How to use EasyLife PowerShell in Azure Automation

You can use the EasyLife365.Collaboration PowerShell module in an Azure Automation runbook.

Prerequisites

You need an Azure Automation account with a system assigned managed identity. If you don't have an Automation Account in your subscription you can create one using the Az Powershell module. The following example first creates a new resource group with the name easylife-automation in the location West Europe and then creates an automation account with the name azautomation1 in the new resource group.

$accountName = 'azautomation1'
$rgName = 'easylife-automation'
$location = 'West Europe'
Connect-AzAccount
New-AzResourceGroup -Name $rgName -Location $location
New-AzAutomationAccount -Name $accountName -ResourceGroupName $rgName -Location $location

After creating the account, enable the system assigned managed identity and get its object id in the Entra ID Portal or with the following commands:

Set-AzAutomationAccount -Name $accountName -ResourceGroupName $rgName -AssignSystemIdentity
# it can take a moment before the following command returns anything
# make a note of the Id in my case it's da9ea79a-55d4-463f-b1a2-4b5ab1060909
Get-AzADServicePrincipal -DisplayName $accountName

You will be using the system assigned managed identity to connect to the Graph API. To assign the required permissions to the managed identity you can use the following commands:

Install-Module Microsoft.Graph.Authentication,Microsoft.Graph.Applications
Import-Module Microsoft.Graph.Authentication,Microsoft.Graph.Applications
Connect-MgGraph -Scopes AppRoleAssignment.ReadWrite.All, Application.Read.All
Grant-EasyAppPermissions -ServicePrincipalId da9ea79a-55d4-463f-b1a2-4b5ab1060909

The EasyLife PowerShell module uses four modules of the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK, Azure Automation does not automatically install dependencies. You can add the modules manually using the Entra ID Portal or with the following PowerShell command. Please install the module Microsoft.Graph.Authentication first as the other modules depend on it.

$moduleNames = @('Microsoft.Graph.Authentication','Microsoft.Graph.Groups','Microsoft.Graph.Users','Microsoft.Graph.Teams')
$moduleVersion = '1.21.0'
$moduleNames | ForEach-Object {
    New-AzAutomationModule -AutomationAccountName $accountName -ResourceGroupName $rgName -Name $_ -ContentLinkUri "https://www.powershellgallery.com/api/v2/package/$_/$moduleVersion"
}

Once the installation of the Microsoft Graph modules is finished, you can install the module EasyLife365.Collaboration. Like with modules above, you can install it using the Entra ID Portal or with the following command:

New-AzAutomationModule -AutomationAccountName $accountName -ResourceGroupName $rgName -Name EasyLife365.Collaboration -ContentLinkUri "https://www.powershellgallery.com/api/v2/package/EasyLife365.Collaboration/1.0.4"

Create the runbook

After installing the required modules, you can create a new runbook of type PowerShell. Please select version 5.1 if you create the runbook in the portal, alternatively you can use the following command:

New-AzAutomationRunbook -Name 'easylife' -Type PowerShell -AutomationAccountName $accountName -ResourceGroupName $rgName

Run the runbook

After creating the runbook, open it in the Entra ID Portal and click Edit. Paste the following example code and click Test to run it.

Import-Module EasyLife365.Collaboration, Az.Accounts
Connect-EasyLife365 -Identity
Get-EasyTeam -Top 3 
Get-EasyGroup -Top 3
Get-EasyGuestUser -Top 3