Create Active Directory Users From CSV With PowerShell

We want to create new Active Directory users in the organization. We can use the user creation wizard in Active Directory Users and Computers to create the users. What if you need to create 1000+ users? Doing it by the wizard will take a lot of time. In this article, you will learn how to create Active Directory Users from CSV with PowerShell.

Table of contents

• Before you start to create Active Directory Users from CSV file
• Create the CSV template
• Edit the CSV file
  • Generate passwords
  • Fill in the Organization Unit (OU)
• Check the CSV file
  • Good to know about delimiter
• Prepare the Add-NewUsers PowerShell script
• Run the Add-NewUsers PowerShell script
• Conclusion

Before you start to create Active Directory Users from CSV file

Let’s say you need one minute to create a new user with the wizard. It will take one minute for every user. What if you have to add a thousand new users? Do the math, 1000 users * 1 minute = 1000 minutes. That is approximately 16 hours. A bit too much time to spend on creating new users, right? What if you can simplify the process and do it much faster in time.

In the article, we are going to use the following files:

File	Info
NewUsersSent.csv	The spreadsheet template that we sent to HR
NewUsersReceived.csv	The spreadsheet that we received from HR
NewUsersFinal.csv	The updated final version to import
Add-NewUsers.ps1	The PowerShell script that will create the user accounts

Create the CSV template

First, we need to make sure that we have a list of all the thousand users we need to create. The most important information we need is the first name and last name. We suggest to create a CSV file and send it to a user in the company.

We are going to send the CSV file to Jane. Jane works in the HR department at the company called EXOIP. She has information regarding the thousand users who need a new AD user account. The CSV file that we sent to Jane is NewUsersSent.csv. Jane will fill in the data, just like discussed, and send the CSV file back to us.

We told Jane to put as much information as possible in the fields. If she can’t fill all the fields, there is nothing to worry about. The most important is the First name and Last name. We also told her to leave the Password and OU field empty. Why did we tell her that?

• Password field, leaving it empty because the IT department will create the passwords. Even if it’s a temporary password. When the user logs in, a prompt will show up to change the password.
• OU field, leaving it empty because the IT department will fill in the Organizational Unit (OU). That’s where the new Active Directory (AD) Users are going to be created.

Edit the CSV file

Jane sent the CSV file back with all the information. Let’s open the NewUsersReceived.csv file and have a look.

All is looking great. Jane did fill all the information that we need.

Note: Find your country code in the Active Directory country code list.

Generate passwords

Generate passwords for the users and fill in the password fields for every user. I recommend generating passwords with Manytools password generator. You can create a maximum of 9999 passwords at one time. After that, copy and paste the passwords in the column Password.

Fill in the Organization Unit (OU)

Start Active Directory Users and Computers (ADUC) and make sure to enable Advanced Features. Click the menu View and click Advanced Features. Now that Advanced Features is enabled, we can proceed further and create the OU in AD.

We can see in the CSV file that the users will work in the IT department. So, we will create an OU in Active Directory with the name IT.

Right-click the OU with the name IT and click Properties. Click the tab Attribute Editor. Find the attribute distinguishedName. Double-click on it and copy the value.

The value in my example is OU=IT,OU=Users,OU=Company,DC=exoip,DC=local.

Place the value in the fields under the column OU.

When done, save it as a new CSV file. Go to File and click Save As. Give it the file name NewUsersFinal.csv. Save it as type CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited) (*.csv). Click the button Save.

The NewUsersFinal.csv is created.

Place the NewUsersFinal.csv in the C:\Temp folder on the Domain Controller or the Management Server.

Check the CSV file

Before using the script, import the CSV file in PowerShell. It’s an excellent way to check if it’s readable and if you’re all set.

Good to know about delimiter

Is the delimiter showing as a comma or semicolon in the CSV file? You need to know that before you are going to use the PowerShell script in the next step. If you use the semicolon as a separating character in your CSV file, add the delimiter parameter -Delimiter “;” to your Import-Csv cmdlet.

Run PowerShell as administrator. Use the Import-Csv cmdlet to read the CSV file. If it can’t read the CSV file, remove the -Delimiter parameter. It will be Import-Csv “C:\Temp\NewUsersFinal.csv” | Format-Table.

Import-Csv "C:\Temp\NewUsersFinal.csv" -Delimiter ";" | Format-Table

This is how the output needs to look like.

FirstName Initials Lastname Username Email StreetAddress City ZipCode State Country --------- -------- -------- -------- ----- ------------- ---- ------- ----- ------- Max MF Fraser Max.Fraser [email protected] 21 Baker St London NW1 6XE GB Piers PB Bower Piers.Bower [email protected] 21 Baker St London NW1 6XE GB Kylie KD Davidson Kylie.Davidson [email protected] 21 Baker St London NW1 6XE GB Richard RG Grant Richard.Grant [email protected] 21 Baker St London NW1 6XE GB Boris BC Campbell Boris.Campbell [email protected] 21 Baker St London NW1 6XE GB Nicholas NM Murray Nicholas.Murray [email protected] 21 Baker St London NW1 6XE GB Leonard LC Clark Leonard.Clark [email protected] 21 Baker St London NW1 6XE GB Ruth RD Dickens Ruth.Dickens [email protected] 21 Baker St London NW1 6XE GB Jonathan JF Fisher Jonathan.Fisher [email protected] 21 Baker St London NW1 6XE GB Grace GR Rees Grace.Rees [email protected] 21 Baker St London NW1 6XE GB

For more information, read How to use Import-CSV in PowerShell.

Prepare the Add-NewUsers PowerShell script

Download the Add-NewUsers.ps1 script and save it in path C:\Scripts on the Management Server or Domain Controller.

Another option is to copy and paste the code below into Notepad. Give it the name Add-NewUsers.ps1 and place it in the C:\scripts folder.

<# .SYNOPSIS Add-NewUsers.ps1 .DESCRIPTION Create Active Directory users from CSV file. .LINK alitajran.com/create-active-directory-users-from-csv-with-powershell .NOTES Written by: ALI TAJRAN Website: alitajran.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/alitajran .CHANGELOG V1.00, 03/12/2020 - Initial version V2.00, 02/07/2024 - Added try/catch and changed to splatting #> # Import active directory module for running AD cmdlets Import-Module ActiveDirectory # Store the data from NewUsersFinal.csv in the $ADUsers variable $ADUsers = Import-Csv "C:\temp\NewUsersFinal.csv" -Delimiter ";" # Define UPN $UPN = "exoip.com" # Loop through each row containing user details in the CSV file foreach ($User in $ADUsers) { try { # Define the parameters using a hashtable $UserParams = @{ SamAccountName = $User.username UserPrincipalName = "$($User.username)@$UPN" Name = "$($User.firstname) $($User.lastname)" GivenName = $User.firstname Surname = $User.lastname Initial = $User.initials Enabled = $True DisplayName = "$($User.firstname) $($User.lastname)" Path = $User.ou #This field refers to the OU the user account is to be created in City = $User.city PostalCode = $User.zipcode Country = $User.country Company = $User.company State = $User.state StreetAddress = $User.streetaddress OfficePhone = $User.telephone EmailAddress = $User.email Title = $User.jobtitle Department = $User.department AccountPassword = (ConvertTo-secureString $User.password -AsPlainText -Force) ChangePasswordAtLogon = $True } # Check to see if the user already exists in AD if (Get-ADUser -Filter "SamAccountName -eq '$($User.username)'") { # Give a warning if user exists Write-Host "A user with username $($User.username) already exists in Active Directory." -ForegroundColor Yellow } else { # User does not exist then proceed to create the new user account # Account will be created in the OU provided by the $User.ou variable read from the CSV file New-ADUser @UserParams # If user is created, show message. Write-Host "The user $($User.username) is created." -ForegroundColor Green } } catch { # Handle any errors that occur during account creation Write-Host "Failed to create user $($User.username) - $_" -ForegroundColor Red } }

• Line 25: Change the path if you place the CSV file in another path. In our example, it’s C:\Temp\NewUsersFinal.csv.
• Line 25: Remove the -Delimiter parameter if you have a comma separating character instead of a semicolon in your CSV file. In our example, it’s the semicolon character.
• Line 28: Change the UserPrincipalName (UPN) to yours. In our example, it’s exoip.com.

Run the Add-NewUsers PowerShell script

Run the command below to run the script Add-NewUsers.ps1.

C:\Scripts\.\Add-NewUsers.ps1

The script will run and create Active Directory users in bulk.

The user Max.Fraser is created. The user Piers.Bower is created. The user Kylie.Davidson is created. The user Richard.Grant is created. The user Boris.Campbell is created. The user Nicholas.Murray is created. The user Leonard.Clark is created. The user Ruth.Dickens is created. The user Jonathan.Fisher is created. The user Grace.Rees is created.

If the user already exists in AD, you will see the following.

A user with username Max.Fraser already exists in Active Directory. A user with username Piers.Bower already exists in Active Directory. A user with username Kylie.Davidson already exists in Active Directory. A user with username Richard.Grant already exists in Active Directory. A user with username Boris.Campbell already exists in Active Directory. A user with username Nicholas.Murray already exists in Active Directory. A user with username Leonard.Clark already exists in Active Directory. A user with username Ruth.Dickens already exists in Active Directory. A user with username Jonathan.Fisher already exists in Active Directory. A user with username Grace.Rees already exists in Active Directory.

Have a look at ADUC. The users are created successfully in the OU.

Did this help you to create Active Directory Users from CSV with PowerShell?

Keep reading: Bulk move AD users to another OU with PowerShell »

Conclusion

You learned how to create Active Directory Users from CSV with PowerShell. First, prepare the CSV file and make sure all the information is filled in. When you have the final CSV file, import the CSV file in PowerShell to check if it’s readable. Adjust the two lines in the Add-NewUsers.ps1 script, as shown in the article. Run the script to create the users in AD. The last part is to check if the users are created successfully in ADUC.

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