Lync 2010 Custom status messages not appearing

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Sometimes when you add new status messages to your Lync server, you may not just see it correctly on your Lync client easily.

The procedure for adding new status messages is the XML which has the statuses and then setting that XML file as global policy for all the clients connecting to that Lync server

1. Create the XML file with new status. Host this on a web server or lync front end server if you want, with a secure URL https. For eg: https://mywebsite/presencefile.xml

<?xml version="1.0"?> <customStates xmlns="https://schemas.microsoft.com/09/2009/communicator/customStates"> 

<customState ID="1" availability="Busy">
<activity LCID="1033">Ready for Appointments</activity>
</customState>
<customState ID="2" availability="Away">
<activity LCID="1033">Out for lunch</activity>
</customState>
<customState ID="3" availability="Away">
<activity LCID="1033">On Vacation</activity>
</customState>
</customStates>

2. Set the Lync client policy by running this command on the Lync Powershell window

Set-CsClientPolicy -Identity Global -CustomStateUrl "https://mywebsite/presencefile.xml"

3. Cross check the policy to see if it has been applied correctly

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

 

You may not see the Lync clients having status changes very immediately. It may require you to sign out and sign again to the Lync client, or sign out and end the Lync client process itself.

I recently faced this issue, and I tried everything possible and the new statuses were not appearing in any of my Lync clients in the network.

One of the things you could do in such a scenario is, go to the client box and open the Internet explorer settings and if you have a proxy server specified, try unchecking the Automatically detect checkbox. This was the reason i was not able to connect to the Lync server and get the new statuses. Unchecking the automatically detect prevented it from going outside the proxy realm and i could then see my new statuses on the Lync client.

This had resolved the problem for me, and hope it would help others! In short these are a few things you could do to when you cannot see new statuses on your clients

1. Check the proxy settings on your browser. Remove automatically detect if you have a proxy

2. Check the firewall settings by turning it off to see if the statuses are appearing

3. Sign out of the Lync client and sign in again

4. Restart the Lync client by explicitly ending the process