How to Add a Microsoft Office Communicator Contact With Yahoo! Messenger

Office Communicator allows live instant messaging with Yahoo Messenger users.

Microsoft Office Communicator and Yahoo Messenger are both email and instant-messaging programs. However, Office Communicator users can generally chat only with other members of a specified group, such as employees of a corporation or students of a college.To enhance the usefulness of the software, Microsoft integrated Yahoo Messenger and other publicly accessible messaging software. This integration allows an Office Communicator user to chat with any Yahoo Messenger user. Each program includes a process to allow users to set up lines of communication with users of other messaging programs.

Things You'll Need

• Microsoft Office Communicator software
• Yahoo Messenger software

Instructions

Adding Contacts in Yahoo Messenger

1. Click on "Contacts" at the top of the software. Select "Add a Contact" in the menu.

2. Enter the Office Communicator user's email address in the invitation box that pops up for the email-address field. This is the email address assigned by the school or other organization that is running Office Communicator.

3. Select "LCS" as the "Network." This option is for Microsoft's Live Communications Server. Office Communicator is part of the LCS network.

4. Click "Next" to get to the next page. You can enter an optional invitation message.

5. Click "Next" to send the invitation. Your Office Communicator contact will now appear in your Yahoo Messenger contact list.

6. Have the Office Communicator user accept your invitation in the invitation box that appears in his account.

Adding Contacts in Office Communicator

1. Have the Office Communicator and Yahoo Messenger users access their respective accounts.

2. Click on the down arrow at the top of Office Communicator to open up the main menu. Hover over "Tools" and select "Add a Contact."

3. Select the "Use an e-mail address or sign-in address" option. You then enter the email address of the Yahoo Messenger user. Messenger uses Yahoo email addresses as account usernames.

4. Look in the box that appears for the desired contact group. Office Communicator allows you to create separate groups of contacts with this feature. If you have not created any contact groups, you can choose the "All Contacts" group that appears in the box by default.

5. Have the person in Yahoo Messenger accept the invitation to join your list. Messenger pops up an invitation box for this purpose. If the invitation does not appear, invite the person again. This typically means you have mistyped the email address.

Tips & Warnings

• These instructions apply to users of Microsoft Office Communicator 2005 and 2007. In 2010, Microsoft rebranded the software and named it Microsoft Lynx 2010. However, users in organizations that still use Office Communicator can continue to add Yahoo Messenger contacts.

• Connectivity with Yahoo Messenger and other instant-messaging devices is disabled by default. The administrator of the Office Communicator system must enable the integration before you can add external contacts.

• Office Communicator only allows text messages with external instant messengers. You may not chat through audio or video or send files back and forth. Conference calling or chatting with more than one Yahoo Messenger user at a time is also disabled.

References

• University of North Texas: Adding Public IM Contacts to Office Communicator 2007
• Microsoft: Communicate with MSN, AOL and Yahoo Users
• Microsoft: How to Manually Change Presence Information
• Microsoft Support: Known Issues That Occur With Public Instant Messaging and Communications Server
• Yahoo Messenger: IM With Friends on Other Networks