Create HTML Report of Facebook URLs using PowerShell





0/5 (0 vote)
In this article we will explore a scenario of adding a custom User Profile property and generating a report based on it.
Introduction
In this article we will explore a scenario of adding a custom User Profile property and generating a report based on it. The challenge here is that the report generation should be done with PowerShell as it is easier to create, execute and manage for an Administrator.
Scenario
For each of the user in the company requires a property to capture their Facebook URL. This property can be edited through the My Profile page by the respective user.
An HTML report has to be generated for the all users with the URL value assigned. The report should be in PowerShell so that Administrators can modify it. The report should look like:
Solution
As each user needs to be assigned with a custom property we have to use the User Profile Service Application.
The implementation steps are the following:
Create a User Profile property
Update users with Facebook URL
Create PowerShell script
Generate report
User Profile Property
As the first step we need to create a new User Profile Property. SharePoint 2010 provides User Profile Properties like:
Account Name
Email
Web site
Hire date etc.
But these properties may not be enough for your Organizational Needs!
We can create Custom User Profile Property to address the needs. In this particular scenario we need to add a property of type string to store Facebook URL.
Note: The User Profile Service Application is the service application responsible for storing the User Profiles, Synchronization, My Site Configuration etc.
In order to create custom user profile property, open Central Administration > Manage service applications > User Profile Service Application > Manage.
In the appearing page you can see People, Synchronization, Organization, My Site Settings groups. From the People group select Manage User Properties.
Manage User Properties
This page displays the existing User Profile Properties. You can see the properties listed as shown below:
Using this screen we can Add / Edit / Delete properties. Click the New Property link from the top for adding the Facebook URL property.
In the appearing page enter the details as shown below:
Please note that the Name represents programmatic purpose and Display Name represents formatted display purpose. Enter the Type as string and Length as 255.
We are expecting the following values for the Facebook URL property:
- http://www.facebook.com/UserA
- http://www.facebook.com/UserA
After setting the Property values click the OK button to save changes. Now our new property should be get listed in the Properties page > Custom Properties section.
Manage User Profiles
Now we need to set the value for this property. The value can be set through:
My Site > My Profile page of each user
Central Administration by Administrator
We can quickly set the profile properties through Central Administration > Manage service applications > User Profile Service Application > Manage.
In the appearing page click the Manage User Profiles link as highlighted above. You will get the following page:
Enter the user name in the text box and click Find button. For the results retrieved, choose the Edit My Profile context menu to set the Facebook URL property.
Save the changes and repeat this for a couple of Profiles.
Now we are ready with enough Profiles assigned with Facebook URL property.
Create PowerShell Script
We can start with creating the PowerShell script. For writing the script we can use the editor included with Windows.
The script should contain the following activities:
Enumerate all the User Profiles
Write the Account Name, Facebook URL to screen
Write the Account Name, Facebook URL to HTML file
Following is the script which achieves the same:
[void][System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.Office.Server")
[void][System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles")
[void][System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.SharePoint")
$RootSite = "http://localhost";
$site = new-object Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSite($RootSite);
$ServiceContext = [Microsoft.SharePoint.SPServiceContext]::GetContext($site);
$ProfileManager = new-object Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.UserProfileManager($ServiceContext)
$AllProfiles = $ProfileManager.GetEnumerator()
$array = @()
write-output "Account Name, Facebook Url"
foreach($profile in $AllProfiles)
{
$FacebookUrl = $profile["FacebookUrl"].value
$AccountName = $profile["AccountName"].value
$IsEmpty = [string]::IsNullOrEmpty($FacebookUrl)
if ($IsEmpty -ne "False")
{
# Create object and store in array
$obj = New-Object System.Object
$obj | Add-Member -type NoteProperty -name "Account Name" -value "$AccountName"
$obj | Add-Member -type NoteProperty -name "Facebook Url" -value "$FacebookUrl"
$array += $obj
# Output to Screen
write-output "$AccountName, $FacebookUrl"
}
}
# Output to HTML, sorted
$array | Select-Object | Sort-Object -Descending -Property "FacebookUrl" |
ConvertTo-Html -title "Active Users" | Set-Content .\FacebookUsers.html
$site.Dispose()
The code is explained below:
The first three lines represent:
Adding namespaces
The next five
lines represent the creation of the SPSite
, UserProfileManager
instances:
new-object keyword represents new operator in C#
$ symbol is used to create variables
GetEnumerator()
is invoked onProfileManager
instance
The
foreach
loops over the $AllProfiles
variable and inside it:
Profiles with Facebook URL empty are discarded
New object is created with properties Account Name, Facebook URL
Values are assigned to the new object
Object is added to the Array
Writes the row to SCREEN (Writing to HTML follows the
foreach
loop)
Please note that the following statement adds object to the array:
$array += $obj
The write-output statement:
Writes the text to the Output screen (ISE Editor)
Note:
Under the hood, the script is interpreted and .Net Reflection is used
to invoke the methods & properties. For example, new-object
maps to new
in C# and
invokes Activator.CreateInstance
method of Reflection.
Operators
The comparison operators available in PowerShell are given below:
Operator |
Description |
-eq |
Equal to |
-lt |
Less than |
-gt |
Greater than |
-ge |
Greater than or Equal to |
-le |
Less than or equal to |
-ne |
Not equal to |
-like |
Like (* for wildcard) |
-contains |
Contains (used for collections) |
More operators can be found in the References section.
Comments in PowerShell
# is used to represent a single line comment
Arrays in PowerShell
The array is created using @ symbol
$arrayVariable = @()
Objects in PowerShell
A class is created and the properties are assigned using the code below:
$obj = New-Object System.Object
$obj | Add-Member -type NoteProperty -name "Account Name" -value "$AccountName"
$obj | Add-Member -type NoteProperty -name "Facebook Url" -value "$FacebookUrl"
The –name tag specifies the property name of object. The –value tag specifies the property value of object.
Formatted HTML Output in PowerShell
Creating an HTML file includes adding HTML tags like <table>, <tr>, <td> etc. PowerShell Cmdlet named ConvertTo-HTML helps us in performing this job.
Executing Code
You can execute the code in ISE Editor and view the result on screen.
The HTML file generated will be in the folder highlighted above and varies from machine to machine. On opening the file in Internet Explorer you can view the following results.
This concludes our article on HTML report generation using PowerShell.
References
Summary
In this article we have explored a scenario of creating custom User Profile property and HTML report generation using PowerShell. To summarize, the following are the aspects we have explored:
User Profile Service Application
Creating a custom User Profile property
PowerShell cComparison operators
Using PowerShell for HTML report generation
The source code attachment contains the script we have discussed.