Automating with PowerShell - Move user's onedrive files to an archive folder on SharePoint when offboarding employee

Question

Currently we go through a manual process of;

1. login to office365 with global admin.
2. go to the user's properties and create onedrive link to the user's files.
3. click the link, select all files/folders then move them to a sharepoint archive folder

During the process we have to leave the browser open otherwise the move will be cancelled.

Is there a way to do this using PowerShell? This part is the only thing which stops us from completely automating the offboarding procedure.

Thanks for any help.

Answer 1

Hi Kevin,

I understand you need to preserve OneDrive files for archival purposes but you're currently going through a manual process to preserve these files so that they are no deleted after a departing employee leaves and their MS365 account is deleted.

I believe the solution to your issue is to simply leave the files where they are, increase retention (available up to 10 years) and possibly enable automatic delegation. This way there is no manual work.

Please find documentation here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/onedrive/retention-and-deletion

To setup retention -- Go to Settings in the new SharePoint admin center, and sign in with an account that has admin permissions for your organization. Click manage retention and choosing the number of days to retain the data.

To setup delegation -- ensure that users' managers are set in Azure AD, then complete the following:

1. Go to More features in the new SharePoint admin center, and sign in with an account that has admin permissions for your organization.
2. Under User profiles, select Open.
3. Under My Site Settings, select Setup My Sites.
4. Next to My Site Cleanup, make sure Enable access delegation is selected.
5. Select OK.

Once completed, this will free you from manual archival of user OneDrive data --- it will be retained for up to 10 years and it will be automatically available to the manager of the departed employee.

If this answer was helpful, please accept it as an answer. It's appreciated.

Blessings,
Eric

Answer 2

@Kevin Carbonaro

Based on your description, I understand that you want to pre-provision OneDrive for all licensed users in your organization.

Please run below PowerShell.

$Credential = Get-Credential  
Connect-MsolService -Credential $Credential  
Connect-SPOService -Credential $Credential -Url https://contoso-admin.sharepoint.com  
  
$list = @()  
#Counters  
$i = 0  
  
  
#Get licensed users  
$users = Get-MsolUser -All | Where-Object { $_.islicensed -eq $true }  
#total licensed users  
$count = $users.count  
  
foreach ($u in $users) {  
    $i++  
    Write-Host "$i/$count"  
  
    $upn = $u.userprincipalname  
    $list += $upn  
  
    if ($i -eq 199) {  
        #We reached the limit  
        Request-SPOPersonalSite -UserEmails $list -NoWait  
        Start-Sleep -Milliseconds 655  
        $list = @()  
        $i = 0  
    }  
}  
  
if ($i -gt 0) {  
    Request-SPOPersonalSite -UserEmails $list -NoWait  
}  

Reference: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/onedrive/pre-provision-accounts

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Answer 3

Hello there,

Found this script online to transfer OneDrive data to another user.

$departinguser = Read-Host "Enter departing user's email"  
$destinationuser = Read-Host "Enter destination user's email"  
$globaladmin = Read-Host "Enter the username of your Global Admin account"  
$credentials = Get-Credential -Credential $globaladmin  
Connect-MsolService -Credential $credentials  
   
$InitialDomain = Get-MsolDomain | Where-Object {$_.IsInitial -eq $true}  
    
$SharePointAdminURL = "https://$($InitialDomain.Name.Split(".")[0])-admin.sharepoint.com"  
    
$departingUserUnderscore = $departinguser -replace "[^a-zA-Z]", "_"  
$destinationUserUnderscore = $destinationuser -replace "[^a-zA-Z]", "_"  
    
$departingOneDriveSite = "https://$($InitialDomain.Name.Split(".")[0])-my.sharepoint.com/personal/$departingUserUnderscore"  
$destinationOneDriveSite = "https://$($InitialDomain.Name.Split(".")[0])-my.sharepoint.com/personal/$destinationUserUnderscore"  
Write-Host "`nConnecting to SharePoint Online" -ForegroundColor Blue  
Connect-SPOService -Url $SharePointAdminURL -Credential $credentials  
    
Write-Host "`nAdding $globaladmin as site collection admin on both OneDrive site collections" -ForegroundColor Blue  
# Set current admin as a Site Collection Admin on both OneDrive Site Collections  
Set-SPOUser -Site $departingOneDriveSite -LoginName $globaladmin -IsSiteCollectionAdmin $true  
Set-SPOUser -Site $destinationOneDriveSite -LoginName $globaladmin -IsSiteCollectionAdmin $true  
    
Write-Host "`nConnecting to $departinguser's OneDrive via SharePoint Online PNP module" -ForegroundColor Blue  
    
Connect-PnPOnline -Url $departingOneDriveSite -Credentials $credentials  
    
Write-Host "`nGetting display name of $departinguser" -ForegroundColor Blue  
# Get name of departing user to create folder name.  
$departingOwner = Get-PnPSiteCollectionAdmin | Where-Object {$_.loginname -match $departinguser}  
    
# If there's an issue retrieving the departing user's display name, set this one.  
if ($departingOwner -contains $null) {  
    $departingOwner = @{  
        Title = "Departing User"  
    }  
}  

Hope this resolves your Query !!

--If the reply is helpful, please Upvote and Accept it as an answer–