SAP HR Employee Photos (up to and including version 4.6c)

The following article provides the relevant steps required to configure employee photographs. The steps listed below show you what is required, as a minimum.

The first step is to create a number range for SAP Archive Link
Transaction code: OANR
or follow the IMG Path:

Basis Components Basis Services SAP Archive Link Basic Settings Maintain number ranges

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 may already exist in your system.

Check to see that you have the correct image file association linked to the relevant document type. Document type HRICOLFOTO must exist with document class JPG (or whichever file extension you are going to make use of)
Transaction code: OAC2
Table: TOAVE
or follow the IMG path:

Basis Components Basis Services SAP Archive Link System Settings Maintain document types

If you want, this can be other picture formats, e.g. .BMP

Document type HRICOLFOTO must be linked to object type PREL and Infotype 0002
Transaction code: SM31
Table: V_T585O (View)
or follow the IMG path:

Personnel Management Personnel Administration Tools Optical archiving Set up Optical Archiving in HR

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

Create a content repository with storage type FILE archive
Transaction code: OAC0
or follow the 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 char name

Set DocArea to be ‘Archive Link’

Storage type FILE archive (see Note below on how to get this!)

Choose Version no. 0031

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, SAP takes a ‘copy’ and stores it internally within its own file structures. The path may only need to be entered to ‘Arch.path’, but assigning it to all is not a bad idea.

Note on storage type:
Storage type ‘FILE archive’ may not be in the dropdown list, and F4 (possible entries) may not work! If this is the case, click on the field Storage type (left mouse button) and then click the right mouse button. Choose Possible entries and a full list of all possible storage types is shown. FILE archive is entry number 08.

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

Basis Components Basis Services SAP Archive Link Basic Settings Maintain Links

Set the ‘Content R’ field to the one you’ve just set in the step above.

Note the Ret.per. field is the retention period for the photo in MONTHS. (the default is 9999 months - more than sufficient for most companies!)

Link photo to personnel number
Transaction code: OAAD
or follow the SAP menu path:

Tools Business Documents Miscellaneous Stored documents

Click on the Create 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. 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 has been created successfully and you end up with something like:

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 ‘nicely’
Transaction code: SM31
Table: T588J
or follow the IMG path:

Personnel Management Personnel Administration Customising User Interfaces Change Screen Header

If you’re following the IMG path, you must now choose the 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 is not required!
In the example below, the picture has been placed in header modifier ‘00’, which corresponds to screen header ‘00’, which is linked to Infotype 0000. This incidentally also allows the picture to display on the initial screens for transactions PA10, PA20, PA30 and PA40.

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 once you are finished.

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, (see step above), 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 the option ‘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 correct ‘Find’ option . Photos are ‘Documents’.

Select Business object ‘PREL’ and it’s a good idea to enter your Content Repository in the ‘Archive’ Field.

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 relevant 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.)