Office 365 & Azure Powershell: Why not to use -SearchString pipe to Set function command?

Even though that you type the following command and it return you a single result, and you thought that it would work but it will not work.

Example:

1. First you try to get the user, and you able to retrieve a result

Get-MsolUser – SearchString “abc”

#Result
Name                     UserPrincipalName
———                     ——————————-

abc                           abc@domain.com

2. After getting the user, you try to pipe it to a Set function. However, you receive an error like below; this error indicates an exception is trigger in Microsoft  backend and prevent such command to proceed.

Get-MsolUser -SearchString “abc” | Set-MsolUserPrincipalName -NewUserPrincipalName “aaa@domain.com”

#Result

Set-MsolUserPrincipalName : Unable to update parameter. Parameter name: IMMUTABLEID.
At line:1 char:44
+ … abc” | Set-MsolUserPrincipalName -NewUserPrincipalName “aaa…
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : OperationStopped: (:) [Set-MsolUserPrincipalName], MicrosoftOnlineException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.Online.Administration.Automation.PropertyNotSettableException,Microsoft.Online.Admi
nistration.Automation.SetUserPrincipalName

3. So the correct way to do it is to either

Get-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName “abc@domain.com” | Set-MsolUserPrincipalName -NewPrincipalName “aaa@domain.com”
OR

Set-MsolUserPrincipalName -UserPrincipalName “abc@domain.com” -NewUserPrincipalName “aaa@domain.com”

*Note: Please test it out before you implement

Author: sabrinaksy

Just an ordinary lady who love what she does best. View all posts by sabrinaksy