Chat Room Add-ins

Chat room add-ins are used to extend the Persistent Chat user experience by associating customized websites with chat rooms. When add-ins are registered by the Lync administrator and associated with chat rooms, the content of the specified websites is embedded in the conversation extensibility pane of the Lync 2013 client. A good example of how an add-in might be used would be embedding a Microsoft OneNote URL within a chat room dedicated to a particular department, where the site provides information that would be of interest to the department members.

The following steps would be used to create a chat room add-in:

1. Log on to a system where the Lync administrative tools are installed using an account that is a member of the CsAdministrator or CsPersistentChatAdministrator security groups, and open the Lync Server Control Panel.

2. In the left pane, select Persistent Chat, and then click the Add-in tab at the top.

3. Click New; then, at the Select a Service dialog box, select the Persistent Chat pool that will be associated with this add-in, and click OK.

4. At the New Add-in screen, enter a name for the add-in, enter the URL that will be associated with the add-in, and then click Commit to save the configuration.

After an add-in has been registered, it is associated with a chat room using the Lync Server Management Shell. The following procedure would be used to associate an add-in named Engineering Design Add-in with the Engineering chat room shown earlier in Figure 10.9:

1. Log on to a system where the Lync administrative tools are installed using an account that is a member of the CsAdministrator or CsPersistentChatAdministrator group and the RTC Local Administrators group on the Persistent Chat Server, and that has administrative rights on the local system.

2. Open the Lync Server Management Shell, and execute the following cmdlet:

Set-CsPersistentChatRoom -Identity chatpool1.companyabc.com -Add-in Engineering Design Add-in