Can Microsoft OCS be embedded into an asp.net web page. How long should it take?

Question

I have been told that Microsoft OCS is a bit like Windows Messenger.

Can it be added to a web page by inserting and configuring some standard code so we end up with something like this:

I know there is an OCS API but I don’t want to spend days piecing an OCS app together from this.

I was hoping there would be a component that allows me to stick the whole app on a web page and configure it to operate correctly. I presume this is something that would take less than 2 days if it is possible. Can someone advise if this is about right for an experienced developer?

I understand the web page would need to be in an Intranet with Active Directory.

Answer 1

Sort of a yes and no answer, this... There is no simple way to embed the entire client in a web page, but you can embed the important stuff - a list of contacts with their presence, and the Click-to-Call functionality. This approach relies on the end users having Communicator, Office and IE installed.

See my answer about NameCtrl here. There's a bit of javascript and state tracking involved if you're displaying more than one contact, so 2 days feels about right.

It's worth bearing in mind that this will work if the web page itself determines which list of contacts to show. If the contact list instead needs to be pulled from the user's Communicator, this isn't supported for web pages (some parts of the Communicator API are marked as NotScriptable for security reasons). You'll need to use the Office Communicator Automation API, and create a .net COM Interop wrapper around it. I've detailed a workaround to that here (this example discusses Silverlight, but it should be the same for javascript). I'd give this another couple of days on top of the original 2.

It's also worth bearing in mind that this approach will work with OCS, and will continue to work if the customer upgrades to Lync Server 2010. If they are already on Lync Server 2010, then the simpler approach is to use the Silverlight controls. Probably only a day for this approach.