Microsoft Lync and Skype for Business have a rich set of .NET APIs which make it easy to extend the platform and integrate it with other applications. This blog helps explain how to use those APIs.

New MSPL function in Lync 2013: RetargetRequest

Posted: November 23rd, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: MSPL | Tags: , , | 2 Comments »

Microsoft SIP Processing Language (or MSPL), a part of the Lync Server SDK, is a fantastic and currently underused tool for overriding or extending Lync routing behaviour to meet business needs. I’ve written about some of its capabilities and how to use it in previous blog posts. It’s handy for things like intercepting and blocking calls with certain characteristics, filtering messages, logging or monitoring communications, or rerouting calls to different destinations. It’s also probably the Lync API that has remained the most unchanged from version to version. In Lync 2013, it’s managed to hang on to this distinction, with only a couple of additions, but one of them is really quite interesting and potentially useful, and I wanted to bring it to everyone’s attention here. The new RetargetRequest method allows you to have an MSPL script change the destination a message is going to, but without bypassing the rest of the scripts that are installed on the Lync server. Continue reading “New MSPL function in Lync 2013: RetargetRequest” »


Filtering instant messages with the Lync Server SDK

Posted: November 10th, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Lync Development | Tags: , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Recently I was answering a question about filtering instant messages between Lync users, and I decided that this would make a good topic for a post. It’s a fairly common use case, and one that is not too easy to implement because it requires the arcane and mysterious Lync Server SDK, which is written in hieroglyphics and can only be used by the light of a full moon.

Okay, that last part isn’t true, but it is true that the Lync Server SDK is one of the least well-known and most challenging APIs in the Lync development platform. It consists of two components, the Microsoft SIP Processing Language, a.k.a. MSPL, and the Managed SIP Application API. The latter of these is the one we’ll need to use to filter instant messages. Continue reading “Filtering instant messages with the Lync Server SDK” »