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How to: Move or copy a contact between custom groups in Lync SDK

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Learn how to programmatically move or copy a Microsoft Lync 2013 contact from one Lync 2013 group to another in a user’s contact list.

Important noteImportant

You cannot move contacts out of a distribution group or copy contacts into a distribution group by using the Microsoft Lync 2013 API.

Applies to: Lync 2013 | Lync Server 2013

In this article
Prerequisites
Move a contact from one group to another group
Copy a contact from one group to another group
Code examples: My contact mover
Additional resources

Code samples

Add or remove contacts from the "Other Contacts" group

Prerequisites

The prerequisites for moving a contact to another group are as follows:

  • Microsoft Lync 2013 must be installed and running on the development computer.

  • You must have sign-in credentials for Microsoft Lync Server 2013.

  • Microsoft Lync 2013 SDK must be installed on the development computer.

Contacts and groups are available when the user is signed in to Lync 2013. Read about How to: Sign a user in to Lync and be sure that your application logic provides this capability before adding a contact list to your UI.

Move a contact from one group to another group

To move a contact

  1. Get the name of the custom group to which the contact is to be moved.

  2. Get the Microsoft.Lync.Model.Group.Group object from the groups collection returned by the ContactManager.Groups property based on the group name.

  3. Move the contact by specifying the target group and source group by calling the Contact.BeginMoveToGroup method.

    The following example gets a group based on a group name and then moves a contact from a source group to the target group.

            /// <summary>
        /// Moves a contact from the selected group to a custom group whose
        /// name matches 
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="sender"></param>
        /// <param name="e"></param>
        private void MoveContact_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
            //Get the selected group
            ContactMover.GroupWrapper groupToList = (ContactMover.GroupWrapper)GroupList_ListBox.SelectedItem;
            _SelectedGroup = groupToList.LyncGroup;

            Microsoft.Lync.Model.Group.Group targetGroup;
            if (_LyncClient.ContactManager.Groups.TryGetGroup(NewGroup.Text, out targetGroup))
            {
                //Get the selected group
                ContactMover.ContactWrapper contactToMove = (ContactMover.ContactWrapper)ContactList_ListBox.SelectedItem;
                contactToMove.LyncContact.BeginMoveToGroup(
                    targetGroup,
                    _SelectedGroup, (ar) => { contactToMove.LyncContact.EndMoveToGroup(ar); },
                    null);
            }
        }

Copy a contact from one group to another group

To copy a contact

  1. Get the name of the custom group to which the contact is to be copied.

  2. Get the Microsoft.Lync.Model.Group.Group object from the groups collection returned by the ContactManager.Groups property based on the group name.

  3. Copy the contact by calling the Group.BeginAddContact method on the target group.

    The following example gets a group based on a group name and then moves a contact from a source group to the target group.

            /// <summary>
        /// Copies a selected contact to a group specified by a group name string
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="sender"></param>
        /// <param name="e"></param>
        private void CopyContact_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
            Microsoft.Lync.Model.Group.Group targetGroup;
            if (_LyncClient.ContactManager.Groups.TryGetGroup(NewGroup.Text, out targetGroup))
            {
                //Get the selected group
                ContactMover.ContactWrapper contactToMove = (ContactMover.ContactWrapper)ContactList_ListBox.SelectedItem;
                targetGroup.BeginAddContact(contactToMove.LyncContact, (ar) => { targetGroup.EndAddContact(ar); }, null);
            }

        }

Code examples: My contact mover

The following example declares a WPF window that presents a list of groups from a user’s contact list, a list of contacts in a selected group, and controls that give you the ability to move a contact from one group to another.

<Window x:Class="ContactMover.MainWindow"
        xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
        xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
         xmlns:controls="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Lync.Controls;assembly=Microsoft.Lync.Controls"
        Title="My Contact Mover" Height="422" Width="541" Loaded="Window_Loaded_1" >
    <Grid>
        <Grid.RowDefinitions>
            <RowDefinition Height="80*"/>
            <RowDefinition Height="40*"/>
        </Grid.RowDefinitions>
        <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" Margin="0,0,0,12">
            <ListBox Name="GroupList_ListBox" Width="200" Height="195" Margin="10,10,10,10" SelectionChanged="GroupList_ListBox_SelectionChanged"/>
            <ListBox Name="ContactList_ListBox" Height="195"  Width="272" Margin="10,10,10,10" />
        </StackPanel>
        <StackPanel Grid.Row="1" Orientation="Horizontal" Margin="0,0,10,0">
            <Label Content="Group Name:" Height="23"/>
            <TextBox Name="NewGroup" Margin="10,10,10,10" Width="150" Height="23"/>
            <Button Name="MoveContact" Content="Move to new group"  Click="MoveContact_Click" Height="23" Width="120" Margin="0,0,10,0"/>
            <Button Name="CopyContact" Content="Copy to new group" Click="CopyContact_Click" Height="23" Width="120"/>
        </StackPanel>
    </Grid>
</Window>

The following example is the interaction logic for the previously declared WPF window.

 using System.Windows;
using Microsoft.Lync.Model;
using Microsoft.Lync.Model.Group;
using System.Diagnostics;

namespace ContactMover
{

    /// <summary>
    /// Interaction logic for MainWindow.xaml
    /// </summary>
    public partial class MainWindow : Window
    {
        LyncClient _LyncClient;
        Group _SelectedGroup;

        public MainWindow()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        private void Window_Loaded_1(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
            //GroupList_ListBox
            try 
            {
                _LyncClient = LyncClient.GetClient();
                LoadList();
                GroupList_ListBox.SelectedIndex = 0;
            }
            catch (LyncClientException lce) 
            {
                Debug.WriteLine(
                    "Lync client exception on GetClient() in Window Loaded " + 
                    lce.Message);
            }

        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Loads a list box with existing contact list groups
        /// by iterating on the Groups collection of the ContactManager 
        /// property on LyncClient.
        /// </summary>
        private void LoadList()
        {
            GroupList_ListBox.Items.Clear();
            foreach (Group group in _LyncClient.ContactManager.Groups)
            {
                //The Group is wrapped in a custom class to allow
                //override of ToString() method
                ContactMover.GroupWrapper gWrap = new ContactMover.GroupWrapper(group);

                GroupList_ListBox.Items.Add(gWrap);
            }
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Loads all of the contacts for a selected group into a contact
        /// list on the UI
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="sender"></param>
        /// <param name="e"></param>
        private void GroupList_ListBox_SelectionChanged(object sender, System.Windows.Controls.SelectionChangedEventArgs e)
        {
            //Get the selected group
            ContactMover.GroupWrapper groupToList = (ContactMover.GroupWrapper)GroupList_ListBox.SelectedItem;
            _SelectedGroup = groupToList.LyncGroup;

            //clear the contact list
            ContactList_ListBox.Items.Clear();

            foreach (Microsoft.Lync.Model.Contact contact in groupToList.LyncGroup)
            {
                ContactMover.ContactWrapper contactWrapper = new ContactMover.ContactWrapper(contact);
                ContactList_ListBox.Items.Add(contactWrapper);
            }
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Moves a contact from the selected group to a custom group whose
        /// name matches 
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="sender"></param>
        /// <param name="e"></param>
        private void MoveContact_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
            try
            {
                //Get the selected group
                ContactMover.GroupWrapper groupToList = (ContactMover.GroupWrapper)GroupList_ListBox.SelectedItem;
                _SelectedGroup = groupToList.LyncGroup;

                Microsoft.Lync.Model.Group.Group targetGroup;
                if (_LyncClient.ContactManager.Groups.TryGetGroup(NewGroup.Text, out targetGroup))
                {
                    //Get the selected group
                    ContactMover.ContactWrapper contactToMove = (ContactMover.ContactWrapper)ContactList_ListBox.SelectedItem;
                    contactToMove.LyncContact.BeginMoveToGroup(
                        targetGroup,
                        _SelectedGroup, (ar) => { contactToMove.LyncContact.EndMoveToGroup(ar); },
                        null);
                }
            }
            //NotSupportedException is raised when trying to move to a DistributionGroup
            catch (System.NotSupportedException nse) { System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("NotSupportedException on copy to group: " + nse.Message); }

            //NotImplementedExcption is raised when trying to move to a FrequentContacts group
            catch (System.NotImplementedException nie) { System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("NotImplementedException on copy to group: " + nie.Message); }
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Copies a selected contact to a group specified by a group name string
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="sender"></param>
        /// <param name="e"></param>
        private void CopyContact_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
            try
            {
                Microsoft.Lync.Model.Group.Group targetGroup;
                if (_LyncClient.ContactManager.Groups.TryGetGroup(NewGroup.Text, out targetGroup))
                {
                    //Get the selected group
                    ContactMover.ContactWrapper contactToMove = (ContactMover.ContactWrapper)ContactList_ListBox.SelectedItem;
                    targetGroup.BeginAddContact(contactToMove.LyncContact, (ar) => { targetGroup.EndAddContact(ar); }, null);
                }
            }
            //NotSupportedException is raised when trying to copy to a DistributionGroup
            catch (System.NotSupportedException nse) { System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("NotSupportedException on copy to group: " + nse.Message); }

            //NotImplementedExcption is raised when trying to copy to a FrequentContacts group
            catch (System.NotImplementedException nie) { System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("NotImplementedException on copy to group: " + nie.Message); }

        }
    }

    internal class ContactWrapper
    {
        Contact _contact;
        private string displayName;
        internal Contact LyncContact
        {
            get
            {
                return _contact;
            }
        }
        public override string ToString()
        {
            return displayName; // 
        }
        internal ContactWrapper(Contact contact)
        {
            _contact = contact;
            displayName = _contact.GetContactInformation(ContactInformationType.DisplayName).ToString();
        }
    }

    internal class GroupWrapper
    {
        Group _group;
        
        public override string ToString()
        {
            return _group.Name;
        }

        internal Group LyncGroup
        {
            get
            {
                return _group;
            }
        }
        internal GroupWrapper(Group group)
        {
            _group = group;
        }

    }
}

See also