Add custom presence states to Microsoft Office Communicator with Communicator Custom States (CCS) Tool
Next up in my series of homebrewed software is CCS — Communicator Custom States, a simple standalone tool for adding your own status messages, or, presence states to Microsoft Office Communicator. Many corporate offices use Communicator, and this is a great tool for anyone willing to get a little creative!
Note: This tool needs to be run with administrator privileges and works only for Communicator 2007 and later versions.
What does this do?
Communicator supports the default status messages Available, Busy, Do Not Disturb and Away. From Communicator 2007, support for custom states was added. Documentation on how to do this manually is documented on TechNet here. Since it requires cooking up an XML file and making changes to the registry, I decided to write a tool that provides a nice GUI for users to create their own states and does all the heavy lifting backstage.
Features
- Works on R2, unlike another similar tool – Communicator 2007 Custom Presence Tool.
- Nice & intuitive UI.
- Option to reset (rollback) the changes to the registry.
- Detects system’s language and automatically uses the corresponding LCID in the XML file.
- Tons of validations before making attempting to make any changes to the system – administrator rights, valid XML, restart Communicator if running & text length of custom states.
- Bonus feature: Option to enable the ‘Appear Offline’ status!
Screenshots
Download – Updated 20th July, 2011
Direct Download | Softpedia
Version 1.0.3 – 31.6 KB
Requires .NET Framework 3.0 or higher.
hi GP
this is a comment on the whole blog..
its awesome
the interface,the design and the spectrum of
things you get into..
had checked ur site a year ago i guess..complete
transformation!
beautiful captions for the photos..
very rare to see a combination good content,
aesthetics..when are you moving
out of the “code” of conduct
keep up the good work wherever u work ..
Hey thanks a lot for the words, bro. Appreciate it.
Just reached your website after hyperlinking through several posts. This is fantastic! Thanks a lot!!! I keep referring people to your website – way to go!
Hi GP
Nice utility – however in my version of Communicator (2007 R2 3.5.6907.225) the Status dropdown has the Availabilty text added and not the Presence State text.
Any ideas?
Regards Davey
Hi Davey, can you please send me a screenshot of the tool and also your Communicator window with the status dropdown?
Hi GP, Thank you so much for this solution. Awesome site too
If you know of a way to unblock the ability to save conversations to Outlook, please let me know. Our corporate policy blocks them, but I was able to get past this previously. However they just reloaded my machine! (and of course I cant remember the registry key to do it again) Thanks again!!! ~Moxy
Thanks Moxy! For enabling auto-archiving of conversations, navigate to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Communicatorand create a DWORD key, with nameImAutoArchivingPolicyand value1.Hi GP
I m using MOC 2007 R2 version 3.5.6907.0 and tried to add custom status with the help of your tool, but I dont see any changes.
Do I need to update the Registry? If so what http url I need to put for CustomStateURL in registry? (I m saving the .xml file C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Communicator)
Thanks in advance.
Pinki
The tool automatically makes the changes in the registry. Did you try restarting your Communicator?
Yes I restarted the Communicator but no changes are reflecting in that.
Thanks
Pinki
I am having the same issue as Pinki. The customizations show on the tool, but even after restarting communicator there is no change. i’m running OCS 2007 R2 VER 3.5.6907.225
found the problem. If this dword entry doesn’t exist, create it and set it to zero.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Communicator\EnableSIPHighSecurityMode]
restart communicator and it works.
Ah, I had overlooked this entry! Thanks for pointing it out. Will be updating this post with a fix soon – hopefully, that resolves issues for others!
DEVELOPER’S NOTE: Post updated! Download version 1.0.3 from the Download section at the bottom of the post.
Hi,
I was trying to run the program but it was not working.
The new status were created but with standard descriptions.
Found that the XML must be LCID=”1033″ instead. At least for the version I am using: MOC 2007 R2 3.5.6907
Hi Leonardo, the program does detect your LCID automatically. Click on the ‘About’ link and see if the LCID is detected correctly.
Well, the program has been detected as 1046, when should detect 1033.
I have not been able to reproduce the issue so far. I’ll keep looking.
Leonardo has a point. When you look at the technet (microsoft), they gave sample xml format which uses a bunch of LCID number which they suggested should be used. I edited the XML to reflect that and the custom state is now showing proper Activity.
Ganesh, awesome.
I fought with the same fix for a 100 times….with the same fix and im amazed where it is fixed. Thankyou!
Hi GP,
It did not work for me It only shows Busy presence state. I also check the EnableSIPHighSecurityMode and its already on 0, please advice how to fix this. Thanks in advance.
Please share the version of Communicator you are using, a screenshot of the tool with its inputs, and a copy of your XML file.
Awesome application, Ganesh!
However, I am not able to change the custom status items after I applied it once. That is, the first set I applied worked fine, but then I wanted to change the text on some of them. I did this in the tool, clicked on Apply, but the previous custom status strings are still displayed.
Have you seen this behavior before?
OK, I figured out the problem. I think your program is saving to HKEY_CURRENT_USER and I had an entry in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE from a previous attempt to do this manually – which was overriding what I was changing in the new file.
Thanks, again for a cool toy!
Dear GP,
Is seem to have the same problem as Leonardo: the new items appear, but the descriptions are like “Busy” and “Available” – so in fact the status they are referring to, not the description I entered in your tool. The LCID is correct, so it must be sth else.. Really wouldn’t know where to check what..
Guy
But we rarely have admin access in our desktops :-(. Might end up flagged for trying these things. Bloody policies.
GP,
Great tool, really appreciate your time and effort to develop it!
I got it. Now it works. It’s really a nice tool. Thanks for it.
Kind regards
Anton