Configuration Manager cmdlets, but why bother with them?

The link below is to a Microsoft article on Getting started with Configuration Manager cmdlets.

But why? If you can create everything with a right-click or another menu option. Why bother using PowerShell and cmdlets?

Back in the day those tools were awesome. Today they lack interoperability with other tools. Technically speaking, you could export to text files, edit those files , and import them back into products but that is a long road to travel. PowerShell helps bridge those gaps and allows us to do so much more with cmdlets.

Using PowerShell, a query can run against Configuration Manager, CM, to find data from deployed applications. Going one by one could take days or weeks depending on the size of the organization. The typical day to day work would not allow a CM admin to open and close each application in CM to see which ones have incremental updates checked. The code below allows us to gather and produce a report on the name of Device Collections with incremental updates checked.

$refreshtypes = “4”,”6″
$CollectionsWithIncrement = Get-CMDeviceCollection | Where-Object {$_.RefreshType -in $refreshtypes}

Incremental updates, this settings reads like a dream to any CM admin. In reality, its a nightmare if you have too many collections with this setting enabled. Microsoft recommends less than 200 enabled. It depends on the size of the device collections. My preference and opinion is less than 50 with this setting enabled. Collections best practices – Configuration Manager | Microsoft Docs

Configuration Manager PowerShell cmdlets – Configuration Manager | Microsoft Docs