In Office Help Disrupt: My cool IM Client!

Hey all,

I wanted to share a cool new application I was playing around with.

The idea to make this application came from a very selfish need of mine, where in my work, I interact with many groups in our org and many come to my station, hover around...and seek my assistance. I started feeling like a one man support team.

I thought it would be cool to give them all a way to see when I was online in a way they are familiar and comfortable with (IM) and also, allow me to talk to more then once at the same time.

I have created a simple Instant Messenger application using LivePerson's API.

If you are a developer, continue reading - if not, check out the attached SWF demo file.

The integration I created included getting an application key and installing it on my LivePerson site.

I have used the Availability command to show my availability (as an operator). Since this is a Restful API I had to write a thread that pulls the system in order to see when an operator is online. It is important to do this every few seconds and not bombard the server with many request. The same goes for the pulling of the responses the operator writes.

This issue of pulling brings me to the C# wrapper.

Since my application is using the C# language I have decided to write a simple class wrapper so I would have all my REST calls in one place. A good wrapper will cut down development time and avoid all together the pitfall I have written about above.

I have used the following resources to build my IM application:

If you are a JAVA developer, you can find an official JAVA wrapper here.

Finally, I've attached to this discussion the SWF file which shows a quick demo of the IM / LivePerson integration. Just open it in any web browser to view.

If you have any questions on my work above, I will be more than happy to answer and assist you in building your own IM client to meet your needs.

-daniel driechlinger

Side Note:

Reading this post, you may think - "why do I need to build my own client? I can use the same functionality with an XMPP Integration (google talk) which everyone uses" - the answer my friends is that with my solution, there is no need for an Openfire server.