I’ve been playing with VOIP products a lot recently.  For instance, I learned you can make VOIP calls through Gizmo5 [registration currently closed] using your Google Voice number.  That’s pretty handy when you’re in another country – so long as you’ve got wifi, you’ve got a US phone number.  For free.  Since Google purchased Gizmo5, I expect we’ll see some interesting offerings when the product is re-launched.

But I digress.  As great as the above combo is, I still often connect with others using Skype.  This lead me to start collecting their IDs on the contact record.  From there it is pretty simple to create a URL to dial them through Skype directly.

Skype ID is a text field.  Skype URL is a formula field using the following:

IF( LEN(Skype_ID__c) > 0, HYPERLINK("skype:" & Skype_ID__c & "?call", "Skype " & Skype_ID__c ), "No Skype ID")

This can also be implemented as a button using this code:

skype:{!Contact.Skype_ID__c}?call

Happy dialing.  Cheers,

John