Mass export employee photos

Recently was trying to figure out how to mass download/export employee photos from PeopleSoft and followingis what I came up with. It works but the exported image quality is not that great. We are using the delivered application engine HR_EMPLPHOTO to mass import picutes in. The photos are loaded to PS_EMPL_PHOTO table and it creates four photo sizes - CARD, LIST, ORCH and PAGE. The CARD one is the best in terms of picture quality.

The basic idea is to read this table and write the contents to a file. Based on the upload process I know that the picture file format is JPG. The raw image data is stored in the EMPLOYEE_PHOTO field, but we cannot just select this field. I am looping through the employee population, fetching the data and storing it in the record object and then using the WriteRaw method of the File class to write the image to a file. 

Local string &emplid, &filename;

Local Record &imageRec;
Local SQL &imageSQL;

&imageRec = CreateRecord(Record.EMPL_PHOTO);
&imageSQL = CreateSQL("SELECT EMPLID, PHOTO_SIZENAME, PHOTO_IMGNAME, EMPLOYEE_PHOTO, PSIMAGEVER FROM PS_EMPL_PHOTO WHERE EMPLID = :1 AND PHOTO_SIZENAME = 'CARD'", &emplid);

If &imageSQL.Fetch(&imageRec) Then
   &imageFile = GetFile(&filename, "W", %FilePath_Absolute);
   &imageFile.WriteRaw(&imageRec.EMPLOYEE_PHOTO.Value);
   &imageFile.Close();
End-If;

PS Query - Employee Photo

There are couple of options to include images in query output. In this example I am displaying employee pictures which are stored in the database (under the identification data component). I am running PT 8.59.x on HCM 9.2.

The simplest method is to include the table EMPL_PHOTO in the query and join the EMPLID field and display the EMPLOYEE_PHOTO field. On the query properties select "Image Data" that way the image is displayed in the output.

The EMPL_PHOTO table has a field called as PHOTO_SIZENAME and stores each image in 4 different sizes, CARD, LIST, ORCH and PAGE. Hence it is advisble to add a condition/filter to select the appropriate size. In my case I am filtering based on LIST.

The other option is to use drilling URL expression type. 

In this scenario we have to build two queries. The first query will query data from EMPL_PHOTO table and the query properties have to set to "Image Huperlink".

The second query will include EMPL_PHOTO and other tables. Add an expression of type "Drilling URL" and select "Image URL"

In the next dialog box, provide the details of the first query and verify the two key fields EMPLID and PHOTO_SIZENAME are peopulated correctly. The field PHOTO_SIZENAME has to be in the "field list" so will be displayed in the result. So while defining the Image URL you can map the result to this field. This way the crypting URL (expression) need not be displayed as a field in the result but the values in the PHOTO_SIZENAME column will appear hyperlinked. Clicking on this field will display the image.