By default, communicator supports presence states like Available, Busy, Do Not Disturb etc..., you can however add variations to these states (supported states are:
online,
busy and
do-not-disturb) by adding a registry entry and creating an XML file that will define presence states. A maximum of four presence states can be defined.
To begin with, you will need to create an XML file with the following contents:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<customStates xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/09/2005/communicator/customStates"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://schemas.microsoft.com/09/2005/communicator/customStates
http://livecommteam/sites/main/ice/Wave%2012%20Docs/CustomActivities.xsd">
<customState ID="1" availability="
online">
<activity LCID="1033">
Custom description max 64 chars</activity>
</customState>
<customState ID="2" availability="
busy">
<activity LCID="1033">
Custom description max 64 chars</activity>
</customState>
<customState ID="3" availability="
busy">
<activity LCID="1033">
Custom description max 64 chars</activity>
</customState>
<customState ID="4" availability="
do-not-disturb">
<activity LCID="1033
">Custom description max 64 chars</activity>
</customState>
</customStates>
You can update the highlighted values as per your requirements. Value of the attribute availability can be either of the valid presence states specified above.
Next, we need to integrate the XML file with Communicator client. To integrate XML file take following steps:
1. Open registry editor and go to the following registry entry
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Communicator
2. Add the following key to above mentioned entry
CustomStateURL (Type:STRING), set value to the location of XML file like
C:\PresenceStates.xml