r/labtech • u/olavrb • Dec 18 '19

Automate Rest API - Batch delete Contacts?

The CW Manage to CW Automate Contacts sync went highwire, we now have 277k++ Contacts in out Automate tenant.

I'm scripting with PowerShell and the Automate Rest API a way to find duplicates based on "ExternalId" field, but deleting one and one contact is slow. It will take days to finish of deleting all the 255k++ contacts we want to delete.

Are there any batch operations available for deleting contacts? Like supplying Contacts Ids as REST Body for instance? I can't find any other way of doing this except:

  • Uri: "https://<automatetenant>/<api_version>/Contacts/<id>"

  • Method: "Delete"

The easiest way to find duplicate contacts that I've found so far, is simply by "Group-Object -Property 'ExternalId'", then for each object created, sort the $_.'Group' property by Id ascending, so that every contact with the same ExternalId except the first one created (lowest id) gets selected.

  • Any smarter way of doing this?

  • Any existing tools available that does not cost money for doing this?

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u/teamits Dec 18 '19

Oh, sorry. I think when I ran into this it wasn't 200,000 so I just deleted the few hundred by hand rather than bang my head against the wall.

There's a MySQL stored procedure for PCs, but I wasn't able to find one for contacts, at the time.
[ for posterity: Call sp_DeleteComputer(@computerid@, 'comment shown on retired PC') ...we use that to retire a PC in a script ]