The UC Corner

The October 2010 Cumulative Update for Sharepoint Server 2010 brings an interesting update. Finally, you can now not only export profile pictures to Active Directory, but you can also import pictures from AD to Sharepoint without much hassle. Check my resources page for a link to the downloads. Quote from the kb:

“Consider the following scenario. You try to import pictures in a user profile from the Active Directory thumbnailPhoto attribute to the PictureURL attribute in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. You set up an import PictureURL mapping. Then, you perform a full synchronization in the SharePoint server. In this scenario, the pictures are not added to the user profile in the SharePoint server.

Note You can use following command to perform the import operation:

Update-SPProfilePhotoStore -CreateThumbnailsForImportedPhotos 1 -MySiteHostLocation http://<YourServerName>/my”

Update: Microsoft has removed this update for the time being. Anyway, I downloaded it while it was available, and it does work. You have to run the Powershell command after syncing for the images to appear on My Site etc. I guess it will be available again when Microsoft has fixed whatever was the problem. This update has been re-released, and is available for download again.

A note here is that if you delete the picture from AD the thumbnail will not be deleted from Sharepoing even after running the Powershell command.

A second note is that the user running this Powershell command must have permissions on the User Profile Service Application, if not you’ll get an error message.