Automated Lync Dial testing using VB.net

Today I was asked if it would be possible to ‘Automate’ the repeated dialling of a SIP contact, this was in order to try and replicate and resolve an issue with a headset and lync.

So I cam up with this, and thought I should share it in case others find it useful.

The code below commences dialling after the command button is pushed, and each time the other party hangs up the App starts dialling again. Simple but effective.

If you use the code, or figure out a better way of doing it drop me a message using the comments section below.

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Subscribe to Lync contact information changes in VB.net

So I recently took on another Lync related challenge in .NET, one that required notification of a Lync contacts information change event.

This was a lot easier then what I thought it would be, thanks in part to the Microsoft.Lync.Model.Contact class. The following code will fire as soon as a contacts information has changed.

Imports Microsoft.Lync.Model.Conversation
Imports Microsoft.Lync.Model

Dim _Client As LyncClient
Dim _contact As Microsoft.Lync.Model.Contact

Private Sub form_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
        _contact = _Client.GetClient().ContactManager.GetContactByUri("INSERT SIP URI HERE")
        AddHandler _contact.ContactInformationChanged, AddressOf _contact_ContactInformationChanged
End Sub

Private Sub _contact_ContactInformationChanged(sender As Object, e As ContactInformationChangedEventArgs)
'Insert code to execute on detected changes
End Sub

This event will not only fire on an online/offline switch event but also capability of device should a contact switch from one device to another.

Hope you find this of some use.

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Handle Lync Audio/Video ModalityStateChanged with VB.net

da57591e-7377-46d3-959c-005816e755c4So todays challenge was around handling the ModalityState change on the Lync 2013 client. The ModalityState change event happens during certain stages of Lync calls, and client actions. The ModalityState is part of the Microsoft.Lync.Model.Conversation namespace. We are using it to configure certain custom Lync Status’ dependant of the current state of the client.

To capture and handle these events, you need to create and event handler for the conversation manager namespace and for ModalityStateChangedEventArgs. The code below is written in VB.Net but could easily be transferred to C# etc.

In my example, I am only interested in the AudioVideo modality state changes.

Imports Microsoft.Lync.Model
Imports Microsoft.Lync.Model.Conversation
Imports Lync = Microsoft.Lync.Model.Conversation

Public Class frmMain
    Private _LyncClient As LyncClient
    Public WithEvents _ConversationMgr As Microsoft.Lync.Model.Conversation.ConversationManager
    Public WithEvents _conv As Conversation

    Private Sub MainWindow_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
        Try
            _LyncClient = LyncClient.GetClient()
            _ConversationMgr = _LyncClient.ConversationManager
            DisplayCurrentState()
        Catch generatedExceptionName As ClientNotFoundException
            MessageBox.Show("client is not running")
        End Try
    End Sub

    Private Sub _ConversationMgr_ConversationAdded(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As Microsoft.Lync.Model.Conversation.ConversationManagerEventArgs) Handles _ConversationMgr.ConversationAdded
        AddHandler e.Conversation.Modalities(ModalityTypes.AudioVideo).ModalityStateChanged, AddressOf AVModalityStateChanged
    End Sub

    Private Sub AVModalityStateChanged(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As ModalityStateChangedEventArgs)
        Select Case e.NewState
            Case ModalityState.ConnectingToCaller
                'Insert your code here
            Case ModalityState.Connecting
                'Insert your code here
            Case ModalityState.Joining
                'Insert your code here
            Case ModalityState.Transferring
                'Insert your code here
            Case ModalityState.Disconnected
                'Insert your code here
            Case ModalityState.Disconnecting
                'Insert your code here
            Case ModalityState.Forwarding
                'Insert your code here
            Case ModalityState.OnHold
                'Insert your code here
            Case ModalityState.Suspended
                'Insert your code here
        End Select
    End Sub

So as you can see, it’s quite a simple concept – which holds lots of potential!

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How I built an Ms Lync ‘Bot’ formally known as D.A.V.E.

Lync_LogoMicrosoft Lync is Microsoft’s latest offering of a unified communications system. Sporting features you’d expect to find in a SIP/Unified Comms client, Lync is a pretty powerful piece of kit.

What’s more, Microsoft offer an SDK to enable easy development of tools and add-ons using Lync technologies. Most of the tutorials and blog posts seem to focus on either C# or Silverlight, which is fine – however, as I am primarily a VB.Net developer I decided to publish my own guide on how to intercept and respond to received Lync messages.

Firstly, I need to point out that I have only had access to Lync for a couple of months now and only downloaded the SDK earlier this month.. So although the code below is functional, I am constantly learning and may find a better way of doing things as my learning continues. To make things easier, make sure you subscribe to the post and you’ll get an update each time I adjust the code.

You will need to download and install the Microsoft Lync SDK then fire up your copy of Visual Studio, create a new windows form project. Obviously you could use any type of project here, however I have plans for a GUI in the future so I am using a windows form project.

Now, open the code view of your new form and import the following:

Now, under your “Public Class Form1” but before your “Private Sub Form1_Load()” enter the following lines of code:

That’s all there is to it for the declarations, as you can see I have used ‘WithEvents’ to expose the ‘methods’ in the GUI and make things a little easier developing with them.

Next in the “Form_Load()” event, paste in the following code:

This essentially ties your code to the Lync client running on your machine, then using ‘automation’ it confirms the client is signed in, if not it signs in for you.

Now, your app is hooked into the Lync client, you will need to ‘capture’ the message received event and handle it appropriately.

As you can see from the post above, I am using the built in replace functionality of the string. This is because the Lync client passes line feeds after its message, which makes handling the received message quite complicated.

So, from the code above – each time an instant message is received by your Lync client the variable strRec will contain the received message.

Now, upon receipt of a message you may want to send a response – which is where my next code snippet comes in. The following Sub send’s an instant message to the participants of the conversation:

From the code above, you should see the sub requires a string to be passed to it. This is what will be relayed to the client who sent the original message.

So there you have it, a fairly simple way of receiving and sending back a Lync ‘IM’.

Obviously, you may want to improve this slightly by trimming the received message and handling it depending on the users request. So, for example – you may want to ‘serve’ a simple weather forecast based on the users request. To do this all you need to do is enhance the ‘_LocalIMModality_InstantMessageReceived’ sub to include code something like this:

Now, create another sub which makes use of Yahoo’s weather forecasting, to reply to the Lync user with details of the local forecast:

As you can see from the code above, I have also built in the functionality for the Lync user to request weather for a couple of locations around the UK. This could be increased to as many as you want, or removed to only send details of one particular place.

Some other things you might want to consider would be for your ‘Bot’ to query a SQL table and pass back the results, or perhaps perform other functionality such as PING a device and send the reply details in an IM.

In a future blog post I will show you how to connect your new ‘BOT’ into a AI handler to provide an AI Bot capable of holding a ‘conversation’ of sorts.

As per my opening paragraph, I am very much in the early days of my Lync development – so if you have any suggestions on how I could improve the code above, please get in touch.

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