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Using Unified Communications APIs

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In a Microsoft Lync Server 2010 deployment, a unified communications application can use the following unified communications APIs to enable enhanced presence.

Microsoft Lync Controls

This API supports drag-n-drop controls that expose limited enhanced presence-related features of Microsoft Lync 2010. All presence features are exposed as properties of the presence controls. A Microsoft SliverLight browser or a Microsoft Windows Presentation Framework (WPF) application can use these controls to leverage the supported Lync presence features. The presence controls include

PresenceIndicator Control

This control can be used to display the availability and activity string of a specified contact. It can also be used to determine and configure how the presence photo appears in the UI.

ContactCard, ContactList, and CustomContactList Controls

These controls are used to show basic or detailed contact information of a specified contact, to manage a contact list.

ContactSearchInputBox and ContactSearchResultList Controls

These controls are used to search users by alias, names, keywords, or phone number.

For more information and examples of using the controls to enable the enhanced presence, see the Microsoft Lync 2010 SDK documentation.

Microsoft Lync 2010 API

This is the automation API for Microsoft Lync 2010. It allows an application to leverage and extend the enhanced presence features as well as other collaboration functionality supported by Lync 2010. As with Lync Controls, the enhanced presence data is encapsulated by the API objects and accessible through the properties on these objects. Lync 2010 API supports more enhanced presence features supported by Lync 2010 than Lync Controls does. For more information and example of using this API to enable the enhanced presence, see the Microsoft Lync 2010 SDK documentation.

Microsoft Unified Communications Managed API (UCMA) 3.0

This API is more versatile in terms of the feature support. It can be used to build a full-fledged unified communications client, middle-tier, or server application. A UCMA application has the full control of the enhanced presence features, including grammar-based and grammar-free presence publication, custom container semantics, and custom presence categories. The general enhanced presence programming examples presented in this documentation are created using this API. For more information, see the Microsoft Unified Communications Managed API (UCMA) 3.0 Core SDK documentation.