Walkthrough 5: Display enhanced session information

In the previous walkthrough, Walkthrough 4: Display a Unified Interface apps record in a session in your agent application, you learned how to display your customer record stored in a session in Unified Service Desk. However, the experience would be better if you can identify each session with a unique name along with some key overview information about the record in a session.

This walkthrough demonstrates how to dynamically display session name and session overview information to enhance the customer-interaction experience for your agents. This walkthrough is built on top of the previous walkthrough, Walkthrough 4: Display a Unified Interface apps record in a session in your agent application.

Prerequisites

• You must have completed Walkthrough 1: Build a simple agent application for Unified Interface Apps and Walkthrough 4: Display a Unified Interface apps record in a session in your agent application. The configurations that you completed in those walkthroughs are required in this walkthrough.

• This walkthrough assumes that you’ll 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 for Unified Interface Apps

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

  • Session Lines and Session Tabs type of hosted control. More information: Session Lines (Hosted Control) and Session Tabs (Hosted Control)

  • Configure session name and session overview information. More information: Configure session information

  • Filter access using Unified Service Desk configuration. More information: Manage access using Unified Service Desk configuration

In This Walkthrough

Step 1: Create a Session Lines type of hosted control to display session overview information

Step 2: Define session name information

Step 3: Define session overview information

Step 4: Add the controls to the configuration

Step 5: Test the application

Conclusion

Step 1: Create a Session Lines type of hosted control to display session overview information

To display session overview information in your agent application, create an instance of a Session Lines type of hosted control in your agent application.

1. Sign in to Unified Service Desk Administrator.

2. Select Hosted Controls under Basic Settings.

3. Select + New.

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

   Field	Value
   Name	Contoso Session Overview
   USD Component Type	Session Lines
   Display Group	SessionExplorerPanel

5. Select Save.

Step 2: Define session name information

To dynamically display the session tab name, you’ll configure a session lines rule using the replacement parameters.

1. Sign in to Unified Service Desk Administrator.

2. Select Session Lines under Basic Settings.

3. Select + New.

4. On the New Session Information page, specify the following values:

   Field	Value
   Order	Any random value; say 5
   Name	Contoso Session Name
   Selected Entity	account
   Type	Session Name
   Display	Session: [[account.name]] We are using the replacement parameters to define the session tab name format. In this case the session name will be Session: followed by the name of the account record that is displayed in the session.

5. Select Save.

Step 3: Define session overview information

Define the session overview information to display in the Session Lines type of hosted control that you configured in step 1.

1. Sign in to the Unified Service Desk Administrator.

2. Select Session Lines under Basic Settings.

3. Select + New.

4. On the New Session Information page, specify the following values.

   • Order: Any random value; say 6.

   • Name: Contoso Session Overview Info

   • Selected Entity: account

   • Type: Session Overview

   • Display:

     <Grid Margin="0"      xmlns:x="https://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"      xmlns:CCA="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Crm.UnifiedServiceDesk.Dynamics;assembly=Microsoft.Crm.UnifiedServiceDesk.Dynamics">  
       <Grid.RowDefinitions>  
         <RowDefinition Height="auto" />  
         <RowDefinition Height="auto" />  
         <RowDefinition Height="auto" />  
         <RowDefinition Height="auto" />  
         <RowDefinition Height="auto" />  
         <RowDefinition Height="auto" />  
       </Grid.RowDefinitions>  
       <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>  
         <ColumnDefinition Width="80"/>  
         <ColumnDefinition Width="*" />  
         <ColumnDefinition Width="auto" />  
       </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>  
       <TextBlock Margin="5,0,0,0" Grid.Row="0" TextWrapping="Wrap" Padding="3,0,0,3" Grid.ColumnSpan="3" FontFamily="Tohoma" FontSize="14" Style="{DynamicResource AutoCollapse}" Text="Primary Contact: [[account.primarycontactid.name]x]" />  
       <TextBlock Margin="5,0,0,0" Grid.Row="1" TextWrapping="Wrap" Padding="3,0,0,3" Grid.ColumnSpan="3" FontFamily="Tohoma" FontSize="14" Text="[[account.address1_line1]x]"/>  
       <TextBlock Margin="5,0,0,0" Grid.Row="2" TextWrapping="Wrap" Padding="3,0,0,3" Grid.ColumnSpan="3" FontFamily="Tohoma" FontSize="14" Style="{DynamicResource AutoCollapse}" Text="[[account.address1_line2]+x]" />  
       <TextBlock Margin="5,0,0,0" Grid.Row="3" TextWrapping="Wrap" Padding="3,0,0,3" Grid.ColumnSpan="3" FontFamily="Tohoma" FontSize="14" Style="{DynamicResource AutoCollapse}" Text="[[account.address1_line3]+x]" />  
       <TextBlock Margin="5,0,0,0" Grid.Row="4" TextWrapping="Wrap" Padding="3,0,0,3" Grid.ColumnSpan="3" FontFamily="Tohoma" FontSize="14" Style="{DynamicResource AutoCollapse}" Text="[[account.address1_city]x], [[account.address1_stateorprovince]x] [[account.address1_postalcode]x]" />  
       <TextBlock Margin="5,0,0,0" Grid.Row="5" TextWrapping="Wrap" Padding="3,0,0,3" Grid.ColumnSpan="3" FontFamily="Tohoma" FontSize="14" Style="{DynamicResource AutoCollapse}" Text="Phone: [[account.telephone1]x]" />  
     </Grid>  
     

     Note

     This sample uses XAML and replacement parameters to define the session overview information that displays the current account’s primary contact, address, and phone number in the session overview area.

5. Select Save.

Step 4: Add the controls to the configuration

In this step, you’ll add the hosted control and session line rules that were configured 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 for Unified Interface Apps.

Add the following to Contoso Configuration.

Control name	Control type
Contoso Session Overview	Hosted Control
Contoso Session Name	Session Line
Contoso Session Overview Info	Session Line

To add a control to the configuration:

1. Sign in to Unified Service Desk Administrator.

2. Select Configuration under Advanced Settings.

3. Select Contoso Configuration to open the definition.

4. Select the Hosted Controls, Events and Action Calls tab.

5. Select the ellipsis (...) in the Hosted Controls section, and then select Add Existing Hosted Control. The Lookup Records pane is displayed.

6. Type the name of the action call mentioned in the above table in the search box. The action calls are displayed in the search results. Select the record from the list, and then select Add.

7. Select the Session Lines, Agent Scripts and Scriptlets tab.

8. Select the ellipsis (...) in the Session Lines section, and then select Add Existing Session Line. The Lookup Records pane is displayed.

9. Type the name of the Session Line mentioned in the above table in the search box. The session line is displayed in the search results. Select the record from the list, and then select Add.

10. Select Save.

Step 5: Test the application

1. Start the Unified Service Desk client application, and sign in to the Dynamics 365 instance where you configured Unified Service Desk by using the same user credentials that is assigned to Contoso Configuration in Walkthrough 1: Build a simple agent application for Unified Interface Apps. For information about connecting to Dataverse instance using the Unified Service Desk client application, see Connect to a model-driven app instance using the Unified Service Desk client

2. Click the down arrow next to the Search button in the toolbar, and then click Account to display the account records from your model-driven app.

3. Click the expander to display the left pane (SessionExplorerPanel).

   

4. Click any of the account records to display the respective account information in a session in the agent application. Note that the name of the session tab automatically displays the word Session: followed by the current account name. The left pane displays the session overview information that was defined earlier.

   

5. If you open another account record, it will be displayed in another session in your client application. To open another account, click the down arrow next to the Search button, click Account, and then click an account name to display the account information in another session.

   

Conclusion

In this walkthrough, you saw how to use the session lines configuration rules to contextually display the session tab name and key overview information about the record in a session in your agent application. You also learned how to filter access to Unified Service Desk controls using configuration.

See also

Support for Unified Interface Apps in Unified Service Desk

Unified Interface Page (Hosted Control)

Unified Service Desk and Unified Interface Configuration Walkthroughs

Walkthrough 1: Build a simple agent application for Unified Interface Apps

Walkthrough 2: Display an external webpage in your agent application

Walkthrough 3: Display Unified Interface apps records in your agent application

Walkthrough 4: Display a Unified Interface apps record in a session in your agent application

Walkthrough 6: Configure the Debugger hosted control in your agent application

Walkthrough 7: Configure agent scripting in your agent application