Where did the communicator API go with Lync 2013 for VBA?

Question

Prior to Lync 2013, there was a reference you could use for connecting Lync/Communicator to VBA:

Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 API Type Library

This allowed you to write code such as:

Dim msgr As CommunicatorAPI.Messenger
Dim msg As CommunicatorAPI.IMessengerConversationWndAdvanced

You could then write code to manipulate Lync such as generating IMs, etc.

I have recently "updated" Office to 2013. However, all code such as the above no longer works and it appears the required dll is not included in the Lync 2013 installation. VBA complains as the reference is not found.

Downloading the Communicator 2007 SDK does not allow me to load the reference. I suspect I could rewrite all that code to treat this as a standard dll (maybe?).

What file do I need to reference with Lync 2013?

Bootlace

Apparently that API was deprecated in 2010 (though still supported) but is not included in 2013. – Reinareinald

@TimWilliams do you have a source for that? I spent probably two hours today researching this and could not find anything meaningful. – Bootlace

Nothing too concrete - there is a link referenced here social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/… but I didn't read through it – Reinareinald

Answer 1

I did award a bounty to this question - but have since read 2 posts on MSDN Social that suggest MS have stopped supporting the automation PI for Lync.

The closest thing I could find is a quote from this page

"Lync 2013/SfB 2015 does not expose COM entry points that Excel can use.

You can create a wrapper around the Lync 2013 SDK and expose some COM objects that could be used from Excel."

Capitulum

Is what you are hoping for to know if anyone already created such a wrapper? I've browsed the web and GitHub, I haven't seen anything like this yet. I took a look at the SDK directly and it seems that you can work with VB, it shouldn't be that far from VBA, but you'll have to construct quite a lot of functions if you don't have just a specific need! – Corrode

If something already existed it would have been ideal, but I think it's quite a specific need so probably not that much interest in creating one. Maybe if I get time I'll have a crack at it. – Capitulum

Yup, If you ever take a run at it, let me know, I'll try to contribute! ;) – Corrode

Would love to also know more about this – Bunnell

I think I'm going to write a wrapper for this in C#.NET and see if I can get it working. – Capitulum

anyone have any luck with a wrapper for excel/lync? this is a stupid move from MS, makes users develop again from scratch. – Weise

@NikBurns I did plan on creating this but never actually had a need for it. I may look into it again over the next couple of months. – Capitulum