It looks as though you only have the ability to show the Online Status of a Name if the field type is ‘Names’. The problem is that I’d like to generate the list of names for this field via formula (similar to dialog list), which isn’t an option.
Instead of showing the helper link, put in your own graphic with a hotspot that generates a prompt to select a name and then place the selected name in the field through your code. You’ll have to hide that line in read mode and generate computed text to display the data so that the helper link doesn’t appear when reading the document.