Walkthrough 3: Display Microsoft Dynamics CRM records in your agent application

This walkthrough demonstrates how to display Microsoft Dynamics CRM records in your agent application. In this walkthrough, you’ll display all the account and contact records in the CRM instance. You’ll also create a search button with drop-down menu items for displaying accounts and contacts in the agent application.

Prerequisites

• You must have completed Walkthrough 1: Build a simple agent application. The configurations that you completed in walkthrough 1 are required in this walkthrough.

• This walkthrough assumes that you will be using the same user credential that you used in walkthrough 1 to sign in to the agent application at the end of the walkthrough to test the application. If a different user will be testing the application, you must assign the user to Contoso Configuration. More information: Walkthrough 1: Build a simple agent application

• You must know about the following in Unified Service Desk:

  • The following two types of hosted controls: CRM Page and Toolbar Container. More information: Hosted control types and action/event reference

  • Action call and how to configure it. More information: Action calls

  • Filter access using Unified Service Desk configuration. More information: TechNet: Manage access using Unified Service Desk configurationhttps://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn646885(v=usd.1)

In This Walkthrough

Step 1: Create CRM Page type of hosted controls to display account and contact records

Step 2: Create a toolbar container type of hosted control

Step 3: Add a toolbar and attach it to the toolbar container

Step 4: Add toolbar buttons and action calls to display CRM records

Step 5: Add the controls to the configuration

Step 6: Test the application

Conclusion

Step 1: Create CRM Page type of hosted controls to display account and contact records

In this step, you’ll create two hosted controls of CRM Page type to display the account and contact records respectively.

1. Sign in to Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

2. Go to Settings > Unified Service Desk. (How do I get there?)

3. Click Hosted Controls.

4. Click New.

5. On the New Hosted Control page, specify the following values:

   Field	Value
   Name	Contoso Accounts Search
   Display Name	Contoso: Accounts
   USD Component Type	CRM Page
   Allow Multiple Pages	No
   Hosting Type	Internal WPF
   Application is Global	Checked
   Display Group	MainPanel

   

6. Click Save.

7. Click New to create another hosted control for displaying contact records.

8. On the New Hosted Control page, specify the following values:

   Field	Value
   Name	Contoso Contacts Search
   Display Name	Contoso: Contacts
   USD Component Type	CRM Page
   Allow Multiple Pages	No
   Hosting Type	Internal WPF
   Application is Global	Checked
   Display Group	MainPanel

   

9. Click Save.

Step 2: Create a toolbar container type of hosted control

Toolbar Container type of hosted controls are used to hold and display the toolbars in Unified Service Desk. In this section, you’ll create a Toolbar Container hosted control that will appear at the top of the client application.

1. Sign in to Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

2. Go to Settings > Unified Service Desk. (How do I get there?)

3. Click Hosted Controls.

4. Click New.

5. On the New Hosted Control page, specify the following values

   Field	Value
   Name	Contoso Main Toolbar Container
   USD Component Type	Toolbar Container
   Display Group	ToolbarPanel

   

6. Click Save.

Step 3: Add a toolbar and attach it to the toolbar container

In this step, you’ll create a toolbar, and attach the toolbar to the toolbar container hosted control created in step 2. This is done to display the toolbar in your agent application.

1. Sign in to Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

2. Go to Settings > Unified Service Desk. (How do I get there?)

3. Click Toolbars.

4. Click New.

5. On the New Toolbar page, type Contoso Main Toolbar in the Name box, and then click Save.

6. Attach the toolbar to the toolbar container hosted control created in step 2. On the nav bar, click the down arrow next to Contoso Main Toolbar, and click Hosted Controls.

7. On the next page, click Add Existing Hosted Control, type Contoso Main Toolbar Container in the search bar, and then press ENTER or click the search icon.

8. From the search result, click Contoso Main Toolbar Container to add.

9. Click Save.

Step 4: Add toolbar buttons and action calls to display CRM records

In this step, you’ll add buttons on the toolbar and attach action calls to the buttons so that when the button is clicked, appropriate CRM records are displayed in the hosted controls that were created in step 1. You’ll configure the search button so that clicking the button displays the account and contact submenu items, and clicking a button displays the respective CRM records.

1. After you save the toolbar in step 3, the Buttons area becomes available. In the Buttons area, click + on the right corner to add a button.

2. On the New Toolbar Button page, specify the following values:

   Field	Value
   Name	Contoso Search Button
   Button Text	SEARCH
   Tooltip	Search CRM accounts and contacts
   Order	1

   

3. Click Save.

4. On the nav bar, click the down arrow next to Contoso Search Button, and click Toolbar Buttons.

   Note

   You are now adding child toolbar buttons to an existing toolbar button to create a submenu structure.

5. On the next page, click Add New Toolbar Button.

6. On the New Toolbar Button page, specify the following values.

   Field	Value
   Name	Contoso Search Account Button
   Button Text	Account
   Order	1 Note The Order field defines the position of buttons in the toolbar. Buttons are arranged from left to right or top to bottom in an ascending order.

   

7. Click Save.

8. You’ll now add two action calls: first to display the account records in the hosted control created in step 1 and the second one on the Contoso Global Manager hosted control to display the account hosted control.

   In the Actions area, click + on the right corner to add an action call.

9. In the search box in the Actions area, press ENTER or click the search icon.

10. In the search results box, click New in the lower right corner to create an action call for this toolbar button.

    

11. On the New Action Call page, specify the following values:

    Field	Value
    Name	Contoso Action Call: Search Account
    Order	1
    Hosted Control	Contoso Accounts Search
    Action	Find
    Data	account

    

12. Click Save. The new action call gets added to the Contoso Search Account Button button.

13. You’ll add another action call to the button to set the focus on the hosted control that displays the account records in the client application. In the Actions area, click + on the right corner to add an action call.

14. In the search results box, click New in the lower right corner to create an action call for this toolbar button.

15. On the New Action Call page, specify the following values.

    Field	Value
    Name	Contoso Action Call: Display Account Search
    Order	2
    Hosted Control	Contoso Global Manager
    Action	ShowTab
    Data	Contoso Accounts Search

    

16. Click Save. The new action call gets added to the Contoso Search Account Button button.

17. Navigate to Contoso Search Button toolbar button to add a child button for searching and displaying contacts. On the nav bar, click the down arrow next to Contoso Search Button, and select Toolbar Buttons.

18. On the next page, click Add New Toolbar Button.

19. On the New Toolbar Button page, specify the following values:

    Field	Value
    Name	Contoso Search Contact Button
    Button Text	Contact
    Order	2 Note The Order field defines the position of buttons in the toolbar. Buttons are arranged from left to right or top to bottom in an ascending order.

    

20. Click Save.

21. You’ll now add two action calls: first to display the contact records in the hosted control that were created in step 1 and the second one on the Contoso Global Manager hosted control to display the contacts hosted control.

    In the Actions area, click + on the right corner to add an action call.

22. In the search box in the Actions area, press ENTER or click the search icon.

23. In the search results box, click New in the lower right corner to create an action call for this toolbar button.

24. On the New Action Call page, specify the following values:

    Field	Value
    Name	Contoso Action Call: Search Contact
    Order	1
    Hosted Control	Contoso Contacts Search
    Action	Find
    Data	contact

    

25. Click Save. The new action call gets added to the Contoso Search Contact Button toolbar button.

26. You’ll add another action call to the button to set the focus on the hosted control that displays the contact records in the client application. In the Actions area, click + on the right corner to add an action call.

27. In the search results box, click New in the lower right corner to create an action call for this toolbar button.

28. On the New Action Call page, specify the following values.

    Field	Value
    Name	Contoso Action Call: Display Contact Search
    Order	2
    Hosted Control	Contoso Global Manager
    Action	ShowTab
    Data	Contoso Contacts Search

    

29. Click Save. The new action call gets added to the Contoso Search Contact Button toolbar button.

Step 5: Add the controls to the configuration

In this step, you’ll add the action calls, hosted controls, and toolbar that were created in this walkthrough to Contoso Configuration to display these controls to the user who is assigned to the configuration. Contoso Configuration was created in Walkthrough 1: Build a simple agent application.

Add the following to Contoso Configuration.

To add a control to the configuration:

1. Sign in to Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

2. Go to Settings > Unified Service Desk. (How do I get there?)

3. Click Configuration.

4. Click Contoso Configuration to open the definition.

5. On the nav bar, click the down arrow next to Contoso Configuration, and select Action Calls.

6. On the next page, click Add Existing Action Call, type “Contoso Action Call” in the search bar, and then press ENTER or click the search icon.

7. The action calls listed earlier are displayed in the search results. Add these action calls.

8. Similarly, add the hosted controls and the toolbar by clicking the down arrow next to Contoso Configuration, and clicking Hosted Controls and Toolbars respectively.

9. Click Save.

Step 6: Test the application

Start the Unified Service Desk client application, and sign in to the CRM instance where you configured Unified Service Desk using the same user credentials that you assigned to the Contoso Configuration in Walkthrough 1: Build a simple agent application. For information about connecting to a CRM instance using the Unified Service Desk client application, see TechNet: Connect to CRM instance using the Unified Service Desk client.

Your agent application will now have a SEARCH button in the toolbar area with two child buttons (Account and Contact) that are displayed on clicking the down arrow.

Click Account or Contact under the SEARCH button to display the respective records from your CRM instance in separate tabs in the Unified Service Desk client application.

Conclusion

In this walkthrough, you learned how to display CRM records in the Unified Service Desk client application. You also learned how to filter access to Unified Service Desk controls using configuration.

See Also

Tasks

Walkthrough 1: Build a simple agent application
Walkthrough 2: Display an external webpage in your agent application
Walkthrough 4: Display a Microsoft Dynamics CRM record in a session in your agent application
Walkthrough 5: Display enhanced session information by displaying session name and overview data
Walkthrough 6: Configure the Debugger hosted control in your agent application
Walkthrough 7: Configure agent scripting in your agent application

Other Resources

Unified Service Desk configuration walkthroughs

Unified Service Desk
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