Bulk Create Teams with JSON File

Summary

We had a scenario to manage teams in an environment that we needed to test governance scenarios requiring us to make over a 1000 teams. So we created a script that could generate the required teams, to build a lot of teams without having to generate a long list of team names, we used a prefix series to help build this out, additionally we added to the team name, a suffix to enable us to find all test based teams.

Example Screenshot

Few points to note:

This application uses an Azure AD app to provision teams with the certificate installed on the executing machine.
The script requires the JSON block saved as "teams.json" to run.
The execution time to create each team varies between 5-30 secs per team
The JSON + Script examples will generate 100 teams.


[CmdletBinding()]
param (
    [string] $Tenant = "contoso",
    [string] $SiteUrlSuffix = "-Test",
    [string] $OwnerEmail = "paul.bullock@contoso.co.uk",
    [string] $SiteListJsonFile = ".\teams.json",
    [string] $Template = "STS#3",
    [string] $ClientId = "5fc099aa-d7ad-4da6-a3ca-5793facc5ed3",
    [string] $ThumbPrint = "EE20D40FC1EE7EE5BEC8512617CA469718DA123D"
)
begin{

    $adminUrl = "https://$($Tenant)-admin.sharepoint.com"
    Write-Host "Connecting to SharePoint Admin..."
    $adminConn = Connect-PnPOnline -ClientId $ClientId -Thumbprint $ThumbPrint -Tenant contoso.co.uk -Url $adminUrl -ReturnConnection

    $baseUrl = "https://$($Tenant).sharepoint.com/sites/"
    $jsonFilePath = "$($SiteListJsonFile)"
    $sites = Get-Content $jsonFilePath -Raw | ConvertFrom-Json

    $prefixes = "HR","Finance","ICT","Service Desk","Client Services","Project Alpha","Project Beta","Project Charlie","Leadership","Community"
}
process {

    $prefixes | Foreach-Object{

        $prefix = $_

        $sites |  Foreach-Object {

            $siteUrl = "$($baseUrl)$($_.SiteUrl.Replace("XXXXX", $prefix).Replace(" ",''))$($SiteUrlSuffix)"
            $siteTitle = "$($_.SiteTitle.Replace("XXXXX", $prefix))"
            $mailNickname = "$($_.SiteUrl.Replace("XXXXX", $prefix).Replace(" ",''))$($SiteUrlSuffix)"

            # Check for existing site
            Write-Host "Checking for existing site $($siteUrl)"
            $existingSite = Get-PnPTenantSite $siteUrl -ErrorAction Silent -Connection $adminConn

            if ($existingSite -eq $null) {

                Write-Host " - Creating new Team...." -ForegroundColor Cyan
                New-PnPMicrosoft365Group  -DisplayName $siteTitle -Description "Testing Site for $($siteTitle)" -MailNickname $mailNickname `
                        -Owners $OwnerEmail -IsPrivate:(!$_.IsPublic) -CreateTeam     
                
            }else{
                Write-Host " - Site Exists... Skipping" -ForegroundColor Yellow
            }

        }
    }
}
end{

  Write-Host "Done! :)" -ForegroundColor Green
}

Check out the PnP PowerShell to learn more at: https://aka.ms/pnp/powershell

# Usage example:
# .\Create-BulkTeams.ps1 -OwnerEmail "user@contoso.com"

[CmdletBinding()]
param (
    [Parameter(Mandatory = $true)]
    [string]$OwnerEmail,
    [Parameter(Mandatory = $false)]
    [string] $SiteListJsonFile = ".\teams.json"
)
begin {
    #Log in to Microsoft 365
    Write-Host "Connecting to Tenant" -f Yellow

    $m365Status = m365 status
    if ($m365Status -match "Logged Out") {
        m365 login
    }

    Write-Host "Connection Successful!" -f Green

    $sites = Get-Content $SiteListJsonFile -Raw | ConvertFrom-Json
    $prefixes = "HR", "Finance", "ICT", "Service Desk", "Client Services", "Project Alpha", "Project Beta", "Project Charlie", "Leadership", "Community"
}
process {
    $prefixes | Foreach-Object {
        $prefix = $_

        $sites | Foreach-Object {
            $siteTitle = "$($_.SiteTitle.Replace("XXXXX", $prefix))"
            $mailNickname = "$($_.SiteUrl.Replace("XXXXX", $prefix).Replace(" ",''))"

            # Check if team exists
            $team = m365 teams team get --name $siteTitle | ConvertFrom-Json

            if (-not $team) {
                # Create a Microsoft 365 Group                
                Write-Host "Creating group $($siteTitle)"

                # If the $OwnerEmail is the tenant admin then this will break.
                # This is a very special case where when we create a new o365group, 
                # the tenant admin will be by default the member of this group internally. 
                # Then when we want to add the same user as the owner of this group we will get the following error:
                # Error: One or more added object references already exist for the following modified properties: 'owners'.
                m365 aad o365group add --displayName "$($siteTitle)" --description "Testing Site for $($siteTitle)" --mailNickname $mailNickname --owners "$($OwnerEmail)" --isPrivate (!$_.IsPublic).ToString().ToLowerInvariant()

                $group = $null
                $waitTime = 5
                $trial = 0
                $maxRetry = 3

                do {
                    $trial++
                    Write-Host "Waiting $waitTime seconds before group provisioning is complete..."
                    Start-Sleep -Seconds $waitTime

                    $group = m365 aad o365group list --displayName "$($siteTitle)" | ConvertFrom-Json
                } while ($group -eq $null -and $trial -lt $maxRetry)

                if ($group -eq $null) { 
                    return
                }

                # Create a new Microsoft Teams team under existing Microsoft 365 group
                Write-Host "Creating Microsoft Teams team under group $($siteTitle)"
                m365 aad o365group teamify --mailNickname $mailNickname
            }
            else {
                Write-Host "Microsoft Teams team $($siteTitle) already exists"
            }
        }
    }
}
end {
    Write-Host "Finished" -ForegroundColor Green
}

Check out the CLI for Microsoft 365 to learn more at: https://aka.ms/cli-m365

[
    {"SiteTitle":"XXXXX Collaboration", "SiteUrl":"XXXXX-Collaboration", "IsPublic":true},
    {"SiteTitle":"XXXXX Standards", "SiteUrl":"XXXXX-Standards", "IsPublic":true},
    {"SiteTitle":"XXXXX Published Documents", "SiteUrl":"XXXXX-PublishedDocuments", "IsPublic":false},
    {"SiteTitle":"XXXXX Client Services", "SiteUrl":"XXXXX-ClientServices", "IsPublic":false},
    {"SiteTitle":"XXXXX Management Team", "SiteUrl":"XXXXX-ManagementTeam", "IsPublic":false},
    {"SiteTitle":"XXXXX National Rollout", "SiteUrl":"XXXXX-NationalRollout", "IsPublic":false},
    {"SiteTitle":"XXXXX Internal Review and Audit", "SiteUrl":"XXXXX-InternalReviewAndAudit", "IsPublic":false},
    {"SiteTitle":"XXXXX Technical Services", "SiteUrl":"XXXXX-TechnicalServices", "IsPublic":false},
    {"SiteTitle":"XXXXX Planning and Performance", "SiteUrl":"XXXXX-PlanningAndPerformance", "IsPublic":false},
    {"SiteTitle":"XXXXX Operations", "SiteUrl":"XXXXX-Operations", "IsPublic":false}
]

Note: the XXXXX will be replaced as part of the script

Contributors

Author(s)
Paul Bullock
Nanddeep Nachan

Disclaimer

THESE SAMPLES ARE PROVIDED AS IS WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, MERCHANTABILITY, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT.