Powershell: Add users to group from list surname givenname

Got something here but would appreciate input.

$users = Get-Content 'C:\userstoadd.txt'
$users
#remove whitespaces in front and at then end, then also make sure there is
#only one whitespace between  family name and firstname (family name is also sometimes more then one or even two words)
#then need to get $lastname and $firstname of each of the users and it should not stop when it does not find the user
#maybe even suggest a name in case it doesn't find the user (spelled differently) but that's a next level wish :-)

Get-ADUser -Filter "Name -like '*$lastname*'" -Properties * | Where {($_.Surname -eq $lastname) -and (($_.GivenName -eq $firstName) -or ($_.DisplayName -like "*$firstname*")) } | Select samAccountName

If the list matches AD then you can do something simple like this:

$userlist = "C:\userlist.txt"
Get-Content $userlist | %{Get-ADUser -Filter {name -eq $_}} | select -ExpandProperty samaccountname

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Got somewhere now, commented what my problem is = selecting family name because it can exist of multiple parts.
Thanks for your input.

$file = 'C:\userlist.txt'
#Remove whitespaces
#The first parameter to -replace is a regular expression pattern to match, and the second parameter is the text that will replace any matches.  \s will match a whitespace character, and + indicates to match one or more occurrences, so, in other words, one or more adjacent whitespace characters will be replaced with a single space. Enter help about_comparison_operators or see here for more information.
$users = (Get-Content $file) | ForEach-Object { $PSItem -replace '\s+', ' ' }

#option familyname first or firstname first
foreach ($user in $users) {
                           $firstname = $user.split(' ')[0]
                           $familyname = $user.split(' ')[1] #PROBLEM HERE IS THAT USER SOMETIMES EXISTS OF 2, 3 OR MORE NAMES f.e. Erica Van Den Bossche, John Wrest Chesterburgh
                           
                           #if familynamenamefirst $name = "$familyname $firstname" else $name = "$firstname $familyname"
                           Get-ADUser -Filter {displayname -like "$familyname $firstname"} | select -ExpandProperty samaccountname
}

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Great thanks! Would you mind clarifying what you are doing there?

Got it partially working now, however, however, some of the users do not resolve because of a comma in the

FirstName  FamilyName         SamAccountame
---------  ----------         -------------
John      {Doe, }                  
Eric        {Whatever, }                    
Wendy      {Ericsson}        wericsson
 Guido      {For,Ever}        

Appreciate your input!

#option familyname first or firstname first
$result = @()
foreach ($user in $users) 
{
  $firstname = $user.split(' ')[0]
  $familyname = $user.split(' ')
  $namecount = $familyname.count - 1
  $familyname = $familyname[1..$namecount]
                            
  #if familynamenamefirst $name = "$familyname $firstname" else $name = "$firstname $familyname"
  $UserDisplayNameToLookFor = "$familyname $firstname"
                                      
  $samaccountame = Get-ADUser -Filter {
    displayname -like $UserDisplayNameToLookFor
  } | Select-Object -ExpandProperty samaccountname
  
  $result += [pscustomobject]@{
    FirstName         = $firstname
    FamilyName = $familyname
    SamAccountame = $samaccountame
    
  }
}

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You can use wildcards and/or filter on the givenname and surname properties.

Wildcard against the Displayname:

#option familyname first or firstname first
$result = @()
foreach ($user in $users) 
{
  $firstname = $user.split(' ')[0]
  $familyname = $user.split(' ')
  $namecount = $familyname.count - 1
  $familyname = $familyname[1..$namecount]
                            
  #if familynamenamefirst $name = "$familyname $firstname" else $name = "$firstname $familyname"
  $UserDisplayNameToLookFor = "*$familyname $firstname*"
                                      
  $samaccountame = Get-ADUser -Filter {
    displayname -like $UserDisplayNameToLookFor
  } | Select-Object -ExpandProperty samaccountname
  
  $result += [pscustomobject]@{
    FirstName         = $firstname
    FamilyName = $familyname
    SamAccountame = $samaccountame
    
  }
}

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Wildcard against the given name and surname:

#option familyname first or firstname first
$result = @()
foreach ($user in $users) 
{
  $firstname = $user.split(' ')[0]
  $gnfilter =  "*" + $firstname + "*"
  $familyname = $user.split(' ')
  $namecount = $familyname.count - 1
  $familyname = $familyname[1..$namecount]
                            
  #if familynamenamefirst $name = "$familyname $firstname" else $name = "$firstname $familyname"
  $snfilter = "*$familyname*"
                                      
  $samaccountame = Get-ADUser -Filter {
    givenname -like $gnfilter -and surname -like $snfilter
  } | Select-Object -ExpandProperty samaccountname
  
  $result += [pscustomobject]@{
    FirstName         = $firstname
    FamilyName = $familyname
    SamAccountame = $samaccountame
    
  }
}

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Solved it this way

  $familyname = $familyname[1..$namecount]
  $familyname = $($familyname -join (' ')).trim()

Note: why use wildcard? Want an exact result.

If you specify the name with the wildcard surrounding it, that still has to match the whole string but will allow for preceding and trailing characters that are not part of the name like a space or a comma.

Glad to help. :)

One more thing: What if you put family name first? How would you approach it then?

Which are you referring to? The list or the display name?

DisplayName
I d like to make this work:
#if familynamenamefirst $name = "$familyname $firstname" else $name = "$firstn...

Well you could just reverse the order in your script or if you need to check for both use an -or operator and match against both. But I would not even bother with the display name. Filter against the givenname and surname (as I was doing) and then the displayname doesn't matter.

  $samaccountame = Get-ADUser -Filter {
    givenname -like $firstname -and surname -like $familyname
  } | Select-Object -ExpandProperty samaccountname

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Thanks! Problem though is again the family names consisting of multiple parts ....

So is the family name not going to be entered in the surname/last name attribute? Event if it's multi part it should still match. The only issue is if it's in other attributes and not in the lastname field.

Not sure I'm getting what you are saying.
The function needs the parameters -lastnamefirstname for reversing the logic right?

I'm saying to not look at the displayname at all. Look at the givenname (First name) and surname (Last name). So you don't need to know the order that the display name is in.

I've posted several variations on this:

  $samaccountame = Get-ADUser -Filter {
    givenname -like $firstname -and surname -like $familyname
  } | Select-Object -ExpandProperty samaccountname

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Do you have any questions on what this is doing?

In this script the order of the display name doesn't matter. It will just look at the first and last name:

$result = @()
foreach ($user in $users) 
{
  $firstname = $user.split(' ')[0]
  $gnfilter =  "*" + $firstname + "*"
  $familyname = $user.split(' ')
  $namecount = $familyname.count - 1
  $familyname = $familyname[1..$namecount]
                            
  #if familynamenamefirst $name = "$familyname $firstname" else $name = "$firstname $familyname"
  $snfilter = "*$familyname*"
                                      
  $samaccountame = Get-ADUser -Filter {
    givenname -like $gnfilter -and surname -like $snfilter
  } | Select-Object -ExpandProperty samaccountname
  
  $result += [pscustomobject]@{
    FirstName         = $firstname
    FamilyName = $familyname
    SamAccountame = $samaccountame
    
  }
}

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Let me check what is actually doing in powershell.I ll understand beter then.