Here’s a nice feature of the Active Directory Administrative Centre – the PowerShell History Viewer. Simply undertake your daily tasks as usual and the PowerShell History Viewer will capture what you do and allow you to see the commands it used to perform those tasks. You’ve then taken the first steps needed to automate your most common tasks as you will:
- Know which tasks you carry out most regularly and
- Know the PowerShell commands to perform those tasks.
To expose the PowerShell History Viewer in the Active Directory Administrative Centre, click on the up arrow at the bottom right of the Admin Centre.
You can now perform your usual tasks and the PowerShell for those tasks will be captured there.
The PowerShell used is displayed below – checking the “Show All” box will show all PowerShell commands issued to run the Admin Centre, not just those related to you entering instructions.
For the “full” command, right click it and select “Copy”
You can then paste it into your favourite editor such as the PowerShell Integrated Scripting Engine (ISE). If you would prefer to just read the string in the GUI then clicking the + sign to the left of the command renders it readable.
Shutting down the Admin Centre will clear the history so do take a note of any commands you need first.
Philip Flint 