Microsoft Teams - Assign Teams Policies to Users with Powershell

Policies can be created within Microsoft Teams to manage permissions and restrictions on sets of users. In a school environment for example, you may wish to prevent the ability of students to call other users directly, but allow it for staff.

There are four (4) different types of policies that can be configured/applied to users in Teams;

1. Calling Policies
2. Meeting Policies
3. Channels Policies
4. Messaging Policies

The policies can be created/configured within the Teams web admin interface.

Calling Policies are configured under Voice > Calling Policies

Meeting Policies are configured under Meetings > Meeting Policies

Channels Policies are configured under Teams > Teams Policies

Messaging Policies are configured under Messaging Policies

Once they're created and configured, they can be applied to users via powershell which can be quicker than doing it manually via the web admin interface - especially if you need to apply it to a large batch of users.

The cmdlet we'll be using for this is New-CsBatchPolicyAssignmentOperation

Be sure to update the PolicyName and Identity arguments to match your policy and user

Apply Teams Calling Policy to Users

New-CSBatchPolicyAssignmentOperation -PolicyType TeamsCallingPolicy -PolicyName "Name" -identity "user@domain.com"

Apply Teams Meeting Policy to Users

New-CSBatchPolicyAssignmentOperation -PolicyType TeamsMeetingPolicy -PolicyName "Name" -identity "user@domain.com"

Apply Teams Channel Policy to Users

New-CSBatchPolicyAssignmentOperation -PolicyType TeamsChannelsPolicy -PolicyName "Name" -identity "user@domain.com"

Apply teams Messaging Policy to Users

New-CSBatchPolicyAssignmentOperation -PolicyType TeamsMessagingPolicy -PolicyName "Name" -identity "user@domain.com"

Checking

You can then check what policies are applied to a user by using the cmdlet below

Get-CsUserPolicyAssignment -identity "user@domain.com" 

This command will return a table displaying all the different policies that are applied to the user specified

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 - Get Team ID/Group ID using Powershell

Many Microsoft Teams commands for powershell require you to specify the group id for a team so the script knows which one of your teams you wish to work on. The Group ID/Team ID is a unique string of letters and numbers which is why it's commonly used to ensure only one team would ever be targeted by a command.

Use the command(s) below to get the group id for one, or all of your teams.

Connect-MicrosoftTeams

get-team -displayname "Test Class"

You should get a response with the GroupID shown like in the example below;

Simple, right? What if I wanted to get the properties for all of my teams? Try the command below

get-team

You can even store the groupid in a variable so it's easier to reference in subsequent commands. In this example, we'll store the properties in the $teamprops variable;

$teamprops = get-team -displayname "Test Class"

You can then use the $teamprops.groupid property in another command - for example;

add-teamuser -groupid $teamprops.groupid -user "user@domain.com"

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 - The term is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet..

If you get an error message like the one below when attempting to issue commands like "connect-microsoftteams" - it's because you haven't got the MS Teams cmdlets installed

Connect-MicrosoftTeams : The term 'Connect-MicrosoftTeams' 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 install the Microsoft Teams Powershell cmdlets, enter the command below. Make sure you run this from an elevated/administrator powershell prompt

install-module -name MicrosoftTeams -force

If you don't run it as administrator, you'll get a message like this;

install-module : Administrator rights are required to install modules in 'C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules'. Log on to the computer with an account that has Administrator rights, and then try again, or install 

'C:\Users\username\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules' by adding "-Scope CurrentUser" to your command. You can also try running the Windows PowerShell session with elevated rights (Run as Administrator).

The installation may take a minute or two to complete, you can confirm the module has been installed by running the following command

import-module "MicrosofTeams"

Then run the command

get-module

A list of available modules will be displayed which should include MicrosoftTeams like the screenshot below

get-module command output showing MicrosoftTeams module available

Microsoft Teams - Powershell Administration Commands

 Microsoft Teams has a powershell module available that allows you to perform just about all Teams management tasks using a script. This is very convenient for bulk operations, like creating lots of teams and keeping team memberships up to date - especially since the Teams web admin interface can be quite slow and cumbersome.

Here's a quick guide on some of the most common commands and uses

Install Microsoft Teams Powershell Module

Use the command below to install the Microsoft Teams powershell cmdlets

install-module -name MicrosoftTeams -force

Create a Team

I like to create new teams by using a variable ($newteam) - this makes additional tasks easier since you can reference the unique group ID for the new team directly from the $newteam variable.

$newteam = new-team -displayname "Test Team" -mailnickname "Test-Team" -owner "user@domain.com"

Update the properties for the display name, mailnickname (can't have spaces) and the team owner

Add a User/Member to a Team

If you've created the team like I have above and used a variable like $newteam, you can then use the properties for this variable for other tasks like this

add-teamuser -groupid $newteam.groupid -user "user@domain.com"

Add an additional Owner to a Team

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

Remove User/Member from a Team

remove-teamuser -groupid $newteam.groupid -user "user@domain.com"