Update: Post now resides at new blog site! http://www.tcscblog.com/2010/11/18/import-user-profile-photos-from-active-directory-into-sharepoint-2010/
Requirements:
- SharePoint Server 2010 with at least the October Cumulative Update installed
- Successfully working User Profile Service Application
- Profile Photo stored in thumbnailPhoto AD attribute (I used the PowerShell script found here to import the picture into the attribute)
Steps to Perform:
- Create an import PictureURL mapping
- Perform a full profile synchronization
- Run the Update-SPProfilePhotoStore PowerShell command
Create an import PictureURL mapping
Edit the User Profile Picture property by navigating to Manage Service Applications > User Profile Service Application > Manage User Properties > Picture
Make sure your Active Directory profile connection is selected, and then choose the thumbnailPhoto attribute and Import direction
Since you’ll be controlling the profile photos from Active Directory, change Edit Settings to “Do not allow users to edit values for this property”
Click OK to make the changes
Perform a full profile synchronization
Manage Service Applications > User Profile Service Application > Start Profile Synchronization
The synchronization may take a while, so be patient.
Once completed, if you go to the profile page you’ll notice that the image wasn’t added.
Run Update-SPProfilePhotoStore PowerShell Command
Launch the SharePoint 2010 Management Shell (Start > All Programs > Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products > SharePoint 2010 Management Shell) and run the following command:
Update-SPProfilePhotoStore -CreateThumbnailsForImportedPhotos 1 -MySiteHostLocation
http://<YourServerName>/my
Now go back to the profile page to review the results
[...] Manage Active Directory – Google Blog Search by Fergal OP [...]
If this property in UPS is set to export and edit by the user will it sync bad to AD if you upload a photo in a my site?
Yes, it would sync back to AD then
Hi, this works but it doesnt seem to create all the 3 size that sharepoint uses needs, it only seems to create the large one. Have you any experience with this?
[...] Import User Profile Photos from Active Directory into SharePoint 2010 – [...]
Finally got this to work, you must add permissions for youself in both administrator and permissions on the User Profile Service Application. Also, wanted to see if there is a way you can add a custom job so this can run every so often and update profile pictures without manual administrator interaction.
Ran a windows task everyday at 6AM to run shell commands, now our SharePoint syncs photos automatically.
The Man. Shell says it does not know property CreateThumbnailsForImportedPhotos. Any idea?
Hi,
I followed the steps and I can see the images with different sizes in the Profile Photo Library, but at the user profile page instead of image there is a red cross (which means image not found) can you suggest what could be the problem.
Thanks!
Kazim Raza
I am also getting the same issue which Kazim is getting.
One thing I have noticed is that the url for the pic is not proper. Its missing a ‘/’. The url is
http://server/personal/mysitehostUser%20Photos/Profile%20Pictures/xyzUsername_MThumb.jpg
whereas it should be
http://server/personal/mysitehost/User%20Photos/Profile%20Pictures/xyzUsername_MThumb.jpg
Interesting. Try going to the UPS and then “Setup MySites” and make sure you have a “/” after your MySite Host URL property. Just a wild guess that this may do the trick.
Adam,
I followed the steps but it’s not working. I did not get any error message, and tested for 3 different users the photo on thumbnailPhoto AD attribute it’s not synced in SharePoint.
Any idea in troubleshooting this?
Thanks
Adam, I’ve tried for a few days to get this to work with no success. One problem is that the command “Update-SPProfileStore -CreateThumbnailsForImportedPhotos 1 -MySiteHostLocation http:///my” throws the error “A parameter cannot be found that matches parameter name ‘CreateThumbnailsForImportedPhotos’”. I did get the command to run successfully by using “Update-SPProfileStore -MySiteHostLocation http:///my“.
The second problem is that during the profile synch, ForeFront is throwing ma-extension-errors that the URI could not be determined. I think that this may have to do with a mismatch of picture data types. SharePoint is expecting a URL while AD is supplying an Octet string. Any ideas how to get these errors resolved?
Thanks for any help you can provide.
Ron
@Ron – Is your 2010 environment patched to Oct CU or later? That includes the update to the Update-SPProfileStore command. Make sure you have the proper permissions to use PowerShell via Add-SPShellAdmin, or make sure you try the command as the SharePoint Farm Account
[...] and can be easily solved in various ways. One of them is described here (Hebrew) using FIM or here (English) using simple [...]
You are the best, worked like magic. i was leaving out the •Run the Update-SPProfilePhotoStore PowerShell command
Thank you Gloria for the kind words! Glad it worked out for you!
Check out codetwo active directory photos. http://www.codetwo.com It’s free and very easy to use when uploading photos to AD.
Do you have to be using mysites to be able to synchronize the pictures from AD to Sharepoint? I am able to synchronize other attributes from AD but not the picture.
[...] http://sptwentyten.wordpress.com/2010/11/18/import-user-profile-photos-from-active-directory-into-sh… [...]
I can add the mapping to the “thumbnailPhoto” just fine, but when I want to save/exit the property settings page by clicking “OK” in the bottom of the page, it just hangs and eventually states (near the top): “An error occurred when updating a property.”
Any ideas, anyone?
Solved that part now. Had just installed SP1 and June ’11 Cumulative Update, but had not SPUpdate’ed my databases. Still have problems though. Will start a new thread.
Hi,
Thanks Guys.
We are having a FBA based site. It looks like update command works well when my sync connection is windows based and claimsuseridentifer is not mapped.
In our case we need the conn to be forms based and claims user identifier – > samAccountName.
” Error processing the photo URL User Photos/Profile
Pictures/0c37852b-34d0-418e-91c6-2ac25af4be5b_156.jpg for user i:0#.f|ad|……
: System.UriFormatException: Invalid URI: A Dos path must be rooted, for
example, ‘c:\’.”
Any help will be useful
Hi!
Great post, very useful and very clear.
We have followed your steps:
- In AD we have binary data in thumbnailPhoto attribute
- We run a full profile sync
- We executed
‘Update-SPProfilePhotoStore -CreateThumbnailsForImportedPhotos 1 -MySiteHostLocation
http:///mysite‘
The command is executed with no errors.
But in User Profile we don’t see any photo, library ‘http://srv/mysite/User%20Photos/Forms/AllItems.aspx’ is empty.
Please, could you tell us what we should check?
Thanks!
Regards