PowerShell – How to Automate Active Directory User Creation

As a System Administrator, I can tell you that creating user accounts is one of the most repetitive tasks we face. While a single account is trivial, onboarding a whole class of new hires means clicking through the same Active Directory forms dozens of times. It’s tedious, time-consuming, and leaves a lot of room for human error.

What if you could turn that multi-step clicking process into a script that just asks for a first and last name, creates the user, and keeps a log of what it did? This tiny PowerShell project does exactly that. It’s a simple but powerful first step into automation that saves time and ensures consistency.

The PowerShell Script for Easy User Creation

Here is the complete script we’ll be using. It prompts for a name, generates a username, creates a disabled account in Active Directory, and logs every step to a file.

Note: This script uses a modern syntax where the pipe (|) operator can be on a new line, which works best in PowerShell 7.x. For older versions like Windows PowerShell 5.1, you would need to move the piped lines up to the end of the preceding line.

PowerShell

# Import the Active Directory module if it's not already available
Import-Module -Name ActiveDirectory

# Prompt for user details
$FirstName = (Read-Host "What is the user's First Name?").Trim()
$LastName = (Read-Host "What is the user's Last Name?").Trim()

# Generate the username (e.g., "jdoe")
$UserName = $FirstName.Substring(0,1) + $LastName

# Define a unique log file path for this user
$Log_File = "C:\Logs\$UserName.log"

# Announce the action and log it
Write-Output "Creating user: $UserName" | Tee-Object -FilePath $Log_File -Append

# Create the new, disabled Active Directory user and log the output
New-ADUser -Name $UserName -GivenName $FirstName -Surname $LastName -DisplayName $UserName -SamAccountName $UserName -Enabled $false | Tee-Object -FilePath $Log_File -Append

# Pause to allow for AD replication
Start-Sleep -Seconds 5

# Verify the user was created and log the result
Write-Output "Verifying user account..." | Tee-Object -FilePath $Log_File -Append
Get-ADUser -Filter "SamAccountName -eq '$UserName'" | Tee-Object -FilePath $Log_File -Append

Prerequisites

To run this script, your environment needs two things:

  1. Access to Active Directory: You must run this on a Domain Controller or a machine with the Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) for Active Directory installed.
  2. Active Directory Module for PowerShell: This is included with RSAT. The script includes Import-Module -Name ActiveDirectory to make the necessary cmdlets available.

How the Script Works: A Step-by-Step Breakdown

Let’s dissect the code to understand what each part does.

1. Getting User Input with Read-Host

Instead of hard-coding names, we need the script to be interactive. The Read-Host cmdlet prompts the person running the script for input and captures what they type.

PowerShell

$FirstName = (Read-Host "What is the user's First Name?").Trim()
$LastName = (Read-Host "What is the user's Last Name?").Trim()

I’ve wrapped the Read-Host command in parentheses so I can immediately call the .Trim() method on the text the user enters. This is a crucial habit I’ve learned; it removes any accidental leading or trailing spaces, preventing them from ending up in the username.

2. Generating the Username and Log Path

This part uses the string manipulation techniques from our previous email creation project. We take the first character of the first name using .Substring(0,1) and combine it with the last name to create the username. We then use this new username to define a unique path for our log file. Storing the log path in a variable makes it easy to change later without having to update every command that writes to the log.

PowerShell

$UserName = $FirstName.Substring(0,1) + $LastName
$Log_File = "C:\Logs\$UserName.log"

3. Outputting and Logging with the Pipeline and Tee-Object

This is where PowerShell’s power really shines. We want to show progress on the screen and write the same information to a log file. We do this using the pipe (|) and the Tee-Object cmdlet.

Think of the pipe as an assembly line: Write-Output places a message on the line. The Tee-Object cmdlet acts like a T-intersection, sending a copy of that message down two paths: one continues down the pipeline to the screen (the default), and the other is directed to a file using the -FilePath parameter. The -Append flag ensures we add to the log file instead of overwriting it each time.

PowerShell

Write-Output "Creating user: $UserName" | Tee-Object -FilePath $Log_File -Append

4. Creating the User with New-ADUser

This is the core Active Directory command. The New-ADUser cmdlet creates the user account. We pass it the information we’ve gathered using parameters like -Name, -GivenName, and -SamAccountName. Importantly, -Enabled $false creates the account in a disabled state, which is a common security practice during onboarding.

PowerShell

New-ADUser -Name $UserName -GivenName $FirstName ... -Enabled $false | Tee-Object -FilePath $Log_File -Append

5. Pausing with Start-Sleep to Avoid a Race Condition

After creating a user, it can take a few moments for that change to replicate across all your Domain Controllers. If we immediately query for the new user, the query might hit a server that hasn’t received the update yet, making it seem like the creation failed. This is a classic race condition.

Start-Sleep is a simple pause button. It tells the script to wait for a specified number of seconds, giving Active Directory time to sync up before we proceed.

PowerShell

Start-Sleep -Seconds 5

6. Verifying with Get-ADUser and Where-Object

The final step is to confirm the user was created successfully.

  • Get-ADUser -Filter *: This command gets every user in Active Directory.
  • | Where-Object {$_.SamAccountName -eq $UserName}: We pipe that potentially huge list to Where-Object, which acts as a filter. It checks each user object ($_ is a placeholder for the current object in the pipeline) and only passes through the one whose SamAccountName equals the username we just created.

This final output is also sent to the log file, giving us a complete record of the creation and verification process.

Conclusion

With just a few lines of PowerShell, we’ve automated a common, error-prone task. This script not only makes the process faster but also far more consistent, eliminating typos and ensuring every user is created according to the same policy. Best of all, it creates an automatic audit log for every action it takes. This simple script is a perfect example of how automation can free you from repetitive work and let you focus on more complex challenges.


Burns B. Smirnov E. “Tiny PowerShell Projects“.

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