Running Exchange Online and Office365 Powershell cmdlets in C# and managed code

When you’re looking at automating Office365 and Exchange Online from managed code you need to be aware of the 2 sets of cmdlets that you may need to use depending on the tasks that your trying to perform. Most of the administration of ExchangeOnline is done using remote powershell where Exchange Online provides a subset of the normal on-premise Exchange 2010 SP1 cmdlets. The other cmdlet set to be aware of is the MSOnline powershell module which you need download and install http://onlinehelp.microsoft.com/en-us/office365-enterprises/hh124998.aspx. The MSOnline module contains cmdlets to allow administration of the wider Office365 service and perform more of the directory/service and service provider functions more akin to Active directory management in a on premise environment (eg adding users to groups etc).

So when using this from Managed code to use Remote powershell against Exchange Online you use the standard code you would use against an on-premise Exchange 2010 deployment against the endpoint https://ps.outlook.com. With the Office365 MSOnline module you need to load this into a runspace and then firstly use the Connect-MsolService cmdlet to connect to and authenticate against Office365. Then you execute as per normal the desired cmdlets.

Here's some sample code the first sample uses remote powershell to connect to ExchangeOnline.

System.Security.SecureString secureString = new System.Security.SecureString();
string myPassword = "password";
foreach (char c in myPassword)
secureString.AppendChar(c);
PSCredential credential = new PSCredential("glen@domain.com", secureString);
WSManConnectionInfo connectionInfo = new WSManConnectionInfo(new Uri("https://ps.outlook.com/PowerShell-LiveID?PSVersion=2.0"), "http://schemas.microsoft.com/powershell/Microsoft.Exchange", credential);
connectionInfo.AuthenticationMechanism = AuthenticationMechanism.Basic;
connectionInfo.SkipCACheck = true;
connectionInfo.SkipCNCheck = true;

connectionInfo.MaximumConnectionRedirectionCount = 4;
Runspace runspace = System.Management.Automation.Runspaces.RunspaceFactory.CreateRunspace(connectionInfo);
runspace.Open();
// Make a Get-Mailbox requst using the Server Argument
Command gmGetMailbox = new Command("get-mailbox");
gmGetMailbox.Parameters.Add("ResultSize", "Unlimited");
Pipeline plPileLine = runspace.CreatePipeline();
plPileLine.Commands.Add(gmGetMailbox);
Collection RsResultsresults = plPileLine.Invoke();
Dictionary gmResults = new Dictionary();
foreach (PSObject obj in RsResultsresults)
{
gmResults.Add(obj.Members["WindowsEmailAddress"].Value.ToString(), obj);
}
plPileLine.Stop();
plPileLine.Dispose();

This second example loads the MSOnline powershell module into a runspace

InitialSessionState iss = InitialSessionState.CreateDefault();
iss.ImportPSModule(new[] { "MSOnline" });
using (Runspace psRunSpace = RunspaceFactory.CreateRunspace(iss))
{
psRunSpace.Open();
using (System.Management.Automation.PowerShell powershell = System.Management.Automation.PowerShell.Create())
{
powershell.Runspace = psRunSpace;
Command connect = new Command("Connect-MsolService");
System.Security.SecureString secureString = new System.Security.SecureString();
string myPassword = "password";
foreach (char c in myPassword)
secureString.AppendChar(c);

connect.Parameters.Add("Credential", new PSCredential("glen@domain.com", secureString));
powershell.Commands.AddCommand(connect);
Collection results = null;
Collection errors = null;
results = powershell.Invoke();
errors = powershell.Streams.Error.ReadAll();
powershell.Commands.Clear();
Command getuser = new Command("Get-MsolUser");
getuser.Parameters.Add("MaxResults", 100);
powershell.Commands.AddCommand(getuser);
results = null;
errors = null;
results = powershell.Invoke();
}
}
}