Microsoft Teams - Add Additional Team Owner using Powershell

When a user is added to a Microsoft Team, they are added as either a "member" or an "owner". Adding them as an "owner" gives them additional privileges/rights within the team - such as being able to add other members, delete chat messages etc.

If you add a user to a team using the "add-teamuser" powershell cmdlet, it will by default add them as a member. You can use a switch within the command to add them as an owner instead.

Here's an example;

add-teamuser -groupid "abc123" -user "user@domain.com" -role owner

As you can see, the "-role owner" switch is what adds them as an owner to the team, instead of adding them as a member.

If the "-role" switch isn't specified, the user will be added as a member by default. You can alternatively include the "-role" switch and specify "member" as well - like the example below

add-teamuser -groupid "abc123" -user "user@domain.com" -role member

This could be useful if you're using some kind of loop and want to add some users as members and some as owners and have the owner/member specified in a variable.

Microsoft Teams - Add Members to Private Channel using Powershell

If you have a large number of members you need to add to a private channel in teams, you may wish to use powershell to do so as it can be much faster than manually adding users via the Teams app, or web management interface.

Note that you will need to install the preview/prerelease version of the Microsoft Teams powershell module to get access to the cmdlet that we're using here (refer to my separate blog post on how to do this)

Add-TeamChannelUser -GroupID "abc123456789" -Displayname "privatechannelname" -user "user@domain.com"

Be sure to update the Group ID with the unique Group ID of your target team - and the displayname should match the displayname of the private channel you wish to add the user to.

Note that adding users via this cmdlet can cause them to not show in the actual team for some time (in my experience 15-30 mins) so you may need to allow some time before checking/confirming they appear in the channel user list

Microsoft Teams - teamchanneluser cmdlet is not recognized

Microsoft Teams features some commands (cmdlets) that are not readily available in the public/general release version of the Microsoft Teams powershell module. Some of these commands are;

get-teamchanneluser

add-teamchanneluser

If you attempt to run these commands, you'll get an error message like the one below;

get-teamchanneluser : The term 'get-teamchanneluser' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.

At line:1 char:1

To fix the problem you will need to install the preview release of the Microsoft Teams powershell module. You can check the release version numbers from the website below

https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/MicrosoftTeams/2.0.0

To install the preview release version, make note of the version number then run the command below

Install-Module -Name MicrosoftTeams -AllowPrerelease

To fix the problem you need to force an update of a couple of Powershell modules - namely PowershellGet and PackageManagement. 

Install-Module : A parameter cannot be found that matches parameter name 'AllowPrerelease'.

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Run the commands below from an elevanted powershell command prompt;

Install-Module -Name PowerShellGet -Repository PSGallery -Force
Install-Module -Name PackageManagement -Repository PSGallery -Force

Exit/close your Powershell window/session then re-open and run the install-module command again - it should now complete successfully

You can confirm what version is installed by running the commands

import-module "MicrosoftTeams"

get-module

Look for the version number for the "MicrosoftTeams" module