SharePoint Online Invite External Users with PowerShell

Ever wished you could bulk invite external users to your SharePoint Online site?

Turns out you can. Here’s the PowerShell.

A couple notes:

1. This assumes you have installed the Microsoft SharePoint Online SDK v16 https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/download/details.aspx?id=42038
2. And that you have added them to your script. Eg:
   Add-Type –Path “C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\ISAPI\Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.dll” Add-Type –Path “C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\ISAPI\Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Runtime.dll”
3. This script also assumes you have a variable $users which has a collection of email addresses that you want to invite. (Maybe imported from a CSV etc.)
4. This sets all users invited to have “view” rights. To change this modify this line accordingly [Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Sharing.Role]::View

[powershell]
# Establish Connection to SharePoint Online
$siteUrl = "site url"
$ctx = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ClientContext($siteUrl)
$credentials = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.SharePointOnlineCredentials("username", "password")
$ctx.Credentials = $credentials
# Create request list
$userList = New-Object "System.Collections.Generic.List``1[Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Sharing.UserRoleAssignment]"
# For each user, set role
# THIS ASSUMES YOU HAVE A POWERSHELL COLLECTION OF USERS YOU WANT TO INVITE
ForEach($user in $users)
{
$userRoleAssignment = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Sharing.UserRoleAssignment
$userRoleAssignment.UserId = $user
$userRoleAssignment.Role = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Sharing.Role]::View
$userList.Add($userRoleAssignment)
}
try
{
# Send invites
$message = "Please accept this invite to our SharePoint Site. Thanks!"
[Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Sharing.WebSharingManager]::UpdateWebSharingInformation($ctx, $ctx.Web, $userList, $true, $message, $true, $true)
$ctx.ExecuteQuery()
}
catch
{
$hasError = ($error[0] | out-string)
}
[/powershell]