bulk-creating-ad-users-from-excel-sheets

Active Directory

To create a large number of new Active Directory users, you can import the user data from a CSV file, for example export an Excel sheet to CSV.

Next, this piece of code will turn the CSV data into real Active Directory user accounts:

Import-Csv -Path F:\userlist.csv -UseCulture -Encoding Default |
ForEach-Object {

  $_.AccountPassword = $_.AccountPassword | 
                           ConvertTo-SecureString -Force -AsPlainText
  $_ 

} |
New-ADUser -WhatIf 

All the CSV file needs are column headers that represent the parameters expected by New-ADUser. A very trivial list could use headers like this:

Name,SamAccountName,Description,Company,City,Path,AccountPassword

Just notice that CSV files by nature can only submit string data types. Since the property AccountPassword needs to be a SecureString datatype, the PowerShell code takes the string from the CSV file and converts it to SecureString before the data is handed over to New-ADUser.

This technique can be used to polish any raw data before you use it to create the user.

Power Tip #4