In today’s tech-driven world, system administrators need to harness the power of PowerShell to enhance their workflow efficiency. Let me share a real-world example to illustrate its effectiveness.

At one of my previous jobs, we had a system that synced legal deadlines to Outlook calendars. The former sysadmin used to check each user’s account weekly to ensure synchronization, a task taking over an hour.

However, with PowerShell and the Selenium module, I automated this process. I created a script that logged into each account and recorded any synchronization issues in a file. This script could be run anytime and was eventually set as a scheduled task, freeing up time for other tasks.

Two essential PowerShell cmdlets are ForEach and ForEach-Object. Here’s why they’re invaluable:

ForEach for Sequential Operations

ForEach is ideal for tasks that require a specific order. It processes a collection of objects one after the other.

Consider this snippet from my Write-Bates script. It renames files in a directory for legal documents based on a set prefix and number of leading zeros:

$files = Get-ChildItem -Path <input_folder>
$prefix = "EXA"
$batesPad = "4"

ForEach ($file in $files) {
    $currentFileName = $file.Name
    $batesPad = $startRange.PadLeft($length, '0')
    $newFileName = $prefix + "$batesPad" + "-" + $file.Name
    Rename-Item -Path $file.FullName -NewName $newFileName
    Write-Host "$($file.Name) renamed to $newFileName"
}

Output: "EXA0001.pdf, EXA0002.pdf, EXA0003.pdf," etc.

ForEach-Object for Parallel Pipeline Operations

ForEach-Object is a game-changer for its ability to directly integrate with the pipeline. It used to be slower than ForEach, but with PowerShell 7’s -Parallel operator, it’s much faster.

I recommend sysadmins using ForEach-Object upgrade to PowerShell 7 for its multithreading capabilities. It significantly improved the speed of my scripts, especially those that leverage executables capable of using multiple threads.

Here’s an example of a script I use for converting FLAC files to 320kbps M4A using QAAC:

Get-ChildItem -Path "C:\Users\evan\FlacFiles" | ForEach-Object -Parallel {
  $trackName = Split-Path -Path "$_" -Leaf
  & qaac64 "$trackName" -c320 -q2 --copy-artwork --threading
  Write-Host "$trackName converted"
}

Output: All files in the directory converted to 320kbps M4A via multithreading.

By leveraging these PowerShell cmdlets, sysadmins can significantly streamline and automate their workflows, leading to improved efficiency and productivity.