Calling userprofileservice.asmx using Powershell

Question

I need to update a property for a user in SharePoint User Profile Service but cannot to do this through the UI in Central Admin. So I want to perform the update using Powershell and the userprofileservice.asmx web service. The advantage of using a script is that it can be applied in different environments and also provides traceability on what has been changed.

Is it possible to call this web service from Powershell?

I'm running on-prem SharePoint 2013 with Nov 2014 CU.

Answer 1

The code below update the HomePhone property for a user identified by $account

$upws = New-WebServiceProxy "http://<<server>>/_vti_bin/userprofileservice.asmx" -UseDefaultCredential
$account = '<<domain>>\<<username>>'

$userProperty = $upws.GetUserPropertyByAccountName($account,'HomePhone')
Write-Output "Value before update: " $userProperty.Values[0].Value

$userProperty.Values[0].Value = "555-123-456"
$userProperty.IsValueChanged = $true
Write-Output "Updating with value: " $userProperty.Values[0].Value

$upws.ModifyUserPropertyByAccountName($account,$userProperty)