Microsoft Graph Early Adopter Badges and Other Stuff

Giving Microsoft Feedback, Azure AD Cmdlet Throttling, and Microsoft Graph Early Adopter Badges

I’m the proud possessor of a badge awarded through the Microsoft Graph Early Adopter Recognition program, something that I never knew about nor realized that badges were on offer. Notification about the badge arrived in a surprise email. Apparently, the badge (Figure 1) recognizes people who provide Microsoft with valuable (meaningful) feedback about Microsoft Graph tools and SDKs. According to the program blurb, you should submit feedback by creating an issue in the GitHub repository of a Microsoft Graph product to allow the program managers to know about the issue and recognize the feedback.

Feedback About the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK

As far as I know, the only time I left feedback like this was to note some concerns about the direction Microsoft was heading for V2.0 of the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK. Microsoft has still not addressed some of the concerns, especially around the proposal to have sets of differently-named cmdlets for the V1.0 and beta endpoints.

If Microsoft’s proposal proceeds, anyone who’s upgrading PowerShell code to replace cmdlets from the soon-to-retire Azure AD and Microsoft Online Services modules with Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK will have to revisit their code anywhere they use the beta endpoint. For example, the Get-MgUser cmdlet doesn’t return license details for an account via the V1.0 endpoint but it does via the beta endpoint. In any case, spirited discussions continue about that point.

Azure AD and MSOL Cmdlet Throttling

Speaking of the PowerShell retirements, I’ve noticed many examples where people report problems with throttling of their scripts. Figure 2 shows an example reported in the Facebook Office 365 Technical Discussions group where the New-MsolUser cmdlet halted after 20 transactions because it “exceeded the maximum number of allowable transactions.” The advice to “try again later” is because this is a temporary throttle imposed by Microsoft to advise people that they need to move off the deprecated modules.

It would be nice if Microsoft issued a more explicit and understandable error message. Something along the lines of “this cmdlet will stop working on 30 June 2023. Time to update your code! For now, we’re just throttling, but we will get serious soon…” It’s obvious that the message about the module retirements has not landed in some places, even though Microsoft has been banging the drum for about two years.

Note that cmdlet throttling only happens for cmdlets that interact with license management. The other Azure AD and MSOL cmdlets will continue working after the retirement date, but assigning and updating licenses to Azure AD accounts through PowerShell should now use Graph API requests or Graph SDK cmdlets.

Getting Back to Badges

Going back to the original topic, I don’t quite know how to feel about badges awarded for giving feedback. People like recognition, which is why Teams has the Praise app and Viva Insights includes a version of that app. The joy went out of those apps when Microsoft removed support for the creation and use of custom badges.

I never put myself in the category of those motivated by badges or awards, so I am ambivalent about the Microsoft Graph Early Adopter badge. I understand why the Microsoft team has gone down the path of creating a digital badge to recognize external contributions, but it doesn’t move my needle. But if it floats your boat, enjoy the opportunity to share the recognition with your nearest and dearest.

On the point of feedback, maybe the best way to let Microsoft know exactly what you think about their products, at least in the Microsoft 365 space, is to use the feedback portal. Spend a little time thinking about the message you want to send. Write it down in Word or another text editor. Leave it for an hour or so and then check the text again. And finally, copy your feedback into the appropriate space. You know it makes sense.

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