Make Messenger presence information availible in WSS

When deploying corporate intranets with Sharepoint Portal Server all user information is replicated through profiles from Active Directory. For organisations without Live Communications Server, only users with Microsoft Passport accounts that match their Active Directory email will have presence information availible in Sharepoint.

In our organisation several employees switched passport accounts to enable Messenger presence in Sharepoint and Office. Some are still reluctant to give up their personal passport account, and maintaining two accounts with passport is cumbersome.

One solution that works well with Windows Sharepoint Services is to change the user email in team sites you use frequently. Each top-level site website maintains a separate set of emails, and by changing the email presence information will appear through the Microsoft Windows Messenger Service. Note that emails sent from this site will be sent to the passport address aswell.