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Keep Group Display Names Short to Avoid Problems
A recent discussion revealed that Graph API requests against the Groups endpoint for groups with display names longer than 120 characters generate an error. As you might know, The Groups Graph API supports group display names up to a maximum of 256 characters, so an error occurring after 120 seems bizarre. Then again, having extraordinarily long group names is also bizarre (Figure 1).
Group display names longer than 30 or so characters make it difficult for clients to list groups or teams, which is why Microsoft’s recommendation for Teams clients says that between 30 and 36 characters is a good limit for a team name. Using very long group names also creates formatting and layout issues when generating output like the Teams and Groups activity report, especially if only one or two groups have very long names.
Replicating the Problem
In any case, here’s an example. After creating a group with a very long name, I populated a variable with the group’s display name (146 characters). I then created a URI to request the Groups endpoint to return any Microsoft 365 group that has the display name. Finally, I executed the Invoke-MgGraphRequest cmdlet to issue the request, which promptly failed with a “400 bad request” error:
$Name = "O365Grp-Team with an extraordinary long name that makes it much more than 120 characters so that we can have some fun with it with Graph requests"
$Uri = "https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/groups?`$filter= displayName eq '${name}'"
$Data = Invoke-MgGraphRequest -Uri $Uri -Method Get
Invoke-MgGraphRequest: GET Invoke-MgGraphRequest: GET https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/groups?$filter=%20displayName%20eq%20'O365Grp-Team%20with%20an%20extraordinary%20long%20name%20that%20makes%20it%20much%20more%20than%20120%20characters%20so%20that%20we%20can%20have%20some%20fun%20with%20it%20%20with%20Graph%20requests'
HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request
Cache-Control: no-cache
The Get-MgGroup cmdlet also fails. This isn’t at all surprising because the Graph SDK cmdlets run the underlying Graph API requests, so if those requests fail, the cmdlets can’t apply magic to make everything work again:
Get-MgGroup -Filter "displayName eq '$Name'" Get-MgGroup_List: Unsupported or invalid query filter clause specified for property 'displayName' of resource 'Group'.
The same happens if you try to use the Get-MgTeam cmdlet from the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK.
Get-MgTeam -Filter "displayName eq '$Name'" Get-MgTeam_List: Unsupported or invalid query filter clause specified for property 'displayName' of resource 'Group'. Status: 400 (BadRequest) ErrorCode: BadRequest Date: 2023-10-06T04:53:39
The Workaround for Group Display Name Errors
But here’s the thing. The Get-MgGroup cmdlet (and the underlying Graph API request) work if you add the ConsistencyLevel header and an output variable to accept the count of returned items. The presence of the header makes the request into an advanced query against Entra ID.
Get-MgGroup -ConsistencyLevel Eventual -Filter "displayName eq '$Name'" -CountVariable X | Format-Table DisplayName DisplayName ----------- O365Grp-Team with an extraordinary long name that makes it much more than 120 characters so that we can have some fun …
Oddly, the Get-MgTeam cmdlet doesn’t support the ConsistencyLevel header so this workaround isn’t possible using this cmdlet. Given that Teams (the app) finds its teams through Graph requests, this inconsistency is maddening, and it’s probably due to a flaw in the metadata read by the ‘AutoREST’ process Microsoft runs regularly to generate the SDK cmdlets and build new versions of the SDK modules.
None of the Teams clients that I’ve tested have any problem displaying team names longer than 120 characters, so I suspect that the clients do the necessary magic when fetching lists of teams.
Inconsistency in Entra ID Admin Center
The developers of the Entra ID admin center must know about the 120 character limit (and not about the workaround) because they restrict group names (Figure 2).
A StackOverflow thread from 2017 reported that attempts to use the Graph to create new groups with display names longer than 120 characters resulted in errors. However, it’s possible to now use cmdlets like New-MgGroup to create groups with much longer names.
Given that the Groups Graph API allows for 256 characters, it’s yet another oddity that the Entra ID admin center focuses on a lower limit – unless the developers chose to emphasize to administrators that it’s a really bad idea to use overly long group names.
Time to Update SDK Foibles
I shall have to add this issue to my list of Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK foibles (aka, things developers should know before they try coding PowerShell scripts using the SDK). The fortunate thing is that you’re unlikely to meet this problem in real life. At least, I hope that you are. And if you do, you’ll know what to do now.
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