SAP HR Employee Photos (4.7 - Enterprise)

Create Number Range
A number range must be created for SAP Archive Link.
Transaction code: OANR
For this process, additional authorisation is required for S_NUMBER = 03 ARCHIVELNK.
In ‘Intervals’, create number range 01 from 0000000001 to 9999999999 without the external number flag. This is likely to already exist.

Assign Documents Class
Document type HRICOLFOTO must exist with document class JPG.
Transaction code: OAC2
Table: TOAVE

Document type settings
Document type HRICOLFOTO must be linked to object type PREL and Infotype 0002.
Transaction code: SM31
Table: V_T585O (View)

Set all three columns here to minuses and don't put a flag in the check box.

Content Repository
Create a content repository with storage type FILE archive.
Transaction code: OAC0
or follow IMG path:

Basis Components Basis Services SAP Archive Link Basic Settings Maintain content repositories

Swap from display to amend. Select a current entry and ‘copy’ or just hit ‘create’. Then select .
Then fill in the details as below:

Choose a two character name – can use Zx (where x is a number) if you wish to use the customer namespace

Choose the relevant description

Set DocArea to be ‘Archive Link’

Storage type – set to R/3 Database

Protocol – leave blank

Choose Version no. 0046 (or the latest one that is available)

Contents table – set this to SDOKCONT1

Basic Path – c:\ (this should be set to where the photos are all held)

Archive Path – c:\ (this is the area from where the photos are retrieved)

Output Device – can leave blank

Enter the path name where the photos are to be loaded from. Note this is for loading only. When the photos are linked into the sap system (see later), actually, SAP takes a ‘copy’ and stores it elsewhere. The path may only need to be entered to ‘Arch.path’, but entering to all three doesn’t seem to hurt.

Maintain the required Basis Service
Transaction code: SICF
Here you activate the Content Server Interface.

First you need to create a user profile – with sufficient authorisations to carry out the processes which are done by the system in the background. Ideally this should be a background user for a notional/dummy user. You can use your own user ID after which SAP will warn you that this is a dialogue user account. If you do use your own user ID, change it as soon as you have tested the config. Once you have finished the project, the chances are that your user account will be deleted from the system which will subsequently stop this service from working.

Double-click on “content server” in the left hand tree structure. You can find it under default_host > sap > bc > content server

Once you have done this, click on the refresh icon and make sure that the service is activated. If it is activated, the writing should be in bold (as opposed to greyed out)

Check which content repository (Archive) is linked to document type HRICOLFOTO in object type PREL
Transaction code: OAC3
Table: TOAOM_C

Set the ‘Content Repository’ field to the one you set up in the step above.
Note the Ret.per. field is the retention period for the photo in MONTHS. (so the default is 833 years and 3 months!)

Link photo to personnel number
Transaction code: OAAD
Click on the Create – Store and Assign button. Enter Business Object PREL and Document Type HRICOLFOTO. Click on create(F8).
Enter the Personnel Number of the employee you want to link the photo to. Choose also the infotype that you wish the photo to be displayed on (not sure how relevant this is. It works if you use 0002 but should also work if left blank. Suspect is only relevant if you wanted to store different photos for different infotypes)
Click on Continue.
Enter the path and filename of the photo. The dropdown will allow you to navigate to the appropriate directory.
SAP will notify you that the Stored document is created successfully and you end up with something like:

If you get an error 401 to do with missing authorisations, then try and redo the above step. It often only happens the first time you try and load the photo.

Displaying Photos
You can display your linked photos straight away if you want, from any Infotype, by selecting the employee in Display or Maintain Data and selecting Menu item ‘Extras’, display all facsimiles:
However, this will open a new application (e.g. ‘Paint’) and load the picture into it. This is a bit cumbersome. It’s much more likely that you really want the picture to appear ‘nicely’ in the header of the appropriate infotype.

Amend Infotype Headers to display photo ‘correctly’
Transaction code: SM31
Table: T588J
or follow IMG path:

Personnel Management Personnel Administration Customising User Interfaces Change Screen Header

If you’re following the IMG path, you must now choose activity ‘Infotype Header Definition’

Note, Header structure per infotype and Header modifier activities describe which header is to be shown at the top of each infotype. The enticing ‘Passport photo’ option determines whether HRICOLFOTO or HRIEMPFOTO is used. Choosing either option is fine as long as all your other settings relate to that entry as well.
In the example below, the picture has been placed in header modifier ‘91’, which corresponds to screen header ‘91’, which is linked to Infotype 0002.

All you need to do is add an entry for PERNR with Field Type ‘PIC’. Column 75 puts the picture on the right hand side. The IT column is used to decide where to take the ‘Field Name’ value from. For PERNR, all infotypes have this field.

Don’t forget to GENERATE the screen header again.

When you see the resultant Infotype display you can double click on the picture will bring up a ‘large’ version of it.

Other ‘Useful’ Hints

You can add more than one photo to the same employee !
If you do this, both photo’s are stored (with ‘stored dates’). The latest one will be displayed on the infotype header.
Selecting menu bar ‘Extra’ --> ‘Display all facsimiles’ will give you a list of all the photos for the employee. To look at one, select it and choose something like ‘Display from content server’. (some of the ‘normal’ display buttons don’t actually display the photo, just details about it!).

You can find details of, and delete photos.
This can be done from transaction OAAD by choosing ‘Find’ rather than ‘Create’.

Make sure you choose the right ‘Find’. Photos are ‘Documents’.
Select Business Object as ‘PREL’ and document type as “HRICOLFOTO” or “HRIEMPFOTO” – depending on which one you have used.

You may be further asked for a Personnel number. If you blank this out, you’ll get all the entries in your
Archive.

To delete a photo, select the entry and hit the ‘dustbin’ (or Delete). After a number of ‘are you sure’ messages, and a display of the doomed photo (probably in a separate window which will need closing again), the photo will be deleted.
Note, the deleted entry will NOT vanish from the currently displayed list. You will need to ‘back arrow’ out of the list and re-execute the archive display to see the changes.

Displaying a photo can slow down the server during the transaction, since the photo has to be loaded from the archive (this is especially the case if you choose to display the photo on the master data / applicant data entry screen.)