Powershell CSV ordered Export with specific columns - powershell

Question

i have following problem:
I have a query with Get-ADUser and have there specific fields to get (only test query)
$AllADUsers = get-aduser -Identity m.mustermann -Properties * | select mail, title, l, GivenName, Surname, company, department, mobile
Also i must add some static fields how language or comment in to the CSV, i take some variable for that:
$Language = "german"
$Comment = ""
$Link = ""
$gender = ""
$exportto = "C:\Temp\Export01.csv"
Than i want to export all entries in a ordered UTF8 CSV with Delimiter ":".
I do a foreach but always i get mistakes or not complete lists - i show you my code (but i have mistakes)
Foreach ($ADUser in $AllADUsers) {
$MailAddress = $ADUser.mail
$FullName = "$ADUser.GivenName" + "$ADUser.Surname"
$Title = $AdUser.Title
$Location = $ADUser.l
$Comment = $Comment
$Link = $Link
$MobilePhone = $ADUser.mobile
$Language = $Language
$Divison = $ADUser.Department
$GivenName = $ADUser.GivenName
$Surname = $ADUser.Surname
}
$ADUser | Export-CSV -Path $exportto -NoTypeInformation -Delimiter ":" -Encoding UTF8
Can you help me?
The export must be with the ordered list and without "" and just in this order.
Thank you.
Max

Answer 1

Your code doesn't work, mainly because you are creating a series of variables that in the end you do not use.
To output to CSV, you need to collect objects with properties, not single variables.
A very elegant way is to create those objects using [PsCustomObject] syntax, where at the same time the order in which you set the properties make up for the order in the final output file.
Using the colon as delimiter character is unusual and may get you into trouble when other applications need to read and understand this, but that is up to you.
Another thing is that you mainly seem to use LDAP attribute names, where PowerShell has most of them mapped to more friendly attribute names (like 'City' which maps to LDAP 'l').
Your code revised:
# Get-ADUSer already returns these properties by default:
# DistinguishedName, Enabled, GivenName, Name, ObjectClass, ObjectGUID, SamAccountName, SID, Surname, UserPrincipalName
# your hardcoded static variables:
$Language = "german"
$Comment = ""
$Link = ""
$gender = ""
$exportto = "C:\Temp\Export01.csv"
# these are the extra properties you want to fetch
$userprops = 'EmailAddress','Title','Company','City','Department','MobilePhone'
# if you want this for all users, remove "-Identity 'm.mustermann'" and use "-Filter *" instead
$result = Get-ADUser -Identity 'm.mustermann' -Properties $userprops | ForEach-Object {
# output an object to be collected in variable $result
# the order in which you put them also determines the field order in the CSV
[PsCustomObject]#{
MailAddress = $_.EmailAddress
FullName = $_.DisplayName
Title = $_.Title
Company = $_.Company
Location = $_.City
Comment = $Comment # static field
Link = $Link # static field
MobilePhone = $_.MobilePhone
Language = $Language # static field
Department = $_.Department
GivenName = $_.GivenName
Surname = $_.Surname
}
}
$result | Export-CSV -Path $exportto -NoTypeInformation -Delimiter ":" -Encoding UTF8
A note about Export-Csv:
Export-Csv will always quote everything, be it a header or data field.
Simply trying to remove all quotes in a CSV file is risking mis-alignment in the field order and rendering the csv as unusable.
With PowerShell version 7 you have the option to use parameter -UseQuotes AsNeeded, but for older versions, you may safely do this using my function ConvertTo-CsvNoQuotes
Since this code is all about getting AD information, I don't see why you would want to construct the FullName here. Just use the DisplayName property that is set in the AD as the code above does

Answer 2

There are some high-level issues in your code.
Incorrect assignment
In your code you should assign the values to specific properties of $AdUser. Something like:
foreach ($ADUser in $AllADUsers) {
$ADUser.FullName = "$($ADUser.GivenName) $($ADUser.Surname)"
$ADUser.Comment = $Comment
$ADUser.Link = $Link
}
No export
Currently you export only last entry, you should pipe $AllADUsers to Export-Csv:
$AllADUsers| Export-CSV -Path $exportto -NoTypeInformation -Delimiter ":" -Encoding UTF8
No use of Select-Object calculated properties
In general, you could have your code shorten to one-liner like:
$AllADUsers | Select-Object #{n="Comment";{$Comment}},#{n="FullName";e={"$($ADUser.GivenName) $($ADUser.Surname)"}} ... | Export-CSV ...
Read more about calculated properties here.