Skip to main content

Using the Office365/Exchange 2016 REST API in Powershell Contacts

Within a Mailbox from an API perspective the big 3 things you deal with are first Messaging, second Calendaring and then Contacts. Up until now I've had just some basic support for Contacts in the Exch-Rest module https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/Exch-Rest but from version 3.4 I've add lot more cmdlets to fill out this functionally. I've taken a guide from my EWSContacts Module and taken advantage of some of the new stuff you can do with the Graph API which was hard or not possible in EWS like getting Mail Enabled Contacts (AD Contacts).

I've added a documentation page with Examples on GitHub for most of the new cmdlets https://github.com/gscales/Exch-Rest/blob/master/Samples/ContactsExamples.md

To give a little taste of what you can do with these new cmldets

Creating Contacts

The New-EXRContact cmdlet can be used to create a contact in any mailbox specifying the most common properties
New-EXRContact -MailboxName mec@datarumble.com -FirstName "FirstName" -LastName "Surname of Contact" -EmailAddress "EmailAddress@domain.com" -MobilePhone 1111-222-333
If you want to also upload a photo as part of the contact you can use -photo switch to specify a file-name that contains the contact photo you want to be used for that contact eg
New-EXRContact -MailboxName mec@datarumble.com -FirstName "FirstName" -LastName "Surname of Contact" -EmailAddress "EmailAddress@domain.com" -MobilePhone 1111-222-333 -photo 'c:\photo\Johnsmith.jpg'
To create a contact in a contact Folder other then the default in the Mailbox use
New-EXRContact -MailboxName mec@datarumble.com -FirstName "FirstName" -LastName "Surname of Contact" -EmailAddress "EmailAddress@domain.com" -MobilePhone 1111-222-333 -ContactFolder SubContactFolder
Modifying existing Contacts

Eg modifying the department filed of an existing contact first find the contact based on the Email address and then update the Department field

$ExistingContact = Search-EXRContacts -MailboxName user@domain -emailaddressKQL 'myaddress@domain.com' 



Set-EXRContact -Id $ExistingContact.id -Department "New Department"
Uploading a Contact Photo of an existing contact



$ExistingContact= Search-EXRContacts -MailboxName user@domain -emailaddressKQL 'myaddress@domain.com' 



Set-EXRContactPhoto -Id $ExistingContact.id -FileName c:\photos\mycont.jpg
Export an existing Contact to a VCard




$ExistingContact = Search-EXRContacts -MailboxName user@domain -emailaddressKQL 'myaddress@domain.com' 



Export-EXRContactToVcard -Id $ExistingContact.id -SaveAsFileName c:\photos\mycont.vcf

Deleting a Contact 




$ExistingContact = Search-EXRContacts -MailboxName user@domain -emailaddressKQL 'myaddress@domain.com' 



Invoke-DeleteEXRContactd -Id $ExistingContact.id
 
Enumerating all Contacts in a Contacts Folder

The Default Contacts folder in a Mailbox




Get-EXRContacts -MailboxName user@domain
Other Contact Folders 




Get-EXRContacts -MailboxName user@domain -ContactsFolderName FolderName

Directory (AD) Contacts

Enumerating Directory Contacts




Get-EXRDirectoryContacts
Export a Directory Contact to Vcard





$dirContact = Get-EXRDirectoryContacts | Where-Object {$_.mail -eq 'glenscales@yahoo.com'} 



Export-EXRDirectoryContactToVcard -Id $ExistingContact.id -SaveAsFileName c:\photos\mycont.vcf

Some things that are still missing in the Graph API is the ability to manage private distribution lists which will probably come along at a later date. The source for all the new cmldets are available on GitHub https://github.com/gscales/Exch-Rest/tree/master/functions/contacts
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

The MailboxConcurrency limit and using Batching in the Microsoft Graph API

If your getting an error such as Application is over its MailboxConcurrency limit while using the Microsoft Graph API this post may help you understand why. Background   The Mailbox  concurrency limit when your using the Graph API is 4 as per https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/throttling#outlook-service-limits . This is evaluated for each app ID and mailbox combination so this means you can have different apps running under the same credentials and the poor behavior of one won't cause the other to be throttled. If you compared that to EWS you could have up to 27 concurrent connections but they are shared across all apps on a first come first served basis. Batching Batching in the Graph API is a way of combining multiple requests into a single HTTP request. Batching in the Exchange Mail API's EWS and MAPI has been around for a long time and its common, for email Apps to process large numbers of smaller items for a variety of reasons.  Batching in the Gr...
Read more

Exporting and Uploading Mailbox Items using Exchange Web Services using the new ExportItems and UploadItems operations in Exchange 2010 SP1

Two new EWS Operations ExportItems and UploadItems where introduced in Exchange 2010 SP1 that allowed you to do a number of useful things that where previously not possible using Exchange Web Services. Any object that Exchange stores is basically a collection of properties for example a message object is a collection of Message properties, Recipient properties and Attachment properties with a few meta properties that describe the underlying storage thrown in. Normally when using EWS you can access these properties in a number of a ways eg one example is using the strongly type objects such as emailmessage that presents the underlying properties in an intuitive way that's easy to use. Another way is using Extended Properties to access the underlying properties directly. However previously in EWS there was no method to access every property of a message hence there is no way to export or import an item and maintain full fidelity of every property on that item (you could export the...
Read more

EWS-FAI Module for browsing and updating Exchange Folder Associated Items from PowerShell

Folder Associated Items are hidden Items in Exchange Mailbox folders that are commonly used to hold configuration settings for various Mailbox Clients and services that use Mailboxes. Some common examples of FAI's are Categories,OWA Signatures and WorkHours there is some more detailed documentation in the https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc463899(v=exchg.80).aspx protocol document. In EWS these configuration items can be accessed via the UserConfiguration operation https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/dd899439(v=exchg.150).aspx which will give you access to either the RoamingDictionary, XMLStream or BinaryStream data properties that holds the configuration depending on what type of FAI data is being stored. I've written a number of scripts over the years that target particular FAI's (eg this one that reads the workhours  http://gsexdev.blogspot.com.au/2015/11/finding-timezone-being-used-in-mailbox.html is a good example ) but I didn't have a gene...
Read more
All sample scripts and source code is provided by for illustrative purposes only. All examples are untested in different environments and therefore, I cannot guarantee or imply reliability, serviceability, or function of these programs.

All code contained herein is provided to you "AS IS" without any warranties of any kind. The implied warranties of non-infringement, merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose are expressly disclaimed.