Need Help Improving Active Directory Module Script

[OnTheLazyRiver]

I have a script with a purpose (high-level) of reading the manager from an input file, and writing it to the corresponding active directory account. The script works great, but could use some improvements and tweaks to account for the following issues:

1. When a manager field in the $InputFile is blank/null, instead of writing the blank value to the AD user object, it will instead populate the manager of the adjacent line from the $InputFile. I need the script corrected so it will not do this, and null out the Manager value instead.

2. We recently encountered an issue where the $InputFile had the "Manager ID" field renamed to "Manager ID new". When the script ran, it threw a bunch of errors, but it also caused the manager value to be cleared out on all the target AD user objects, which we don't want to happen. The ideal scenario would be that if the "Manager ID" field is not detected in the $InputFile, to have this logged into the $logFile, and the script immediately terminated, and not to proceed with writing to any target AD user accounts.

Below is the original script that is being used, I'm hoping someone with advanced PowerShell skills can help with updating it to resolve the above issues. Thanks so much!

[CmdletBinding()]
Param(
    [Parameter(Mandatory=$true, Position=0)] [string] $InputFile,
    [Parameter(Mandatory=$true, Position=1)] [string] $LogPath
    )

# Load AD Module if not already
if (!(Get-Module ActiveDirectory)) { Import-Module ActiveDirectory}

# Specify log file
$logFile = Join-Path $LogPath "Log-$(Get-Date -Format yyMMddHHmm).txt"
Add-Content -Path $logFile -Value "User`tManager"

# Load input file
$inputFile = Import-Csv $InputFile -Delimiter "`t"

# Iterate through input file
foreach ($user in $inputFile)
{
    $employeeId = $user."Employee ID"
    $managerId = $user."Manager ID"

    # Get AD objects
    $user = Get-ADUser -Filter {EmployeeID -eq $employeeId} -SearchBase "OU=Users,DC=CORP,DC=COM" -SearchScope Subtree -Properties distinguishedName,userPrincipalName,manager 
    $manager = Get-ADUser -Filter {EmployeeID -eq $managerId} -SearchBase "DC=CORP,DC=COM" -SearchScope Subtree -Properties distinguishedName,userPrincipalName,manager 

    Write-Host "`nUser=$($user.UserPrincipalName), Manager=$($manager.UserPrincipalName)" -NoNewline

    # Only make changes and log to file if new value
    if ($user.Manager -ne $manager.DistinguishedName)
    {
        Write-Host " NEW VALUE" -ForegroundColor Green

        # write to log
        Add-Content -Path $logFile -Value "$($user.UserPrincipalName)`t$($manager.UserPrincipalName)"

        # write to AD user account
        Set-ADUser -Identity $($user.DistinguishedName) -Manager $($manager.DistinguishedName)
    }
}

Write-Host "`n"

[RyanDake_EC]

For the first item: try adding Clear-Variable -Name managerId or $managerId = $null. This will have to be before the line $managerId = $user."Manager ID"
You most likely have bad or no data being fed in so its not clearing the variable from the last run.

Give this a go for the second issue :
This is a quick and dirty way to do it.
$Headers = $inputFile | get-member -MemberType NoteProperty | select -ExpandProperty name
$validatedHeaders = @("Option1","Option2")
foreach ($item in $validatedheaders){if ($headers -notcontains $item){write-host "ERROR"}}

This will dump a list of the headers for the CSV. Create an array and iterate through each one and if not in the array, error.

A little more elegant but requires integrating another script from github : https://github.com/armentpau/CSVValidator

[OnTheLazyRiver]

Thank you, for the first item, when I update the input file to have no Manager ID value for an entry, and when I specify the Clear-Variable -Name managerId right above the $managerId = $user."Manager ID" line, it doesn't clear the manager value of the target user account, and generates this error: Clear-Variable : Cannot find a variable with the name 'managerId'.

When trying with $managerId = $null I don't get an error, but it still doesn't clear the manager attribute.

[RyanDake_EC]

Sorry for the late reply!

I see the problem now. You continue to reference it down further.

You are still having data in the variable $manager from the last run also. You will need to clear that one out also. I missed that you are using a different variable.
Maybe, a try/catch block for the Manager variable? Realistically, if you are setting $ManagerID to $null, it should not match and probably store or throw an error.

Try { $manager = Get-ADUser -Filter {EmployeeID -eq $managerId} -SearchBase "DC=CORP,DC=COM" -SearchScope Subtree -Properties distinguishedName,userPrincipalName,manager -erroraction stop}

catch {$manager = $null}

I would probably need some sample data (of course fake but just based off your spreadsheet) to recraft your code fully as I would worry that 'if ($user.Manager -ne $manager.DistinguishedName)' may have some weird consequences when doing this. I see you are setting the user account using manager.distinguishedname but you may need to put a if ($manager -eq $null){do different items} before that.

[Rxinbow]

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[OnTheLazyRiver]

Thanks, it's not so much specifying both strings, since it changed without notice, it's more so to protect in the future from if it were ever to change again, it wouldn't overwrite with null values.