How to use Office Communicator for instant messaging in Microsoft CRM

The best way to provide instant messaging capabilities to your Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 users is to leverage the presence integration between Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Office Communicator. Microsoft Office Communicator is included with Microsoft Office Communications Server and when integrated with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, it allows your users to make phone calls, schedule appointments, send email and instant messages to both Microsoft CRM Contacts and Users. The presence integration is embedded in the Microsoft CRM client and it displays a presence indicator next to Contacts and Users. If your users are also configured with the Microsoft CRM Client for Outlook, Microsoft Office Communicator conversations are captured in a Conversation History folder in Outlook and users can promote them to Microsoft Dynamics CRM using the familiar Track In CRM and Set Regarding functionality used to promote email messages, appointments and tasks. More details on the integration with screenshots are available in this post on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team Blog about integrating instant messager and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

If your organization, on the other hand, does not have Office Communications Server, you can use Windows Live Messenger to provide your

users with the ability to send instant and email messages to Microsoft CRM Contacts and Users. Once Windows Live Messenger is installed, the Microsoft Dynamics CRM client will display the same presence indicator discussed above next to Contact and User records. The presence indicator will allow users to schedule appointments, and send email and instant messages but not make phone calls. However, the key functionality that you will lose in this case is the ability to easily promote instant message conversations to Microsoft Dynamics CRM because Windows Live Messenger does not keep conversation history in Microsoft Outlook. Users can still copy/paste instant message conversations and save them in the notes associated with Microsoft Dynamics CRM records, but this approach presents usability challenges and you may not get the user adoption that you would expect. For more information, refer to this post on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team Blog on the integration between the Microsoft Dynamics CRM client and Windows Live Messenger.

To recap, Microsoft Dynamics CRM was built to integrate with Windows Live Messenger and Office Communicator out of the box. Both instant message clients allow users to send emails, schedule appointments, and send instant messages to Contacts and Users in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, However, the integration with Office Communicator provides the ability to make phone calls and easily track instant message and phone conversations in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.