Tag: quest

Find Co-Workers of an Account Listed in Active Directory

When managing user accounts in MS Active Directory one of the frequent request we get is to relocate the Home Directory for an employee.  There could be a number of different reasons for this,  but some common causes for the request are:

  • The relocation of an employee to a new city or work location.
  • A Home Directory has grown too large and needs to be relocated for diskspace load balancing.
  • The Home Directory folder is not located in a location that provides fast enough access speed across the WAN.

When we are relocating a Home Directory one of the common things we need to know is “What server provides employees the best access speed for the new location of the requesting employee“?  One easy way to answer this question is by determining what server the employee’s new or current Co-Workers are using.  In this case Co-workers means those employees that report to the same manager.

What is a good way to find the homedirectory of an employee and his peers if you are not familiar with their workgroup?

The following PowerShell function provides a solution to that question.

<#
.SYNOPSIS
This script is used to get detailed information on a user account found in Active Directory.
.DESCRIPTION
This script is used to get detailed information on a user account found in Active Directory.
The result can be sent to the output screen and the Out-GridView cmdlet.
Get-QADUser is required; part of the Quest AD management software.
Found here: http://www.quest.com/powershell/activeroles-server.aspx

.PARAMETER <paramName>
UserID – The account that will searched in the domain detailed by -Domain.

.EXAMPLE
Get-UserInfo AA9999
This will search the default domain for an account using the standard ATT account type. The default domain is ITServices.
.EXAMPLE
Get-UserInfo “LastName, FirstName MI”
This will search the default domain for an account using the Full Display Name. The default domain is ITServices.

#>

#This function will provide a work of employees that work with an employee. They all have the same manager.
#Name, displayname, homedirectory, and email-address are returned.

function get-coworkers([PSObject] $UserID) {
if ((Get-QADUser $userID | select-object manager) -ne $null){

Get-QADUser -Manager (Get-QADUser -Identity $UserID | select-object manager).manager | select-object name, displayname,homedirectory | sort-object homedirectory | ft -AutoSize

}

else {

write-host “$UserID was not valid, or no manager was listed for the account.” -foregroundcolor red

}

}

get-coworkers $UserID -UserID $Args[0]
#End

Here is a sample of the function being run using my ATTUID as the input:

 

Sample of the Get-Coworker function being run using my ATTUID as the input (Some Output Obscured)

Another simple way to run it is by applying the “Full Display Name to the function input:


Sample of the Get-Coworker function being run using my Full Display Name as the input (Some Output Obscured)

If you apply an account to the function, or the account does not have a manager applied to it you will see the following error:

 

Sample of the Get-Coworker function being called on an invalid AD account(Some Output Obscured)

To download the full text of this script please go here:  Get-CoWorkers.PS1

User Home Folder Size and other Information (with Quest)

Here is a function that can be used to quickly gather folder information about a user’s home folder.

There is one stipulation.

For this to work you must have the Quest Active Directory Snap-In configured for your Powershell session.
This will apply to users contained within an Microsoft Active Directory structure.
I have used the “^” in place of the “select-object” command. This is an alias that I use to make typing much faster. It is a symbol that I have never had a conflict on.

I have called the function GQUF. This is short for Get-QADUserFunction, but you may call it whatever you like of course.

Here is the syntax of the command. There are three options that are available when this command is run with the second command line switch.

“GQUF userid –groups” or

“GQUF userid -explorer” or

“GQUF userid –size.”

The –groups switch will detail all of the active directory groups in which the member is included.

The –explorer switch will open an explorer window pointed at the user’s home folder.

The –size switch will detail the total size of the user’s home folder.

Here is the code. See a screen shot at the bottom.

#*******************************

#This function looks up a user home drive and home directory

#Uses get-qaduser

function gquf

{

$UserID = $Args[0]
$Domain = $Args[1]

$result = Get-QADUser $Args[0] | Select-Object SamAccountName, homedirectory, homedrive, email, displayname # | ft -autosize

#$result | ft -autosize

Write-Host “Display Name:” $result.displayname -foregroundcolor green

Write-Host “Email Address:” $result.email -foregroundcolor green

Write-Host “HomeDir:” $result.homedrive $result.homedirectory -foregroundcolor green

Write-Host “”

Write-Host “Permissions for “$result.homedirectory -foregroundcolor Yellow

get-aclf $result.homedirectory

switch ($Args[1])

{

{$_ -eq “-groups”}

{

write-host “Member Of:”

(Get-QADUser $Args[0] | ^ memberof).memberof | sort

}

{$_ -eq “-explorer”}

{

explorer $result.homedirectory

}

{$_ -eq “-size”}

{

Write-Host “Calculating the size of the homefolder…” -foregroundcolor red

$fs New-Object -comobject Scripting.FileSystemObject

$tempSize $fs.GetFolder($result.homedirectory).size/1024/1024

$tempSize ‘{0:N}’ -f [double]$tempSize

Write-Host “$tempSize MB”

}

}

}
#*******************************

Here is the screen shot for the –size switch. Sensitive information has been blocked out.

Thank You,

Patrick