Add Birthday or Anniversary Reminders in Office 365 Exchange Online

Introduction

This script creates birthday or anniversary reminders for your contacts. This script also enables you to import a comma-separated values (CSV) file for creating the reminders. Additionally, you can use this script to search a contact folder to find contacts that have birthdays and anniversaries, and then create the reminders.

Scenarios

Microsoft Outlook has a feature that enables you to “Add a birthday or anniversary for a contact.” However, this feature is not available in the Outlook Web App (OWA). Therefore, in order to add birthday or anniversary reminders in OWA, you must find a workaround.

Prerequisites

This script requires Exchange Web Service Managed API 2.0. Please download and install the package from Microsoft Download Center. This script cannot work correctly without this package.

Script

This script contains the following advanced functions:

Connect-OSCEXOWebService
Search-OSCEXOContact
New-OSCEXOContactReminder

You can use this script in the following way.

1. Open Windows PowerShell.

2. Run Import-Module cmdlet to import this module file.
Import-Module filepath\scriptname.psm1

Here are some code snippets for your references. To get the complete script sample, please click the download button at the beginning of this page.

PowerShell

Edit|Remove

#Begin to search contacts
$itemView = New-Object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.ItemView($PageSize)
$itemView.PropertySet = $propertySet
do
{
    if ($searchFilterCollection.Count -ne 0) {
        $findResults = $currentContactsFolder.FindItems($searchFilterCollection,$itemView)
    } else {
        $findResults = $currentContactsFolder.FindItems($itemView)
    }
    foreach ($findResult in $findResults) {
        $PSCmdlet.WriteObject($findResult)
    }
    $itemView.Offset += $PageSize
} while ($findResults.MoreAvailable)

#Begin to search contacts$itemView = New-Object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.ItemView($PageSize) 
$itemView.PropertySet = $propertySetdo 
{ 
    if ($searchFilterCollection.Count -ne 0) { 
        $findResults = $currentContactsFolder.FindItems($searchFilterCollection,$itemView) 
    } else { 
        $findResults = $currentContactsFolder.FindItems($itemView) 
    } 
    foreach ($findResultin$findResults) { 
        $PSCmdlet.WriteObject($findResult) 
    } 
    $itemView.Offset += $PageSize 
} while ($findResults.MoreAvailable)

Examples

Example 1: How to display help about New-OSCEXOContactReminder
To display help about this function, run this command.
Get-Help New-OSCEXOContactReminder -Full

Example 2: How to start a connection to Office 365 Exchange Online.
To initiate a connection to Office 365 Exchange Online, please run this command. You must run this example before any other step.
Connect-OSCEXOWebService -Credential (Get-Credential admin@domain01.onmicrosoft.com)

Note The Connect-OSCEXOWebService function creates a new variable called exService. This variable is in the global scope of the current Windows PowerShell session. This variable is used by other functions in the script.

Example 3: How to initiate a connection to Office 365 Exchange Online by using a different credential.
To initiate a connection to Office 365 Exchange Online by using a different credential, please run this command.
Connect-OSCEXOWebService -Credential (Get-Credential admin@domain02.onmicrosoft.com) -Force

Note To replace the credential in the current exService variable, you must use the Force parameter. Otherwise, Connect-OSCEXOWebService indicates the user name of the current credential.

Example 4: How to initiate a connection to Office 365 Exchange Online by using a different time zone.
To initiate a connection to Office 365 Exchange Online by using a different time zone, please run this command.
Connect-OSCEXOWebService -Credential (Get-Credential admin@domain01.onmicrosoft.com) -TimeZoneStandardName "Pacific Standard Time"

Example 5: How to return all the contacts to the default contact folder.
To return all the contacts to the default contact folder, please run this command.
Search-OSCEXOContact

Example 6: How to return contacts that have birthdays to a specific contact folder.
To return contacts that have birthdays to a specific contact folder, please run this command.
Search-OSCEXOContact -ContactFolder "\Fabrikam\" -HasBirthday

Note By default, the outputs of Search-OSCEXOContact are optimized for the best performance. If you want to load FirstClassProperties, please use the BasePropertySet parameter. The default value of BasePropertySet is IdOnly.

Example 7: How to show what would happen if the New-OSCEXOContactReminder runs.
To show what would happen if the New-OSCEXOContactReminder runs please run this command.
New-OSCEXOContactReminder -CsvFile C:\Scripts\052\Contacts.csv -Whatif

Note By default, New-OSCEXOContactReminder verifies the duplication by checking the subject of the appointments that are created. If you have mulitple contacts who have same name, please distinguish them by changing their names.

Example 8: How to create reminders for contacts that have birthdays or anniversaries in the default Calendar folder.
To create reminders for contacts that have birthdays or anniversaries in the default Calendar folder and that are imported from a comma-separated values (CSV) file, please run this command.
New-OSCEXOContactReminder -CsvFile C:\Scripts\052\Contacts.csv

Example 9: How to create reminders for contacts that have birthdays or anniversaries in a specific calendar folder.
To create reminders for contacts that are returned by Search-OSCEXOContact and that have birthdays or anniversaries in a specific calendar, please run this command.
Search-OSCEXOContact | New-OSCEXOContactReminder -CalendarFolder "\Contacts' Birthday\" -Verbose

Additional Resources

Technical Resources:
Windows PowerShell Advanced Function
Working with recurring calendar items by using the EWS Managed API

Forum Threads:
Birthdays do not display on Calendar after migrating contacts in 365 online
Birthdate Field in Contacts?