Sometimes, we are not aware that some Sharepoint features exist until customer request it. Recently one of our customer request to retrieve users profile picture from O365 to Sharepoint custom list for the staff directory. By default, we can use SPServices to retrieve the user information. However, using SPServices requires the users to fill in the data by themselves where the profile picture will only be retrieved based on their login.

For this customer, they request the data to be updated by the admin but need to display User Profile Picture in the custom list. For this, we have a simple SharePoint function to be used. The configuration needs to be done during creation of new column. When creating ne w column titled Picture/Thumbnail, choose ” Person or Group ” as column type and at additional column settings, choose “Picture only 72 x 72 ” or any size option based on needs.

At the custom list when the user click on new to add new item, the picture column will show as “Person or group” column type. The user needs to type in the user name and once save the item, the picture will be displayed in the list as shown below.

User to type in username.

The view after you have saved the item into the list.