Use window navigation rules in Unified Service Desk

Window navigation rules define the interaction between various controls in Unified Service Desk. You can use the rules to define the location of the sessions or the Microsoft Dynamics CRM pages to appear in the Unified Service Desk client application when invoked from a hosted control or an entity search. For more information about hosted controls and entity searches in Unified Service Desk, see Unified Service Desk Hosted Controls and Search data using entity searches in Unified Service Desk.

Window navigation rules in Unified Service Desk are executed in the numerical order and as per the conditions specified. The order is particularly important when more than one rule applies to the conditions under which the control might appear. For example, it is possible to create default handlers that will match when no other rules apply. Such default handlers must come after the more specific handlers, otherwise, the specific handlers will never get used.

In This Topic

Create or edit a window navigation rule

View sample window navigation rules

Create or edit a window navigation rule

To create or edit window navigation rules:

  1. Sign in to your Microsoft Dynamics CRM sever.

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

  3. Click Windows Navigation Rules. The page displays all the existing navigation rules in the system.

    Windows navigation rules

  4. On the window navigation rules page:

    1. To create a new navigation rule, click or tap NEW on the command bar.

    2. To edit an existing navigation rule, either click on the navigation rule name or select the navigation rule record in the list, and then click EDIT on the command bar.

  5. On the navigation rule definition page, specify or modify the following values if you are creating a new navigation rule or editing an existing navigation rule respectively. Fields marked with red asterisk are mandatory.

    New window navigation rule

    Field Description

    Name

    This is the name of the window navigation rule.

    Order

    This is the numerical order of the rule that controls the order of execution. The smaller value here matches first. More specific rules should have a smaller value while more general or default rules should have larger values.

    From

    Select the hosted control from where the navigation or routing request originates.

    Note

    If you select a CTI Desktop Manager type of hosted control in the From list, the interface on this page changes to let you define a CTI search. For more information about configuring a CTI search using window navigation rule, see CTI search.

    From Search

    Select the entity search name that initiates the OnLoad routing type rule (later) to display data from the related entities. When you want to access data that is not displayed on the form, you can use entity searches. When an entity search completes and returns data, the OnLoad routing type rule are executed to allow you to load related entities. For more information about entity searches, see Search data using entity searches in Unified Service Desk.

    Entity

    Select the name of the CRM entity for which the information will be displayed by the window navigation rule.

    Url

    This field is typically used for windows that do not represent CRM entities or are standard web URLs. This field is used instead of the Entity field, but can be used with the Entity field in certain circumstances. An asterisk (*) in this field is used to create a default rule that applies to any pop-up windows originating from the From field.

    Route Type

    • Popup: Used to determine how to handle a pop-up window.

    • OnLoad: Used to determine how to handle an entity search, CRM page, or external Web page after it is loaded.

    • In Place: Used to determine how to handle an in-place transition or loading of CRM form. For example, when you click on the contact name in an account page in CRM, the contact information is loaded in the same frame where the account information was displayed.

    • Menu Chosen: Used to determine how to handle the selection of a menu item, when the user clicks the down arrow next to a record name in the nav bar, and selects an item from the menu list. For example, when you click the drop-down arrow next to an account name on the nav bar of the account page in CRM to select an item such as Contacts, Opportunities, and Cases.

    Action

    • Create Session: Only applies to a Popup route type. This action will load a session based upon the entity contained in the popup. For example, if the From is set to Queues, Entity is set to incident, Route Type is set to Popup, and Action is set to Create Session, double clicking an incident in the queue will create a session and load the popup in a tab identified in the Target Tab field.

    • Route Window: Direct the window to another tab within the same session. This is the most basic form of routing of windows.

    • Show Outside: When this rule matches, the pop-up window will appear outside the client application. This new window will not be under the control of Unified Service Desk any longer and will not participate in the Unified Service Desk session management. This is useful for displaying a window on a second monitor or for comparing a window against another tab or a window in another Unified Service Desk session.

    • None: No action is performed.

    Destination

    • Tab: The item selected in the route type should target a tab. It enables the Target Tab and Show Tab fields.

    • Entity Search: The item selected in the route type should target an entity search to look up the data using a web service call to CRM. This populates the Unified Service Desk data so it can be used in replacement parameters.

    Target Tab

    When this rule matches, this is where the window will be directed. If the target tab (hosted control) is a dynamic control, it will automatically be loaded and the window will be directed to it. If this field is set to the Global Manager and the Action is Create Session, the system will re-evaluate the rules to determine the actual location of the window in the tabs. This is useful to avoid creating a Create Session rule for every route type that might pop up from a particular window. If you leave the Target Tab field empty, an entity search is performed using first entity search matching the type of entity from the popup.

    Show Tab

    After the action is taken, this field will be used to activate a specific tab.

    Entity Search

    This is the entity search (FetchXML-based web service definition) that will be used to look up the data. This will populate the data fields in the session with the fields collected by the call. For more information about entity searches, see Search data using entity searches in Unified Service Desk.

    Hide Command Bar

    This causes Unified Service Desk to hide the CRM command bar after the window is displayed in the new tab.

    Hide Navigation Bar

    This causes Unified Service Desk to hide the CRM navigation bar on the left of the window, when the window is displayed in a new tab.

  6. Click Save to create or modify the window navigation rule.

To see how window navigation rules are used for configuring and agent application, see Walkthrough 4: Display a Microsoft Dynamics CRM record in a session in your agent application, Walkthrough 7: Configure agent scripting in your agent application, and Walkthrough: Use the generic listener adapter for CTI event routing.

View sample window navigation rules

You can view the definition of the existing window navigation rules in Unified Service Desk to understand how to manage navigation within the agent application. To view a navigation rule definition:

  1. Sign in to your Microsoft Dynamics CRM sever.

  2. On the nav bar, click or tap Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and then select Settings.

  3. On the nav bar, click or tap Settings > Unified Service Desk > Window Navigation Rules. The page displays all the existing navigation rules in the system.

  4. On the navigation rules page, either click the navigation rule name or select the navigation rule record in the list, and then click EDIT on the command bar.

    This displays the window navigation rule definition.

See Also

Tasks

Walkthrough 4: Display a Microsoft Dynamics CRM record in a session in your agent application
Walkthrough 7: Configure agent scripting in your agent application
Walkthrough: Use the generic listener adapter for CTI event routing

Other Resources

Learn to use Unified Service Desk

Unified Service Desk
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