How to Install Microsoft Graph Module in PowerShell

The Microsoft Graph API allows us to interact with all Microsoft services through a single source. To do this from PowerShell, we always had to install different modules and make different connections. This is no longer necessary with the Microsoft Graph SDK Module for PowerShell.

We could already use the Graph API with the help of Invoke-Webrequests calls, but that was not really easy to work with. The new Microsoft Graph Module comes with a lot of cmdlets to make interacting with the services a lot easier.

In this article, I will explain how to install the Microsoft Graph Module and how to connect to it using different permissions.

Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK

The Graph module is actually called the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK and is a wrapper for all Microsoft Graph APIs. At the moment it only seems to replace the Azure AD module. The other modules that we use to interact with Microsoft 365 don’t seem to be replaced by it at the moment.

On June 30, 2022, the Azure AD Graph endpoint will be deprecated. This means that calls made with the Azure AD Module won’t get a response anymore. So it’s important to rewrite all your scripts that use the Azure AD Module to the Microsoft Graph module.

As mentioned, the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK allows us to interact with all APIs from Microsoft. This means that we could also use the module to interact with SharePoint, Exchange Online, Compliance, etc.

Another advantage of the module is that it supports PowerShell 7 and above. The Azure AD Module, for example, doesn’t work on PowerShell 7.

Installing the Microsoft Graph Module in PowerShell

The Microsoft Graph SDK Module exists, at the moment, out of 38 modules. We can install them all at once, but you might want to consider installing only the modules that you really need.

Note

Make sure that you install atleast the Microsoft.Graph.Authentication module when installing individual modules

You can view all available modules with the following command:

Find-Module Microsoft.Graph*

If you want to use the beta version as well, then you will need to install the beta modules separately:

Install-Module Microsoft.Graph.Beta -Scope CurrentUser

Connecting to Microsoft Graph from PowerShell

There are two things important when connecting to Microsoft Graph, you will need to define the scope and there is a beta version of MgGraph. By default, the module will use the stable version of the API. But new features are first released in the beta versions of the cmdlets.

The other important step is that you will need to specify the scopes that you want to use. MgGraph offers access to all APIs from Microsoft. So when you want for example to export or view the Azure AD users, you only need to have User.Read.All permission.

Finding Microsoft Graph Scopes

Finding the right scope can be a bit challenging at the beginning. But there are some options that you can use to determine which scopes you will need to specify:

• Microsoft Graph Explorer
• Microsoft Graph Rest API Reference
• Find-MgGraphPermission cmdlet

The Microsoft Graph Explorer is a great tool to test out API calls to Microsoft Graph. It comes with a lot of example calls to help you get started. But it will also list the required permission for the call.

1. Open the Graph Explorer
2. Select a Sample Query on the left side
3. Click Modify Permissions tab

You will need to at at least one of the scopes mentioned in the Permission tab when connecting to MS Graph in PowerShell.

The other option is to use the Rest API Reference. You can select in the left menu one of the entities that you want to work with and then view the required permissions. You don’t need to add all scopes, they are listed from least to most privileged.

The last option is to use the Find-MgGraphPermission or Find-MgGraphCommand cmdlets. Both cmdlets will allow you to look for the required permission for a particular MgGraph cmdlet:

Find-MgGraphCommand -Command "Get-MgUserAuthenticationMethod" | select -ExpandProperty Permissions | Select -Unique name

# Or 
Find-MgGraphPermission AuthenticationMethod

Connecting to MgGraph in PowerShell

If you know which scopes you need to use, you can connect to Microsoft Graph. We will be using the normal interactive method, which is great when working locally. But when you want to schedule scripts or use Microsoft Graph inside an Azure Runbook, then you will need to use one of the other authentication options.

Connect to Microsoft Graph with for example the User.Read.All and Group.ReadWrite.All scopes:

Connect-MgGraph -Scopes "User.Read.All","Group.ReadWrite.All"

You will need to authenticate and grant permission. Some scopes require to grant permission on behalf of your organization.

You can now use the Graph API. When you are working with Graph in PowerShell you can add additional scopes to your session by simply using the Connect-MsGraph command again with the new permissions.

If you want to use the beta cmdlet, simply add the beta prefix before the resource name of the cmdlet. For example, to use the beta cmdlet of Get-MgUser, you can use Get-MgBetaUser.

Update Microsoft Graph Module

The Microsoft Graph module is still being developed with new features added regularly. So it’s important to keep your module up to date, so you can use the latest Graph cmdlets in your PowerShell scripts.

To update the module, we can use the Update-Module cmdlet in PowerShell, followed by the module name:

Update-Module Microsoft.Graph

Wrapping Up

It can be a bit challenging to find the correct cmdlets of the Microsoft Graph SDK Module, but it’s great that one module allows us to interact with all Microsoft services. At the moment of writing is the documentation still a bit thin, so it’s a lot of trial and error to write scripts with it.

I hope this article helped you to get started with the MgGraph module. If you have any questions, just drop a comment below.