Live@Edu Display Picture Sync?

[ihaveaproblem]

Hi,

 

Is it possible to sync photos from sims.net and set it as the display pictures for live@edu? Or any kind of import.

If that's not possible is there a way to set the same display picture for all users? ( e.g school logo )

 

Thanks

[ihaveaproblem]

bump, anyone know?

Whilst I'm at it as well. is it possible to remove themes? We have our own theme setup but users can still change to the default Microsoft ones. Can these be removed some how?

[PiqueABoo]

There hasn't been time for much 'community' experience to take hold: Sender Photo is part of the Service Update that hasn't been applied to all tenancies yet e.g. I saw my very first tenancy with that 14.16 update apparently done yesterday, and there's a definite hole where the documentation for some new features should sit.

 

Don't know about themes coz I think forcing themes on folk is way-OTT control-freak stuff and I'd be :: if a less than 100% perfect school wasted time on doing that to a mail account for Sprogette as opposed to giving her a decent education.

[ihaveaproblem]

There hasn't been time for much 'community' experience to take hold: Sender Photo is part of the Service Update that hasn't been applied to all tenancies yet e.g. I saw my very first tenancy with that 14.16 update apparently done yesterday, and there's a definite hole where the documentation for some new features should sit.

 

Don't know about themes coz I think forcing themes on folk is way-OTT control-freak stuff and I'd be :: if a less than 100% perfect school wasted time on doing that to a mail account for Sprogette as opposed to giving her a decent education.

 

Thanks. So this is a new update or something? Not been using live@edu for long so I just thought the display picture had always been there. Can I read bout this 14.16 update some where?

As for forcing themes. I can see where your coming from, but when you spend the time and effort to personalize a theme with school branding etc it's nice to be able make users use that. Just like a desktop back ground on a computer. Alot of places create a school background and dont allow users to change it because it looks more professional etc. Also students having the option to change themes causes distractions in lessons here Kids like to fiddle !

[PiqueABoo]

Thanks. So this is a new update or something?

 

Yes, it's part of the December 2011 update.. which had been renamed to the January 2012 update by the time a notification was sent to a tenancy where I'm a contact, and was arguably a March 2012 update. Here's a blog post with the most info on Sender Photo that I've seen so far. Otherwise there's a December 2011 post or two in the Admin forum on outlookliveanswers.com.

[MicrodigitUK]

Hi,

 

Is it possible to sync photos from sims.net and set it as the display pictures for live@edu? Or any kind of import.

If that's not possible is there a way to set the same display picture for all users? ( e.g school logo )

 

Thanks

 

Yes, if you use Dirsync to update live/office365 accounts all you do is populate local AD with photos in "thumbnailPhoto" attribute for each user. To get photos out of sims you could use salamandasoft's free tool "Sims.Net Photo Extractor". http://www.salamandersoft.co.uk/utilities.html

Then if you have all of the admission numbers in AD, you can script it to take photo files and update AD user thumbnailPhoto.

 

I have a script for the thumbnailPhoto update in vb, I will try and dig it out. But we also put admission numbers in AD when making new users...

[ihaveaproblem]

Thanks all. I will have a read and try to understand it ( bit confused at the moment and unsure how to do it at the moment )

If you can share the script that would be most appreciated.

[plexer]

Yes, if you use Dirsync to update live/office365 accounts all you do is populate local AD with photos in "thumbnailPhoto" attribute for each user. To get photos out of sims you could use salamandasoft's free tool "Sims.Net Photo Extractor". SalamanderSoft Limited - Free Utilities

Then if you have all of the admission numbers in AD, you can script it to take photo files and update AD user thumbnailPhoto.

 

I have a script for the thumbnailPhoto update in vb, I will try and dig it out. But we also put admission numbers in AD when making new users...

 

What field in AD do you store that info in?

 

Ben

[ihaveaproblem]

ok so I managed to get the thumbnailPhoto atrribute populated by running this command on a test user from the link above.

 

Import-Module ActiveDirectory;

$photo = [byte[]](Get-Content “C:\Images\school_logo.jpg” -Encoding byte);

Set-ADUser –Identity chris.cannon -Replace @{thumbnailPhoto=$photo};

 

I dont understand how to configure olsync to sync this to live@edu. Can anyone help with that please?

[MicrodigitUK]

@plexer I use "employeeID" to put the admission numbers in AD.

@ihaveaproblem I'll go get a copy of the vb script now. P.S Sorry I can't help with olsync/dirsync not done it just researched it for my new live@edu setup

[PiqueABoo]

I dont understand how to configure olsync to sync this to live@edu. Can anyone help with that please?

 

Do you already have OLSync? If not some folk around here have some decent experience on installing and using (it's not trivial to sort out).

[ihaveaproblem]

Do you already have OLSync? If not some folk around here have some decent experience on installing and using (it's not trivial to sort out).

 

Yep, already have olsync setup to create accounts and sync passwords from AD. Just dont understand how to configure olsync to also sync the thumbnailphoto.

[PiqueABoo]

Well they did volunteer and haven't posted screenshots yet, so you could try asking the folk at the other end of that 'Contact Us' e-mail at the bottom of the blog post: (There is a little bit more to it, so we’ll update this post when we have some screenshots. In the meantime, you can Contact Us for additional information. ).

[MicrodigitUK]

see the VB script i use to update photos in AD.

 

SIMSPhotostoAD.vbs

[MicrodigitUK]

@ihaveaproblem Any news? Did you get the test image into live@edu using Olsync?

[ihaveaproblem]

Still in progress.

I've got a support ticket open with the live@edu team at the moment and the people from that blog are helping ( They required me to open a support ticket for them to help ) so hopefully should be sorted in the next day or two.

I shell report back with the results.

[PiqueABoo]

Take some screenshots...

[MicrodigitUK]

OK, I have just got Live@Edu with all of the Photos from SIMS loaded via AD thumbnailPhoto.

 

And this is how I setup OLSync to do the photo synchronisation.

 

=====OLSync SIMSphoto Setup=====

 

In “FIM Synchronization Service Manager”

 

Go to “Metaverse Designer”

Double click “SyncObject”

Click “New attribute” button

Create New Attribute

Attribute name: “thumbnailPhoto”

Attribute type: “Binary (non-indexable)”

Then click “OK” to close

 

go to “Management Agents” tab

Double click “OnPremise”

Open “Select Attributes”

Tick “thumbnailPhoto”

 

Open “Configure Attribute Flow”

In Build Attribute Flow select the following:

* Data source object type: “user”

* Data source attribute: “thumbnailPhoto”

* Mapping Type: “Direct”

* Flow Direction: “Import”

* Metaverse object type: “SyncObject”

* Metaverse attribute: “ thumbnailPhoto”

Then click “New”

And click “OK”

 

Double click “Hosted”

Open “Configure Attributes”

Click on the “New…” button to make a New Attribute

* Name: “Picture”

* Type: “Binary”

* Then click “OK”

Open “Define Object Type”

Click on “MailUser” and highlight

Click “Edit…”

Add “Picture” to “May have attributes”

Click “OK”

 

Open “Configure Attribute Flow”

In Build Attribute Flow select the following:

* Data source object type: “MailUser”

* Data source attribute: “Picture”

* Mapping Type: “Direct”

* Flow Direction: “Export”

* Metaverse object type: “SyncObject”

* Metaverse attribute: “ thumbnailPhoto”

Then click “New”

And click “OK”

 

Close “FIM Synchronization Service Manager”

 

Restart “Forefrount Identity Manager Synchronization Service” in services

 

Then run a user sync with live@edu

 

Open live@edu and with a bit of luck all of the SIMS photos will now be in there.

[MicrodigitUK]

OK som bits where missing so see the new version of instructions

=====OLSync SIMSphoto Setup=====

 

In “FIM Synchronization Service Manager”

 

Go to “Metaverse Designer”

Double click “SyncObject”

Click “New attribute” button

Create New Attribute

Attribute name: “thumbnailPhoto”

Attribute type: “Binary (non-indexable)”

Then click “OK” to close

And click "OK" to close "Add Attribute To Object Type" window

 

go to “Management Agents” tab

Double click “OnPremise”

Open “Select Attributes”

Tick "Show All"

Tick “thumbnailPhoto”

 

Open “Configure Attribute Flow”

In Build Attribute Flow select the following:

* Data source object type: “user”

* Data source attribute: “thumbnailPhoto”

* Mapping Type: “Direct”

* Flow Direction: “Import”

* Metaverse object type: “SyncObject”

* Metaverse attribute: “ thumbnailPhoto”

Then click “New”

And click “OK”

 

Double click “Hosted”

Open “Configure Attributes”

Click on the “New…” button to make a New Attribute

* Name: “Picture”

* Type: “Binary”

* Then click “OK”

Open “Define Object Type”

Click on “MailUser” and highlight

Click “Edit…”

Add “Picture” to “May have attributes”

Click “OK”

Click on “Mailbox” and highlight

Click “Edit…”

Add “Picture” to “May have attributes”

Click “OK”

 

 

Open “Configure Attribute Flow”

In Build Attribute Flow select the following:

* Data source object type: “MailUser”

* Data source attribute: “Picture”

* Mapping Type: “Direct”

* Flow Direction: “Export”

* Metaverse object type: “SyncObject”

* Metaverse attribute: “ thumbnailPhoto”

Then click “New”

 

Also In Build Attribute Flow select the following:

* Data source object type: “Mailbox”

* Data source attribute: “Picture”

* Mapping Type: “Direct”

* Flow Direction: “Export”

* Metaverse object type: “SyncObject”

* Metaverse attribute: “ thumbnailPhoto”

Then click “New”

And click “OK”

 

Close “FIM Synchronization Service Manager”

 

Restart “Forefrount Identity Manager Synchronization Service” in services

 

Then run a user sync with live@edu

 

Open live@edu and with a bit of luck all of the SIMS photos will now be in there.

[MicrodigitUK]

Still in progress.

I've got a support ticket open with the live@edu team at the moment and the people from that blog are helping ( They required me to open a support ticket for them to help ) so hopefully should be sorted in the next day or two.

I shell report back with the results.

 

@ihaveaproblem How did you get on with Microsoft support? Did you try my instructions? Is it now working for you?

[ihaveaproblem]

Hi,

 

Sorry for being so slow at replying. I kept meaning to post back here for the last week and a 1/2 !

Yes I have this working now. Microsoft support have been very helpful. Microsoft's instructions were near enough the same as yours. The only difference I can see is in their instructions they have it setup for "MailBox" instead of "MailUser"

It seems to work using both methods so not sure if it makes much difference to which you use.

 

The only thing I'm trying to do now is stop users from changing their display picture. I don't mind people turning it off, but would like them not to be able to change their picture back to Justin Bieber!