Office 365 admin center is an out-of-the-box solution that is designed to handle the most common administrative tasks, such as creating new users and assigning licenses. There are situations where PowerShell for Office 365 helps us save time and effort. If you are a systems administrator, PowerShell is now a must-have skill. PowerShell for Office 365 helps you automate a lot of repetitive tasks and also work with advanced functions that are not available in Office 365 admin center:
- Office 365 PowerShell can reveal additional information that you cannot see with Office 365 admin center
- Office 365 has features that you can only configure using Office 365 PowerShell
- Office 365 PowerShell is great at performing bulk operations
- Office 365 PowerShell is great for filtering data
- Office 365 PowerShell allows us to automate repetitive tasks
- Office 365 PowerShell makes it easy to print or save data
- Office 365 PowerShell lets you manage operations across server products
I think using the Office 365 admin center is like using public transportation. We have to live with the options provided by Microsoft. If we need something custom, like in the case of transportation when we use taxis or personal vehicles, in Office 365, we can use PowerShell. We still have to write scripts in accordance with Microsoft's guidelines. However, we get far more flexibility and options as compared to Office 365 admin center.
Before we dive deep into PowerShell for Office 365, let's cover the basics of PowerShell in the next few sections.