How to pass variables into Write-Host with pipeline

Question

I have the following bit of script:

try {
    Get-ADUser -Properties Department -Filter $Filter | Where-Object {$_.Department -eq $old} | Set-ADUser -Department $new
} catch { Write-Host "Error occured" -BackgroundColor Red -ForegroundColor Black }

Which changes a given set of user's department to the chosen department ($new).

I would like it to display Successfully updated [$user.Name] with Write-Host after each user is updated, but I can't work out how to do this with pipeline!

I managed to use a foreach, but it doesn't look as good:

$users = Get-ADUser -Properties Department -Filter $Filter | Where-Object {$_.Department -eq $old}
ForEach ($user in $users) {
    try{
        Set-ADUser $user -Department $new
        Write-Host "Department changed: "$user.Name -BackgroundColor Green -ForegroundColor Black
    } catch { Write-Host "Error occured" -BackgroundColor Red -ForegroundColor Black }
}

Can anyone suggest a way of achieving this while still maintaining the succinct format of the first example?

Answer 1

You're going to have to use some kind of iteration/indexing at some point to achieve this, with the try/catch inside. The catch block is not part of the pipeline.

I might suggest ForEach-Object instead of foreach:

Get-ADUser -Properties Department -Filter $Filter | 
    Where-Object {$_.Department -eq $old} |
    ForEach-Object {
        $user = $_
        try{
            Set-ADUser $user -Department $new
            Write-Host "Department changed: "$user.Name -BackgroundColor Green -ForegroundColor Black
        } catch { Write-Host "Error occured" -BackgroundColor Red -ForegroundColor Black }
    }

Alternatively, write your own function to handle this, which takes pipeline input:

function Set-MyUserDepartment {
[CmdletBinding()]
param(
    [Parameter(
        Mandatory = $true,
        ValueFromPipeline = $true,
        ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName = $true
    )]
    [String[]]
    $Name ,

    [Parameter(
        Mandatory = $true
    )]
    [String]
    $NewDepartment
)

    Process {
        foreach($user in $Name) {
            try{
                Set-ADUser $user -Department $NewDepartment
                Write-Host "Department changed: $user" -BackgroundColor Green -ForegroundColor Black
            } catch { Write-Host "Error occured" -BackgroundColor Red -ForegroundColor Black }
        }
    }
}

Then you can use it nicely:

Get-ADUser -Properties Department -Filter $Filter | 
    Where-Object {$_.Department -eq $old} |
    Set-MyUserDepartment -NewDepartment $new