Office Communicator has supported the customization of up to 4 additional presence states for some times, and there are many articles all over the Internet on this topic.  But I have not yet seen one specifically for Lync, so here is a brief overview.

Basically the same configuration steps are used as what Office Communicator 2007 R2 required, since a change to the default security behavior was added after the 2007 (R1) client which prevented the use of non HTTPS connections to the configuration file.

1. Create a new XML file on the local workstation and customize the presence states and descriptions.
2. Disable SIP High Security Mode within Lync.
3. Enable Custom Presence States within Lync.

This article has been updated (September 2012) to include an additional set of instructions describing a more secure configuration approach meant for production deployments.  The original basic configuration was intended for one-off usage or testing, while the newer more secure method is considered best practice for production deployments.

This article has been updated yet again (October 2012) to include the new registry path that the Lync 2013 client uses as now it is part of the Office 2013 suite.  See the end of this article for the changes specific to Lync 2013.

Basic Configuration

So if you already know how to do this in the OCS R2 client, then follow the same steps.  For those of you new to the Communications Server products then here is a step-by-step walkthrough specifically for Lync.

Configure Presence File

The custom configuration information is stored in an XML file that must be manually created first.  Unique entries can be created with a few limitations: a maximum of 4 states and a limit of 64 characters in the description text.  This file can be accessed by the Lync client using either direct access to the file (via local disk or shared directory on a remote server) or as a web client using HTTP or HTTPS.

The aforementioned change between OC 2007 and 2007 R2 is the default behavior is now to force a secure connection to the XML file, limiting the option to only accessing the file via HTTPS.  This is fine when you want the same custom states to be available for multiple users across all workstations, but for simply adding the additional states to a single primary workstation for yourself using a local file is the best approach.

Because Lync follows the same default behavior of forcing HTTPS then in order to use a local XML file this behavior will need to be disabled, which will be addressed in the next section.  For now the following steps should be performed to create the configuration file and store it on the local workstation.

• Copy the following text and save into a new text file named presence.xml saved somewhere on the local workstation. (e.g. c:\Windows\presence.xml).  (This file can be saved anywhere as long as file security settings allow read access to it.  Commonly it can be stored in either the client installation directory or user’s documents folder.  I simply prefer to drop stuff in the system directory and the path is simple and does not include spaces which often require encapsulating paths within quotes.)

<?xml version="1.0"?> <customStates xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/09/2009/communicator/customStates">  <customState ID="1" availability="Busy">
    <activity LCID="1033">Urgent Interruptions Only</activity>
  </customState>
  <customState ID="2" availability="Busy">
    <activity LCID="1033">Customer Demo</activity>
  </customState>
  <customState ID="3" availability="Busy">
    <activity LCID="1033">In a Video Call</activity>
  </customState>
  <customState ID="4" availability="Busy">
    <activity LCID="1033">In Training Session</activity>
  </customState>
</customStates>

• Within the presence.xml file edit the availability values and description text to customize each of the 4 custom states to the desired information.  The availability values are limited to the following strings: Online, Busy, and Do-Not-Disturb.  The activity string text is limited to a maximum of 64 characters.

Configure Registry

To trigger the Lync client to import and use the custom state information two settings will need to be set within the local  workstation’s registry.  The first is to allow a local file to be read and removed the HTTPS requirement while the second settings tell Lync where to find the presence configuration file.

• Create a new REG_DWORD value named EnableSIPHighSecurityMode in the Communicator Software Policies key shown below.  Enter the value of ‘0’ to disable this security mode.

Path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Communicator
Name: EnableSIPHighSecurityMode
Value: 0

• Create a new REG_SZ value named CustomStateURL in the same key as shown below.  Enter the absolute path to the presence.xml file using the file:/// URL format.

Path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Communicator
Name: CustomStateURL
Value: file:///C:/Windows/presence.xml

• Exit and restart the Lync client to pick up the configuration changes and then pull down the status menu to locate the new choices.

Recommended Configuration

As previously mentioned the outlined process is more for testing or demonstration purposes as it requires lowering the SIP security setting on the client to support unencrypted connections to the customer presence definition file.  In order to retain the default behavior in Lync but still utilize this feature then the custom XML file must be stored on a web server with HTTPS enabled.

Additionally editing registry setting on individual computers is not scalable so normally Group Policy would be used to handle this.  But Lync Server 2010 contains a client policy setting to provide the path of the custom presence file to the client via in-band provisioning.

Thus the recommend approach for configuring this additional functionality in a production environment would be to use an HTTPS server to retain the default security behavior as well as utilizing the in-band policies. No direct modification of the registry is required for this scenario.

Configure Presence File

• Using the same guidance as provided earlier create a custom presence XML file (e.g. presence.xml).  A slightly different configuration is used below to show another example with different presence states.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<customStates xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/09/2009/communicator/customStates">
  <customState ID="1" availability="Busy">
    <activity LCID="1033">Urgent Interruptions Only</activity>
  </customState>
  <customState ID="2" availability="Online">
    <activity LCID="1033">Customer Demonstration</activity>
  </customState>
  <customState ID="3" availability="Busy">
    <activity LCID="1033">Customer Demonstration</activity>
  </customState>
  <customState ID="4" availability="Do-Not-Disturb">
    <activity LCID="1033">Customer Presentation</activity>
  </customState>
</customStates>

The next step is to save the file on a web server which support HTTPS client connections.  It is important to place the file on a server that both internal and external Lync client can resolve and connect to as Lync does not use separate parameters for internal or external customer presence URLs.  In a typical Lync Server deployment with external access and a reverse proxy server the simplest solution may be to locate the custom presence file on one of the published web sites where both external clients and internal clients can reach it.  This solution would require that internal Lync clients are still able to resolve the external web services FQDN correct and then connect to the service by hairpinning out of the network and back into the reverse proxy.  Other alternative may be used to provide access to this file for all clients in a specific deployment, so this approach is just one way to do so; it is not the only method.  Also by placing the file on a Lync Server that the clients already have access to the issues for trusted certificates for HTTPS and any authentication required to access the data are already addressed.

• Save the presence.xml file in the External Website folder of the desired Lync Front End or Director server.  This is the default root directory for the external web services on a Lync Front End server.

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Lync Server 2010\Web Components\External Website\

• Test secure access to the file from a web browser by using the external web services FQDN for the published web service and adding the presence file name and extension to the end of the path.

https://lyncweb.mslync.net/presence.xml

Configure Policy

The final step is to configure the client policy parameter in Lync server so that all Lync clients will be provided the path to the centrally located presence configuration file.  There are two approaches to enabling this: either by configuring the default global client policy which will apply the changes to users or by creating a new client policy and granting that policy to only the specific set of Lync users which should receive this capability.  Using multiple client policies also provides the flexibility to assign different sets of users to different presence configuration files in the event that not all users should have the same file.

Another advantage of this approach is that this client policy parameter could be used to point to an invalid path to prevent users from enabling their own custom presence settings.  By design if the Lync client is provided a configuration setting by both an in-band policy as well as a local registry setting for the same parameter then Lync will adhere to the in-band policy and ignore the registry setting.  Thus to prevent users from configuring their own local custom files an administrator can define a defunct policy in Lync which will always override any local settings, effectively locking out changes applied at the workstation level.

These directions will simply cover the basic steps of enabling this parameter on the default Global policy which will apply to all Lync users.

• Using the Lync Server Management Shell issue the following Set-CsClientPolicy cmdlet to enable and define the CustomStateURL in the default Global client policy.

Set-CsClientPolicy -Identity Global -CustomStateUrl "https://lyncweb.mslync.net/presence.xml”

• Issue the following Get-CsClientPolicy cmdlet to verify the CustomStateUrl parameter has been correctly defined on the desired client policy.

Get-CsClientPolicy -Identity Global | Select-Object Custom* | fl

• Exit and restart the Lync client to pick up the configuration changes and then pull down the status menu to locate the new choices.

Lync 2013 Configuration

For the Lync 2013 Windows client there has been one change that impacts this configuration.  As the Lync client is now part of the Office 2013 suite then all of the registry settings are now stored in a completely different location.  So for client-side file hosting or configuration the following alterations are required to the instructions provided above.  If using the server-side policy configuration then there is no difference as the 2013 client will work the same way with the in-band policy settings.

Configure Presence File

Follow the same exact steps as shown earlier in the article to create the custom presence file and store it the desired location.

Configure Registry

If no policies have yet been defined then the following key hierarchy may need to be created manually in the workstation’s registry.  (Note that either the LOCAL_MACHINE or LOCAL_USER hive can use used for this configuration if desired.)

• Open the Registry Editor and then browse to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft key.
• Create a new key named Office under the Microsoft key.  In the Office key create a new key named 15.0.  In the 15.0 key create a new key called Lync.  The resulting key structure should look like the following screenshot.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Lync

• Create a new REG_DWORD value named EnableSIPHighSecurityMode in the Lync Software Policies key shown below.  Enter the value of ‘0’ to disable this security mode.

Path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Lync
Name: EnableSIPHighSecurityMode
Value: 0

• Create a new REG_SZ value named CustomStateURL in the same key as shown below.  Enter the absolute path to the presence.xml file using the file:/// URL format.

Path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Lync
Name: CustomStateURL
Value: file:///C:/Windows/presence.xml

• Exit and restart the Lync client to pick up the configuration changes and then pull down the status menu to locate the new choices.