Powershell tips n’ tricks Pt2 – HTML

I my last post, I mentioned that sometimes I need to create some reports and send it via e-mail. In this situation I like to use Powershell and format it into HTML.
When you send object via email, you can customize the sending format.

I’ll stick to very knowable Get-Service command

#First get all the services into array
$services = Get-Service |Sort-Object StartType,DisplayName|Select-Object DisplayName,StartType,Status

$EmailtO = "me@company.com"
$EmailFrom = "auto@company.com"
$mailsrv = "mx@company.com"

send-mailmessage -to $EmailTo -from $EmailFrom -Subject "Services" -body ($services |Out-String) -smtpserver $mailsrv  -Encoding UTF8

The output of this e-mail is very messy

Now, if I want to look it more presentable, so I’ll do it with HTML

#I want my report to have an title
 $Today = (Get-date).ToString("dd.MM.yyyy")
 $PreContentHTML = "<h1>Header1 Services</h1>
<h2>Header2 Services</h2>
<h3>Date: $($Today)</h3>"


#Define header CSS styles
    $Header = @"
    <style>
    BODY{background-color:white;}
    H1,H2,H3{background-color:white;font: Arial, sans-serif;}
    TABLE{border-width: 1px;border-style: solid;border-color: black;border-collapse: collapse;font-familiy: Arial;}
    TH{border-width: 1px;padding: 5px;border-style: solid;border-color: black;foreground-color: black;background-color: blue; font-size: 12px;font-familiy: Arial;color:white}
    TD{border-width: 1px;padding: 5px;border-style: solid;border-color: black;foreground-color: black;background-color: white; font-size: 12px;font-familiy: Arial;}
    .green{background-color:#d5f2d5}
    .blue{background-color:#277ece}
    .red{background-color:#ff0004}
    .yellow{background-color:#ffff00}
    </style>
"@ #This needs to be without whitespace

$services = Get-Service

$HTML = $services |Sort-Object StartType,DisplayName |Select-Object DisplayName,StartType,Status | ConvertTo-HTML -head $Header -PreContent $PreContentHTML

$EmailtO = "me@company.com"
$EmailFrom = "auto@company.com"
$mailsrv = "mx@company.com"

send-mailmessage -to $EmailTo -from $EmailFrom -Subject "Services" -body ($HTML |Out-String) -smtpserver $mailsrv -BodyAsHtml -Encoding UTF8

Now the otuput looks way nicer

But what if I want some sort of coloring regarding valuse in this table.
Lets say I’m worried that there are some services that have Automatic Start Type, but are not running. I would like for services like this, to pop out on my report. This blog post from Petri, helped me with how to add style to my HTML reports.

 $Today = (Get-date).ToString("dd.MM.yyyy")
 $services = Get-Service |Sort-Object StartType,DisplayName |Select-Object DisplayName,StartType,Status

        [xml]$XmlServices = $services | ConvertTo-HTML -Fragment
    #First portion is when applying color red on entire row with class
         for ($i = 1; $i -le $XmlServices.table.tr.count - 1; $i++) {
          if (($XmlServices.table.tr[$i].td[1]) -eq "Automatic" -and ($XmlServices.table.tr[$i].td[2]) -ne "Running") {
               $class = $XmlServices.CreateAttribute("class")
               $class.value = 'alert'
               $XmlServices.table.tr[$i].attributes.append($class) | out-null
            } 
    #Second portion is when applying color green on specific columns (starting with column 0, not 1)
            elseif (($XmlServices.table.tr[$i].td[1]) -eq "Automatic" -and ($XmlServices.table.tr[$i].td[2]) -eq "Running") {
            $XmlServices.table.tr[$i].ChildNodes[0].SetAttribute('class', 'green')
            $XmlServices.table.tr[$i].ChildNodes[1].SetAttribute('class', 'green')
            $XmlServices.table.tr[$i].ChildNodes[2].SetAttribute('class', 'green')
          } 
          }


#difference here is we are applying output of XML to Precontent, so it can go just after precontent
 $PreContentHTML = "<h1>Header1 Services</h1>
<h2>Header2 Services</h2>
<h3>Date: $($Today)</h3>
$($XmlServices.innerxml)"

    $Header = @"
    <style>
    BODY{background-color:white;}
    H1,H2,H3{background-color:white;font: Arial, sans-serif;}
    TABLE{border-width: 1px;border-style: solid;border-color: black;border-collapse: collapse;font-familiy: Arial;}
    TH{border-width: 1px;padding: 5px;border-style: solid;border-color: black;foreground-color: black;background-color: blue; font-size: 12px;font-familiy: Arial;color:white}
    TD{border-width: 1px;padding: 5px;border-style: solid;border-color: black;foreground-color: black;background-color: white; font-size: 12px;font-familiy: Arial;}
    .green{background-color:#d5f2d5}
    .blue{background-color:#277ece}
    .red{background-color:#ff0004}
    .yellow{background-color:#ffff00}
    .alert {color: red;}
    </style>
"@ #This needs to be without whitespace


$HTML= ConvertTo-HTML -head $Header -body $PreContentHTML | Out-String

EmailtO = "me@company.com"
$EmailFrom = "auto@company.com"
$mailsrv = "mx@company.com"

send-mailmessage -to $EmailTo -from $EmailFrom -Subject "Services" -body ($HTML |Out-String) -smtpserver $mailsrv -BodyAsHtml -Encoding UTF8

The output is quite simpler to read now, and the CSS style enable you to play with customization.
Ofcourse, you can also export it to a file, and send it as an attachment or whatever you like.

Good Luck

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