OCS Components: Presence
Filed under: Instant Messaging (IM), OCS 2007, OCS 2007 R2
Next up in our OCS Components series is Presence. This is one of those little functions few people even think about — but they love having it around.
Presence is a real-time status indicator in your OCS client, Office Communicator. (That’’s a fancy way of saying it displays your “current status” to everyone else. ) If you”ve ever used IM, you know that means you pick from a few standard options. Away, Available, Busy, etc.
The Presence controls, at the top of Office Communicator. Currently, I”m Available and have no note set.
The available Presence options in Office Communicator are:
- Available
- Busy
- Do Not Disturb
- Be Right Back
- Away
To see them, click the green button. Ta daa!
The Status options for Presence.
To the right, you”ll see ”Type a note”. That’’s the Note field. This is where you write a small note to indicate what you”re doing.
Clearly, I”m succeeding.
So what’’s this good for?
Presence tells you when you should (and should not) try to communicate with someone. Conversely, it also tells them when they should (and should not) try to communicate with you.
Think about it. Let’’s say you needed a little input to finish that customer quote. So you emailed a co-worker…and you waited. And got coffee. And waited. And stared out the window. And waited some more.
You didn”t follow up right away because you didn”t want to nag. You don”t want the stigma of constantly nagging everyone in the office, right?
With co-workers using Presence, you don”t have to. You just check what they”re doing. If they”re Available, send an email or IM them. If they”re Busy or set to Do Not Disturb, don”t. If they”re Away (depending on their note), try calling.
It works in reverse too, right?
Of course! Set your Presence status to Busy or Do Not Disturb whenever you have things to do. Then write a brief Note so everyone understands. Use it whenever you”re busy. For example, when you”re:
- Solving a customer problem
- Wrestling with the Paperdemon
- Concentrating on budget issues
- Attending a client meeting
- Avoiding Susan in Accounting
(Don”t write that last one in the Note field though.)
Your current status is only a little bit of information. But it affects who/when someone communicates with you, and vice versa. I find the biggest value in Presence is simply knowing when not to bug a co-worker. Now, if I could just get them to do the same…
