Understanding profile picture synchronization in O365 Hybrid Environment

[Girish Ganeshan]

Hello,

We have a hybrid O365 environment (On-Premise AD, SharePoint 2013 On-Prem, O365). Our requirement is to have a common profile picture of the user in On-Prem (SharePoint, AD) and O365 (SPO, Yammer, Delve, Exchange Online and SFB). In this situation i would like to ask the following

1. What is the recommendation when it comes to storing the profile picture in such a hybrid environment setup - On-Premise AD or Azure AD ?

2. Does O365 rely on a single source i.e. Azure AD for profile picture across SPO, Yammer, Delve, Exchange Online and SFB ?

3. Is it possible to have a bi-directional synchronization i.e. updating Azure AD when user updates it in on-Premise AD and also vice versa (if the person updates profile picture in O365) ?

4. What are the known pros and cons including limitations (both in on-premise and O365) in acheiving such an objective ?

Also it would be helpful if i can get some pointers or even articles/blogs explaining the entire process of picture synchronization.

Thanks -

Girish

[#2]

@Tony Redmond has an excellent discussion of how sync works between the various directories in his Office 365 For It pros book, see http://exchangeserverpro.com/ebooks/office-365-for-it-pros/. It it he refers us to some additional info at https://threewill.com/user-photo-sync-behavior-in-office-365/

1. talk to the people setting that requirement to find out exactly why they feel this is necessary. What is the value to the business? enforcing this requires some time and effort which may be better spent on other activities.

2. it starts off with a single source. i.e., Azure AD, but then the images get replicated to service specific directories.

3. no, not possible.

I'm not going to copy out all of the good info from his book because I paid for it and he deserves more sales :) It is well worth the money.