How to: Use Lync Controls to start a conversation

Article
06/11/2018

Learn how to implement a click-to-call feature in your WPF or Silverlight page by using any of several different kinds of Lync Controls.

Applies to: Lync 2013 | Lync Server 2013

In this article
Prerequisites
Lync Controls overview
Create a click-to-call feature
Code examples: Start an IM call
Additional resources

Code samples

Start new conversations from a WPF application
Start new conversations from a Silverlight application

Lync Controls overview

There are several Lync Controls that let you start a new conversation a single click. In some cases, the control starts a conversation in a single modality. In other cases, a user can select among several Lync 2013 conversation modalities. In general, the Lync Controls that provide this feature are controls whose instance exists in the context of a single SIP URI. For example, the Microsoft.Lync.Controls.ContactListItem has a source property that takes a SIP or TEL URI that corresponds to a user or a telephone number. When the control is clicked, a conversation is started with the user or a person at the telephone number.

Other Lync Controls, such as the ContactSearch compound control, display individual contact-based elements that can be clicked to start conversations.

Prerequisites

The prerequisites for using a Lync Controls to start a conversation are as follows:

Microsoft Lync 2013 SDK.
An available Microsoft Lync Server 2013 to sign a user in to.
Microsoft Lync 2013.
Supported operating systems: Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Windows 8, Microsoft Windows Server 2003, or Microsoft Windows Server 2008.
Microsoft Silverlight 4 SDK and Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0.
For WPF applications, one of the following editions of Microsoft Visual Studio development system: Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Standard Edition, Professional Edition, or Team Suite, Visual Basic 2008 Express Edition, Visual C# 2008 Express Edition, Visual Studio 2010, Visual Studio 2012, or Visual C# 2010 Express.
For Silverlight applications: Microsoft Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, or Internet Explorer 9. Microsoft Silverlight 4 Tools for Visual Studio 2010 and one of the following editions of Microsoft Visual Studio development system: Visual Studio 2010, Visual Basic 2010 Express, Visual Studio 2012, Visual C# 2010 Express, or Visual Web Developer 2010 Express.
To make voice calls, make sure that your audio device is enabled so that you can make voice calls through Lync 2010.

Create a click-to-call feature

To create a click-to-call feature, you must have at least one SIP URI or TEL URI that you can provide as the ContactBase.Source property value of the control that starts the call.

To populate the control

Inside of the containing element such as a stack panel, add the following XAML declaration.

                <controls:StartInstantMessagingButton Name="StartIM" Width="20" Height="20"/>

Set the ContactBase.Source property to the SIP URI of the user that is to be called.

The following example sets the Source property of the StartInstantMessagingButton control and the display name of the user to be contacted as the text of the ContactName text block.

        private void SetupIMButton(string contactURI)
        {
            ContactName.Text = "IM " + 
                LyncClient.GetClient().
                ContactManager.
                GetContactByUri(contactURI).
                GetContactInformation(ContactInformationType.DisplayName).ToString() + " " ;
            StartIM.Source = contactURI;
        }

Code examples: Start an IM call

The following code declares a XAML window that displays a text box with the name of a user and a Microsoft.Lync.Controls.StartInstantMessagingButton control that starts an IM conversation with the user.

<Window x:Class="LyncWpfApplication2.Window1"
    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"
    Title="Custom Contact List - my work group" Height="Auto" Width="Auto" mc:Ignorable="d" xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008" xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006" SizeToContent="WidthAndHeight" >
    <Grid>
        <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
            <ColumnDefinition Width="10*"/>
            <ColumnDefinition Width="30*"/>
        </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
        <StackPanel Grid.Column="1">
            <StackPanel Grid.Column="1" Orientation="Horizontal">
                <TextBlock Name="ContactName" Text=""/>
                <controls:StartInstantMessagingButton Name="StartIM" Width="20" Height="20"/>
            </StackPanel>
        </StackPanel>
    </Grid>

</Window>

The following example sets the text property of the text block in the previous example and then sets the SIP URI Source property of the Microsoft.Lync.Controls.StartInstantMessagingButton control.

using System.Windows;
using Microsoft.Lync.Model;

namespace LyncWpfApplication2
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Interaction logic for Window1.xaml
    /// </summary>
    public partial class Window1 : Window
    {
        public Window1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
            SetupIMButton("DaniloPSolano@contoso.com");
        }
        public Window1(string contactSIPUri)
        {
            InitializeComponent();
            SetupIMButton(contactSIPUri);
        }

        private void SetupIMButton(string contactURI)
        {
            ContactName.Text = "IM " + 
                LyncClient.GetClient().
                ContactManager.
                GetContactByUri(contactURI).
                GetContactInformation(ContactInformationType.DisplayName).ToString() + " " ;
            StartIM.Source = contactURI;
        }
    }
}