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