Live Communications Server, LCS, provides a lot of fun stuff that you can do with it, and after all if you have sold it to your customer wouldn't it be cool if you also could build an application that uses the LCS as an interface? I'm going to build a Bot that looks up some customer information when asked for it. Here's the instructions on how to get started:

  1. Take your favorite VPC (W2k3 with LCS and VS2003 installed on it)
    I think I'll build an example later on VS2005 (not a promise)
  2. Download the RoleAgent.msi from the Microsoft web site, you can find it here:
    http://www.live.com/?q=roleagent+download+lcs+agent&FORM=LVSP&scope=web#q=Live%20Communications%20Server%202005%20Sample%20Application&offset=1
    It could still be located here (but you never know):
    http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=2FB830B5-AA88-41B1-9AB9-235548D4270F&displaylang=en
  3. Install it (it normally goes into "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Live Communications Server Role Agent")
  4. Read the ReadMe.doc file located in the directory.
  5. Download the RTC API V1.3 from here:
    http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=c3a7bd15-fd1c-4bf7-a505-3f8faf1e120a&displaylang=en
  6. Install it (it normally goes into "C:\Program Files\RTC Client API v1.3 SDK")
  7. Run the "C:\Program Files\RTC Client API v1.3 SDK\INSTALLATION\RtcApiSetup.msi"
  8. Follow the instructions in the RoleBot.doc document on how to Create Role Agent Accounts.
  9. Modify the startup function in RoleBot.cs in the following way:
    role1 = new Role();
    role1.LCSServerName = "moss.litwareinc.com";
    role1.Transport = RTCConstants.RTCTR.TCP;
    role1.Initialize("Support Questions Group", "supplyquestions@litwareinc.com", "litwareinc\\supplyquestions", "pass@word1");
  10. Compile the project
  11. Run the generated RoleBot.msi file in "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Live Communications Server Role Agent\Samples\Setup1\Debug"
  12. Start the service RTC Role Agent Service
  13. You can now attach to the process and debug it from VS2003 to see what happens when you send messages to your agent
  14. Done!