Office 365: How to Add Users to Security Group using PowerShell?

Security groups are powerful tools for managing user access and security in Office 365. They are used to setting and controlling access to resources and applications, such as email or documents, and managing user permissions. This enables businesses to maintain control over their environment and ensure that only authorized users can access sensitive data. As an Office 365 administrator, you may need to add members to a security group to grant or revoke access to certain resources. For example, as an administrator, you can create a Security Group that provides access to a specific SharePoint site, and then add users to that group. Once a user is added to the Security Group, they automatically inherit the permissions and settings associated with the group.

In this article, we will learn how to add a user to a security group in Office 365. There are many ways to add users to security groups in Office 365. Let’s see the below methods in this article:

1. Using the Microsoft 365 admin center to add security group members
2. Using PowerShell to add users to Office 365 security group

How to add a user to a Security Group using Microsoft 365 Admin Center?

To add a user to a security group in Office 365 using the Microsoft 365 admin center, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Microsoft 365 admin center and sign in with your admin credentials.
2. Expand “Teams & Groups” >> Click on “Active teams & groups” on the left-hand menu.
3. Click on the security tab and select the group you want to add the member >> Click on the “Members” tab.
4. Click on “View all and manage members”. You can also add owners to the security group from this page.

   

5. Click on “Add Members”.

   

6. Enter the user’s email address or name, and click the “Add” button.

   

You can also add a user to the security group by picking the user as the starting point. Here is how:

1. In the admin center, click “Users” in the left-hand menu and select “Active users” from the left navigation menu.
2. Select the user you want to add to the security group by clicking on their name.
3. On the user details pane, click the “Manage groups” button under the “Groups” section.
4. Click on the “Assign Memberships” button >> Select the security group that you would like to add the user to and click on the “Add” button.

   

The user will now be added to the selected security group with the permissions and access rights associated with that group.

Add User to a security group in Office 365 using PowerShell

While you can add members to a security group manually, this can be time-consuming, especially if you have a large number of users to add. Fortunately, PowerShell can simplify this process and make it more efficient.

Prerequisites for Adding Members to Security Groups in Office 365 using PowerShell

Before adding members to security groups in Office 365 with PowerShell, there are a few prerequisites. You must first install the Azure AD PowerShell module, which can be done by running the following command in PowerShell:

Install-Module -Name AzureAD

Once the module is installed, You must connect to the Office 365 Azure AD environment by running the following command in PowerShell:

Connect-AzureAD

Once connected, they can add members to security groups in Office 365 with PowerShell. More here: How to Install Azure AD PowerShell module and connect to Azure AD?

How to Add a Member to a Security Group in Office 365 using PowerShell?

To add a member to a security group in Office 365 using PowerShell, you can follow these steps:

• Step 1: Connect to Azure Active Directory Before you can add members to a security group using PowerShell, you need to connect to Azure Active Directory using the Connect-AzureAD command and provide your admin credentials.
• Step 2: Get the Security Group and User Next, you need to get the security group and user you want to add to the group. You can use the Get-AzureADGroup cmdlet to obtain the security group you want to add the user. And Get-AzureADUser cmdlet to retrieve the user you wish to add to the security group, respectively.
• Step 3: Add the User to the Security Group Once you have the security group and user, you can add the user to the group using the Add-AzureADGroupMember command.

Here’s an example PowerShell command to add a user to a security group:

#Connect to Azure AD
Connect-AzureAD

#Get the Security Group
$Group = Get-AzureADGroup -ObjectId "<Group Object ID>"

#Get the User
$User = Get-AzureADUser -ObjectId "<User Object ID>"

#Add Group Member
Add-AzureADGroupMember -ObjectId $Group.ObjectId -RefObjectId $user.ObjectId

Replace “<Group Object ID>” with the Object ID of the security group you want to add the user to, and “<User Object ID>” with the Object ID of the user you would like to add to the group. You can obtain the Object IDs using the Get-AzureADGroup and Get-AzureADUser cmdlets, respectively.

#Get the Security Group
$Group = Get-AzureADGroup -ObjectId "f4e108b8-3294-4bc8-8792-6b28f32ffaa5"

#Get the User
$User = Get-AzureADUser -ObjectId "6a96617e-fd55-4410-b3a8-d043c402fb61"

#Add Group Member
Add-AzureADGroupMember -ObjectId $Group.ObjectId -RefObjectId $User.ObjectId

You can also get the group by its display name. Here’s an example:

$GroupName="<Display name of the group>"
Get-AzureADGroup | Where { $_.DisplayName -eq $GroupName }

#Search string also works
Get-AzureADGroup -SearchString $GroupName

Here is an example script to add a member to an Office 365 security group:

#Parameters
$GroupName = "SharePoint Site Admins"
$UserID= "[email protected]"

#Connect to Azure AD
Connect-AzureAD

#Get the group and user
$Group = Get-AzureADGroup -SearchString $GroupName
$User = Get-AzureADUser -ObjectId $UserID

#Add Group Member
Add-AzureADGroupMember -ObjectId $Group.ObjectId -RefObjectId $User.ObjectId

Similarly, Use the Add-AzureADGroupOwner cmdlet to add users to a group as the owner.

$Group = Get-AzureADGroup -SearchString "SharePoint Site Admins"
$User = Get-AzureADUser -ObjectId "[email protected]"

#Add Group Owner
Add-AzureADGroupOwner -ObjectId $Group.ObjectId -RefObjectId $User.ObjectId

Office 365: Add Multiple users to a Security Group

Adding members to security groups in Office 365 can be done quickly and easily with PowerShell. To add multiple users to a security group, you can use a loop, such as a “ForEach” loop. The loop will process each user in a list and add them to the security group. The following example adds all users in a list to the “HR” security group:

#Parameters
$GroupName = "SharePoint Site Admins"

#Place user IDs (UPN) in a comma separated array
$Users = "[email protected]", "[email protected]", "[email protected]"

#Connect to Azure AD
Connect-AzureAD

#Get the Group
$Group = Get-AzureADGroup -SearchString $GroupName

#Get Exisiting Members of the Group
$GroupMembers = Get-AzureADGroupMember -ObjectId $Group.ObjectId | Select -ExpandProperty UserPrincipalName

#Add Each user to the Security group
ForEach ($User in $Users)
{
    #Check if the group has the member already
    If($GroupMembers -contains $User)
    {
        Write-host "User '$User' is already a Member of the Group!" -f Yellow
    }
    Else
    {
        $UserObj = Get-AzureADUser -ObjectId $User
        Add-AzureADGroupMember -ObjectId $Group.ObjectId -RefObjectId $UserObj.ObjectId
        Write-host -f Green "Added user to the Group:"$User
    }
}

This script checks if the given user is already part of the group. If not, it adds the user as a group member.

Bulk add users to a Security Group in Office 365 from a CSV using PowerShell

To add users to an Office 365 security group using PowerShell, you can use the Azure Active Directory (AD) PowerShell module and a CSV File (Each line in the file should contain the Object ID of a user). Here’s an example script:

First, this script connects to Azure AD using the Connect-AzureAD cmdlet. Gets the given Group, Then reads a list of users from a file specified by “Group Object ID”. Finally, uses a ForEach loop to iterate through the list of users from the CSV file and add each user to the security group using the Add-AzureADGroupMember cmdlet. Here is my CSV File:

#Parameters
$GroupName = "SharePoint Site Admins"
$CSVFile = "C:\Temp\Security-Group-Members.csv"

#Get users to import from a CSV File
$Users = Import-Csv -Path $CSVFile -Header "UPN"

#Connect to Azure AD
Connect-AzureAD

#Get the Group
$Group = Get-AzureADGroup -Filter "SecurityEnabled eq true and MailEnabled eq false and Displayname eq '$GroupName'"

#Get Exisiting Members of the Group
$GroupMembers = Get-AzureADGroupMember -ObjectId $Group.ObjectId | Select -ExpandProperty UserPrincipalName

#Add Each user to the Security group
ForEach ($User in $Users)
{
    #Check if the group has the member already
    If($GroupMembers -contains $User.UPN)
    {
        Write-host "User '$($User.upn)' is already a Member of the Group!" -f Yellow
    }
    Else
    {
        $UserObj = Get-AzureADUser -ObjectId $User.UPN
        Add-AzureADGroupMember -ObjectId $Group.ObjectId -RefObjectId $UserObj.ObjectId
        Write-host -f Green "Added user to the Group:"$User.UPN
    }
}

Replace “Group Object ID” with the Object ID of the security group you want to add the users to. You can obtain the Object ID of the group using the Get-AzureADGroup cmdlet. Use the Get-AzureADGroupMember cmdlet to view the members of a security group. This will help ensure that the users have been added correctly.

PowerShell to Add users to Office 365 Multiple Security Groups from CSV

How about adding members to multiple security groups? You can use PowerShell to add users to a security groups from a CSV file. To achieve this, they need to use the Add-AzureADGroupMember cmdlet in conjunction with the Import-CSV cmdlet. The Import-CSV cmdlet enables you to import data from a CSV file into PowerShell. By using Import-CSV, you can quickly and easily add users to a security group from a CSV file.

#Parameters
$CSVFile = "C:\Temp\Security-Group-Members.csv"

Try {
    #Get date from CSV File
    $CSVData = Import-Csv -Path $CSVFile

    #Connect to Azure AD
    Connect-AzureAD | Out-Null

    #Iterate through each row in the CSV
    ForEach($Row in $CSVData)
    {
        #Get the security Group
        $Group = Get-AzureADGroup -Filter "SecurityEnabled eq true and MailEnabled eq false and Displayname eq '$($Row.GroupName)'" 

        If($Group -ne $Null)
        {
            #Get Exisiting Members of the Group
            $GroupMembers = Get-AzureADGroupMember -ObjectId $Group.ObjectId | Select -ExpandProperty UserPrincipalName

            #Get Users to Add to the Group
            $UsersToAdd =  $Row.Users -split ";"

            #Add Each user to the Security group
            ForEach ($User in $UsersToAdd)
            {
                #Check if the group has the member already
                If($GroupMembers -contains $User)
                {
                    Write-host "User '$($User)' is already a Member of the Group '$($Group.DisplayName)'" -f Yellow
                }
                Else
                {
                    $UserObj = Get-AzureADUser -ObjectId $User
                    Add-AzureADGroupMember -ObjectId $Group.ObjectId -RefObjectId $UserObj.ObjectId
                    Write-host -f Green "Added user '$User' to the Group '$($Group.DisplayName)'"
                }
            }
        }
        Else
        {
            Write-host "Could not Find Group:"$Row.GroupName
        }
    }
}
Catch {
    write-host -f Red "Error:" $_.Exception.Message
}

Here is the CSV template:

The script reads each user from the CSV file, checks if the given user is not already a member of the AD security group, and adds the user to the specified security group using the Add-AzureADGroupMember cmdlet. Note that you need to have appropriate permissions to add users to a security group in Office 365 using PowerShell.

Conclusion

In conclusion, adding a user to a security group in Office 365 is a straightforward process that can be done through the Microsoft 365 admin center or PowerShell. Following the steps outlined in this article, you can easily add users to security groups in Office 365. Adding members to security groups in Office 365 with PowerShell is an efficient way to manage user access and security. Administrators can quickly add users to a security group and bulk import users to a security group from a CSV file.