IT Pro: How to filter users in Entra ID (Azure AD) using OData

Modified on November 11, 2024 by Jesper Frier.

Using OData filters are flexible when filtering Entra ID (Azure AD) users for larger organizations.

Microsoft API supported filters

Property Name	Type
accountEnabled	Boolean
city	String
country	String
department	String
displayName	String
givenName	String
jobTitle	String
mail	String
mailNickname	String
onPremisesImmutableId	String
proxyAddresses	String collection
state	String
surname	String
usageLocation	String
userPrincipalName	String
userType	String

For more details about these properties, click on the Microsoft link below and search 'Supports $filter'. Only the properties marked with 'Supports $filter' are supported in Microsoft Graph API.
https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/docs/api-reference/v1.0/resources/user#properties

Logical Operators

The logical operators supported are shown in the following table.

eq	Equal	city eq 'Atlanta'
and	Logical and	city eq 'Atlanta' and city eq 'London'
or	Logical or	city eq 'Atlanta' or city eq 'London'
startswith	Starts with	startswith(mail, 'administrator@')

Note: The following $filter operators are not supported for Entra ID (Azure AD) resources: ne, gt, ge, lt, le, and not. The contains string operator is currently not supported on any Microsoft Graph resources. See Microsoft Reference.

OData examples

Return all users in one country.

country eq 'United Kingdom'

Return all users in from multiple countries

country eq 'New Zealand' or country eq 'Australia' or country eq 'NZ' or country eq 'AU'

Returns all users that are enabled from multiple cities and multiple departments

accountEnabled eq true and (department eq 'Marketing' or department eq 'HR' or department eq 'IT Support' or department eq 'Customer Services' or city eq 'Atlanta' or city eq 'New york' or city eq 'Los Angeles')

Returns certain users within a Department that are enabled.

accountEnabled eq true and department eq 'Technology' and (startswith(jobTitle,'IT') or  startswith(jobTitle,'Technology'))

Returns all users with city equal to London or New York

city eq 'London' or city eq 'New York'

General filter that will returns only user accounts that are not disabled and has job title

accountEnabled eq true

Learn more:

IT Pro: How to filter users in Azure AD using Client-Side.

IT Pro: How to Sync Custom Attribute of Azure AD to Xink Portal (Hybrid AAD)

OData expression syntax for filters and order-by clauses in Azure Search:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/searchservice/odata-expression-syntax-for-azure-search