How to update user's manager in Microsoft Entra Azure? using flow designer.

[SamrudhiK]

We have catalog item 'Employee internal transfer' . When employee is transferred from one department to other its user profile details change. Using microsoft entra spoke action 'update user' I can update user's department name, title,location etc but it has no option to update 'manager' . I tried using custom action but it gives errors.

[SamrudhiK · Accepted solution]

1 - Create new custom action "Update Entra User Manager" in flow designer actions.

2 - Define inputs u_user_id and u_manager_id as string.

3 - In preprocessing step map input variables and add below script : 

(function execute(inputs, outputs) {

    // 1. Trim and capture inputs

    var userId = inputs.u_user_id ? inputs.u_user_id.toString().trim() : "";

    var managerId = inputs.u_manager_id ? inputs.u_manager_id.toString().trim() : "";

    // 2. Validate inputs

    if (!userId || !managerId) {

        gs.error("AzureAD Update Manager: Missing User ID or Manager ID.");

        return;

    }

    // 3. Create the payload - REMOVED @odata.type per Microsoft error

    var payloadObj = {

        "@odata.id": "https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/users/" + managerId

    };

    // 4. Map to output variables

    outputs.u_user_id = userId;

    outputs.payload = JSON.stringify(payloadObj);

})(inputs, outputs);

4-Define output variables u_user_id and payLoad

5-In REST step add resource path as "v1.0/users/u_user_id data pill from preprocessing step/manager/$ref. Use http as PUT method

6- In postprocessing step define input variables status_code and input body and use below script : 

(function execute(inputs, outputs) {

    var statusCode = inputs.status_code;

    // 204 means Success with no content

    if (statusCode == 204 || statusCode == 200) {

        //outputs.status = "success";

        outputs.message = "Manager updated successfully.";

    } else {

        // Only try to parse if there is actually a response body

        if (inputs.response_body) {

            var response = JSON.parse(inputs.response_body);

            //outputs.status = "error";

            outputs.message = response.error ? response.error.message : "Unknown Error";

        } else {

            //outputs.status = "error";

            outputs.message = "Request failed with status: " + statusCode;

        }

    }

})(inputs, outputs);

Adding screenshot for reference. This helped me to successfully update user's manager in Entra using flow and in next entra sync it automatically updated manager in servicenow user record for particular user.