How to: Display and publish custom availability in Lync SDK

Article
06/11/2018

Learn how to display and publish custom Microsoft Lync 2013 presence in an application by using Microsoft Lync 2013 SDK.

Applies to: Lync 2013 | Lync Server 2013

Prerequisites

The prerequisites for displaying and publishing custom availability are as follows:

An administrator must configure custom presence states on the Microsoft Lync Server 2013 computer that a user signs in to from your application. For more information, see Configuring Custom Presence States.
The Microsoft Lync 2013 client must be signed in.

Custom user activity window

Figure 1 shows a sample application window that lets a user see current presence and custom presence activity. The list on the right side shows the possible custom presence states and the Publish button publishes the custom presence selected by a user.

Figure 1. Custom user activity window

Screen shot of sample that shows custom activity

Get custom presence states

The current localized presence state is the last state that was published by a contact.

Tip
The logic in this procedure is used for any Microsoft.Lync.Model.Contact object. The contact can be the signed-in user Self contact, any contact in the user’s contact list, or any contact found by a contact search.

To display the user’s current localized or customized presence state

To get the current state, call the Contact.GetContactInformation method on the Microsoft.Lync.Model.Contact object value of the Self.Contact property, passing the ContactInformationType.CustomActivity enumerator.
```
            //Get list of all LocaleString objects - list encapsulates the customized and localized activity strings
            List<object> states = (List<object>)_LyncClient.Self.
                Contact.GetContactInformation(ContactInformationType.CustomActivity);
```
A list of Microsoft.Lync.Model.LocaleString objects is returned as system.object.

Iterate on the list of objects, casting each object to type Microsoft.Lync.Model.LocaleString.

Inside of the foreach loop, compare the LocaleString.LocaleId property value to the current UI culture LCID. If they match, display the LocaleString.Value property as the current custom activity in the user’s language.

Important
If activity strings have not been localized for a particular culture, you should define a default locale ID value to display. For example, in North America, locale ID 1033 is frequently used. If the signed-in user has selected 1036 (French, France) as the UI culture, but no localized strings have been configured on the server for 1036, you would display strings for 1033.

The following example compares the LCID of the current culture to the LCID of a custom presence activity. If they match, the custom presence activity is displayed. If no match is found, the LocaleString collection is search for a default LCID. The CultureInfo.DefaultThreadCurrentUICulture property is available in the .NET Framework 4.5.

The following example iterates on the custom presence objects and casts the objects to LocaleString.

            //Iterate on the locale strings
            Boolean localizeStringsFound = false;
            foreach (object o in states)
            {

                LocaleString lString = (LocaleString)o;
                //If the LCID of a Locale string matches the LCID of the current UI culture, display
                //the custom string
                if (System.Globalization.CultureInfo.CurrentUICulture.LCID == lString.LocaleId)
                {
                    Customactivity_Label.Content = lString.Value;
                    localizeStringsFound = true;
                    break;
                }
            }
            if (localizeStringsFound == false)
            {
                foreach (object o in states)
                {

                    LocaleString lString = (LocaleString)o;
                    //If the lcid of a Locale string matches the lcid of the current UI culture, display
                    //the custom string
                    if (System.Globalization.CultureInfo.DefaultThreadCurrentUICulture.LCID == lString.LocaleId)
                    {
                        Customactivity_Label.Content = lString.Value;
                        break;
                    }
                }

            }

Publish a custom presence state

You can only publish custom presence states that have been configured on the Microsoft Lync Server 2013 computer on which a user is signed in. Before publishing one of these custom presence states, query for the available states and then publish the ID of the desired state.

A Lync Server 2013 computer can be configured to have custom presence states in multiple languages. When you query for the collection of custom presence states, you specify a culture LCID. Only custom presence states that belong to the specified culture are returned.

To query for publishable custom presence states

Get the current UI culture.

The following example gets the current culture.

int currentLCID = System.Globalization.CultureInfo.CurrentUICulture.LCID;

Get the collection of publishable presence stated for the specified culture.

IList<CustomAvailabilityState> customStates = _LyncClient.Self.GetPublishableCustomAvailabilityStates(currentLCID);

Get the custom presence state ID and activity string for each custom presence state in the collection.

foreach (CustomAvailabilityState customState in customStates)
{
    CustomAvailability_List.Items.Add(customState.Id.ToString() + " " + customState.Activity + " " + customState.Availability.ToString());
}

To publish a custom presence state

Declare a Dictionary<PublishableContactInformationType, object> to hold the information type and value to be published.

Dictionary<PublishableContactInformationType, object> stuffToPublish = new Dictionary<PublishableContactInformationType,object>();

Add an item to the dictionary where the key is PublishableContactInformationType.CustomActivityId and the value is the ID of the custom presence state to be published.
```
stuffToPublish.Add(PublishableContactInformationType.CustomActivityId, _SelectedCustomAvailabilityId);
```

Publish the custom presence state by calling the Self.BeginPublishContactInformation method.

The following example publishes the selected custom presence. If an invalid custom presence ID is used, the Microsoft.Lync.Model.ItemNotFoundException is raised.

            try
            {
                _LyncClient.Self.BeginPublishContactInformation(
                    stuffToPublish,
                    (ar) =>
                    {
                            _LyncClient.Self.EndPublishContactInformation(ar);
                    },
                    null);
            }
            catch (ItemNotFoundException) { MessageBox.Show(_SelectedCustomAvailabilityId.ToString() + " Item not found"); }

Code examples: Custom user activity window

The following code declares the window show in figure 1.

<Window
        xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
        xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
        xmlns:controls="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Lync.Controls;assembly=Microsoft.Lync.Controls" 
            x:Class="CustomAvailabilityStates.MainWindow"
        Title="Custom user activity" Height="350" Width="639" Loaded="MainWindow_Loaded_1">
    <Grid>
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
        <RowDefinition Height="20"/>
        <RowDefinition Height="120"/>
         <RowDefinition Height="100*"/>
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
        <Label Content="Custom Presence" Height="120" VerticalAlignment="Top" Grid.Row="0" Margin="270,0,0,0"/>
        <StackPanel Grid.Row="1" Width="108" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="1,0,0,0">
            <Label Content="Availability" HorizontalAlignment="Left"/>
            <Label Content="Activity"/>
            <Label Content="Activity Id"/>
            <Label Content="Custom activity"/>
        </StackPanel>
        <StackPanel Grid.Row="1" Width="176" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="100,0,0,0">
            <Label Name="Availability_Label" Content="Availability" HorizontalAlignment="Left"/>
            <Label Name="Activity_Label" Content="Activity"/>
            <Label Name="ActivityId_Label"  Content="Activity Id"/>
            <Label Name="Customactivity_Label" Content="Custom activity"/>

        </StackPanel>
        <controls:MyStatusArea HorizontalAlignment="Center" Margin="1,51,0,0" VerticalAlignment="Top" 
                               Grid.Row="2"/>
        <StackPanel HorizontalAlignment="Left" Height="120" Margin="276,0,0,0" VerticalAlignment="Top" 
                    Width="337" Orientation="Horizontal" Grid.Row="1">
            <ListBox x:Name="CustomAvailability_List" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Height="118" Width="258" 
                     SelectionChanged="CustomAvailability_List_SelectionChanged_1" Margin="0,0"/>
            <Button x:Name="Publish_button" Content="Publish" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="5,50" 
                    VerticalAlignment="Center" Width="70" Click="Publish_button_Click_1"/>
        </StackPanel>
    </Grid>
</Window>

The following example declares interaction logic for MainWindow.xaml.

using System.Windows;
using Microsoft.Lync.Model;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System;
using System.Text;
namespace CustomAvailabilityStates
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Interaction logic for MainWindow.xaml
    /// </summary>
    public partial class MainWindow : Window
    {
        LyncClient _LyncClient;
        int _SelectedCustomAvailabilityId = 0;
        public MainWindow()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        private delegate void DisplayCurrentStateDelegate();

        /// <summary>
        /// Display the availability, activity, activity ID, and custom activity 
        /// of the currently signed in user.
        /// </summary>
        private void DisplayCurrentState()
        {
            //Current availability
            Availability_Label.Content = ((ContactAvailability)_LyncClient.Self.
                Contact.GetContactInformation(ContactInformationType.Availability)).ToString();

            //current activity string
            Activity_Label.Content = _LyncClient.Self.
                Contact.GetContactInformation(ContactInformationType.Activity).ToString();

            //Activity token for displayed activity string
            ActivityId_Label.Content = _LyncClient.Self.
                Contact.GetContactInformation(ContactInformationType.ActivityId).ToString();

            //Get list of all LocaleString objects - list encapsulates the customized and localized activity strings
            List<object> states = (List<object>)_LyncClient.Self.
                Contact.GetContactInformation(ContactInformationType.CustomActivity);

            //Iterate on the locale strings
            foreach (object o in states)
            {

                LocaleString lString = (LocaleString)o;
                //If the lcid of a Locale string matches the lcid of the current UI culture, display
                //the custom string
                if (System.Globalization.CultureInfo.CurrentUICulture.LCID == lString.LocaleId)
                {
                    Customactivity_Label.Content = lString.Value;
                    break;
                }
            }

            //Get the list of custom presence states for the current LCID
            FillCustomAvailabilityList();

        }

        private void MainWindow_Loaded_1(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
            try
            {
                _LyncClient = LyncClient.GetClient();

                //Register for event that is raised when user availablity changes
                _LyncClient.Self.Contact.ContactInformationChanged += Contact_ContactInformationChanged;
                DisplayCurrentState();
            }
            catch (ClientNotFoundException) { MessageBox.Show("client is not running"); }
        }

        void Contact_ContactInformationChanged(object sender, ContactInformationChangedEventArgs e)
        {
            if (e.ChangedContactInformation.Contains(ContactInformationType.Availability))
            {
                //update the UI with the current state of the user
                this.Dispatcher.Invoke(new DisplayCurrentStateDelegate(DisplayCurrentState));
            }
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Fills a UI list with all of the custom presence defined for the current UI culture.
        /// </summary>
        private void FillCustomAvailabilityList()
        {
            IList<CustomAvailabilityState> customStates = _LyncClient.Self.GetPublishableCustomAvailabilityStates(
                System.Globalization.CultureInfo.CurrentUICulture.LCID);

            CustomAvailability_List.Items.Clear();
            foreach (CustomAvailabilityState customState in customStates)
            {
                CustomAvailability_List.Items.Add(customState.Id.ToString() + 
                    " " + 
                    customState.Activity + 
                    " " + 
                    customState.Availability.ToString());
            }
        }

        private void Publish_button_Click_1(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
            Dictionary<PublishableContactInformationType, object> stuffToPublish = new Dictionary<PublishableContactInformationType,object>();
            stuffToPublish.Add(PublishableContactInformationType.CustomActivityId, _SelectedCustomAvailabilityId);
            try
            {
                _LyncClient.Self.BeginPublishContactInformation(
                    stuffToPublish,
                    (ar) =>
                    {
                       _LyncClient.Self.EndPublishContactInformation(ar);
                    },
                    null);
            }
            catch (ItemNotFoundException) { MessageBox.Show(_SelectedCustomAvailabilityId.ToString() + " Item not found"); }
        }

        private void CustomAvailability_List_SelectionChanged_1(object sender, System.Windows.Controls.SelectionChangedEventArgs e)
        {
            string selectedItem = CustomAvailability_List.SelectedItem.ToString();
            string customId = selectedItem.Substring(0, selectedItem.IndexOf(" "));
            _SelectedCustomAvailabilityId = Convert.ToInt32(customId);
        }
    }
}

The following example is an XML file that declares a set of custom presence states for multiple UI culture LCID values. This XML file must be available for all Lync clients to access.

<customStates xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/09/2005/communicator/customStates" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://schemas.microsoft.com/09/2005/communicator/customStates
http://contos/sites/main/CustomActivities.xsd">
<customState ID="1" availability="online">
<activity LCID="1033">Working from Home, eh?</activity>
<activity LCID="1044">activity 2 for 1044</activity>
<activity LCID="1055">activity 3 for 1055</activity>
</customState>
<customState ID="2" availability="busy">
<activity LCID="1033">SHOW ME AS - In a Live Meeting - SHOW ME AS</activity>
</customState>
<customState ID="3" availability="busy">
<activity LCID="1033">Meeting with Customer, important!</activity>
<activity LCID="1055">meeting with client, important</activity>
<activity LCID="1036">Je suis tres bizet</activity>
</customState>
<customState ID="4" availability="do-not-disturb">
<activity LCID="1033">Interviewing</activity>
</customState>
</customStates>