would be a combination of multiple users and multiple distribution groups hence the need for CSV.

I have tried the following but it ends up replacing the last user on the list as the owner of the entire list of distribution groups :

$GroupList = Import-CSV C:\temp\ManagedBy.csv
ForEach ($group in $GroupList)
{
ForEach ($user in $GroupList)
{
}
Set-DistributionGroup -BypassSecurityGroupManagerCheck -Identity $group.GroupName -managedby $user.ManagedBy
}

I have looked all over but other "solutions" are offered but don't work for various reasons

Yuki Sun-MSFT 41,146 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2023-03-29T08:27:25.8933333+00:00

Hi @Franco ,

Just checking in to see how things are going on with this thread. Have you had a chance to try the suggestion provided earlier by Vasil and did it work? If it worked fine, please consider accepting the answer to help increase visibility of this question for other members of the Microsoft Q&A community. If not, please let us know what is still needed in the comments so the question can be answered.

1 answer

Vasil Michev 108.1K Reputation points MVP

2023-03-25T07:43:30.05+00:00

ManagedBy is a multi-valued property, so you can use the hashtable notation to add/remove to the list, instead of overwriting it:

Set-DistributionGroup -BypassSecurityGroupManagerCheck -Identity $group.GroupName -managedby @{add=$($user.ManagedBy)}

For more details refer to the cmdlet help
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1 person found this answer helpful.
Vasil Michev 108.1K Reputation points MVP

2023-03-25T07:46:45.5333333+00:00

Also, take another look at your foreach loops, as you're effectively running over each entry twice. Assuming both GroupName and ManagedBy are the columns with desired values, this should do:

$GroupList = Import-CSV C:\temp\ManagedBy.csv

ForEach ($group in $GroupList)

{

Set-DistributionGroup -BypassSecurityGroupManagerCheck -Identity $group.GroupName -managedby @{add=$($group.ManagedBy)}

}

Yuki Sun-MSFT 41,146 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2023-03-27T06:19:15.9766667+00:00

Hi @Franco ,

Need to add Owners (Managed By) to many DLs.

Do you mean you need to add a owner to multiple DLs while keeping the existing owners?
If this is the case, based on my test, Vasil‘s command can do the trick.

Let's say I have two DLs, dg01 and dg02, now I would like to add user1 to both of them. Below is the CSV file I used:

Then I ran the following script and user1 can be added as owners to both DLs properly:

$GroupList = Import-CSV C:\temp\ManagedBy.csv ForEach ($group in $GroupList) { ForEach ($user in $GroupList) { } Set-DistributionGroup -BypassSecurityGroupManagerCheck -Identity $group.GroupName -managedby @{add=$($user.ManagedBy)} }

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Replace existing distribution group ManagedBy using PowerShell and csv

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