Outlook 2013 contact picture only visible in "People" view

[Paul Van Cotthem]

My set-up:

• I am using Outlook 2013.
• I have an Outlook.com account (mail, people, calendar), which I synchronize via EAS.
• Via the LinkedIn social connector, I connected my LinkedIn account.

The issue:

• When in Contacts, contact pictures only show up in the "People" view
  (see first screenshot below).
• They are not visible in any other Contacts view, e.g. Business Card view, Card view, List view, Phone view.
  (see second screenshot below)
• When I open a contact's detailed card, the picture again only shows when in People view, not when I open it from any other view.
• The contact's picture does show up in the header of e-mail messages sent to me by them.

Question:

• Is this normal behavior?
• How can I make contact pictures show up in other views as well, besides the People view?

 

[Diane Poremsky]

It is normal behavior, mail and the social connector uses the linked in or Facebook photos but the contact only displays a photo if you added it. You can drag or copy the linked in contact to your contacts folder. I'm working on a macro to copy the contact photos from LinkedIn to contacts, but its not ready yet.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

FYI, i do have a two step process for people who are both linkedin "friends" and in contacts -
Step 1: get the photo http://www.slipstick.com/developer/code-samples/export-save-outlook-contact-photos/
Step 2: add it to the contacts: http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/contacts/batch-import-photos-into-outlook-contacts/

The macro I'm working on will get the photos from the social connector and add them to contacts, even if the person is not a LinkedIn 'friend'.

 

[Paul Van Cotthem]

Diane, thanks for your reply!

The People view is connected to the Social connector contacts in Outlook. It appears that the "Social Connector contacts picture" in Outlook 2013 shows only in the "People" view. The other contact views picture are the one’s which is set locally within the Outlook and are not connected or synced.

Microsoft should change this behavior in Outlook future versions. Outlook should always copy pictures from the Social Connector accounts to the local contacts picture, and keep them up-to-date when the pictures coming from the Social Connector would change.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

Correct, the people view (and message headers) use social network photos. Business card view or open contacts use the contact picture. It may change in future versions, time will tell. The big problem is that the social network controls what outlook can do with the contact data - that is why LinkedIn creates a contact folder and Facebook doesn't.