Lots of General Questions Regarding USD?

(0) Share

Report

Posted on by Community Member

Hi Everyone,

At work, we are going to try to start to start using USD as an IT help desk. Until then, we've got to work out all the kinks and learn more about the product. So, with that being said, my questions are...

Where is the proper place to start a case in USD?

Should the script area show up blank when I'm in the call center ? Please see attached photo.

Under service -> in case --> the notes section of the conversation tab is disabled - how can I enable it?

Also, I went to update USD - to the newest version and at one step during the implementation, I'm prompted with "copy the files or assemblies that define the custom functionality implemented in the CRM 2013 SP1 or CRM 2013 SP1 with Product Updates package. These files are required to upgrade the existing sample controls, and must copy these files to the Unified Service Desk client application installation directory after you complete the solutions and client update". What exactly are the files and which folder can they be found in?

Thanks!

Kimberly

*This post is locked for comments

I have the same question (0)

All responses (15)

Answers (1)

Verified answer

Wayne Walton 13,730 on at

Like (0)

Report

So, a word of warning about USD. And I'm using bold because this is important: The USD functionality MS offers is not production-quality. And it's not intended to be. The customizations MS released with USD are intended to be a demo to help you understand what USD can do. As such, it's very risky to try and use USD with just MS's customizations in a production environment.

Also, the USD is intended for use in a mature call center environment. It can be used other places, but the intent is a call center knows its processes very well, and is looking for a seamless method to integrate their disparate systems into a single screen for the call center worker. If you're not already comfortable with the business process itself, USD isn't a good starting point. That should be some in-depth analysis of the flow of a call and how your call center handles such. If you don't have things like ideal call times, expected call volumes, and all your happy call paths laid out, you might not be ready for USD.

Now to your questions:

"Where is the proper place to start a case in USD?" The best place is wherever your business process needs a case started. I've seen companies pop a case immediately when a phone call starts. I've also seen companies start a Session first, validate the person calling in, and then move to a case when the Session is validated. So it's whenever your call center needs to start entering information about an issue.

"Should the script area show up blank when I'm in the call center ?" Yes. Until you set up your call scripts at the start of a session, call, case or wherever appropriate, that area won't show anything.

"Under service -> in case --> the notes section of the conversation tab is disabled - how can I enable it?" This is the risk of starting with the demo configuration for USD. It has settings like this enabled. I don't have my USD dev environment in front of me to check where that setting is, but I'll try to get that later.

Lastly the installation: USD has a thick client component (as you know) that actually can be customized itself as part of a USD deployment. MS has released a package deployer that will not only push your custom USD code to your CRM server, but will also create a package for the USD client. this package needs to be installed with the USD client to ensure you have complete functionality of USD.

You can read more on my USD installation walkthrough: http://www.waynewalton.com/unified-service-desk-installation/

Or MS's TechNet: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn646924(v=crm.6).aspx and https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn646876(v=crm.6).aspx

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Community Member on at

Like (0)

Report

Wayne,

Thank you so much for sending such detailed and thought out answers. These will definitely help us along the way. It's very appreciated.

On another note: regarding the installation - Since I couldn't find which files the prompt asked for - I didn't add anything in. I've noticed while playing around in USD that I'm getting error messages such as

"The hosted application "Email Generator" couldn't be created. Contact your administrator."

"The action "ShowUserConfirmation" couldn't be fired because the target application "NotesManager" is unavailable or disabled."

and

"The hosted application "NotesManager" couldn't be created. Contact your administrator."

Do you believe this is related to those missing files?

Also, a few more questions:

If I wanted to initiate a new case right form the dashboard (for instance, when I press the "+" to add new case (under active case view) and the call script comes up - How hard would it be for us to get the case form to show up automatically.

Again, thanks so much for your response. It was definitely appreciated!

Kimberly

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Community Member on at

Like (0)

Report

The call script doesn't seem to prompt anywhere to start a case. - Or at least I haven't seen it!

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Wayne Walton 13,730 on at

Like (0)

Report

Yes, those are related to the missing files. And the files don't exist until you go through the server deployment setup I have linked at the bottom of my last post. You will actually tell the deployment app where you want those files stored, and then you can manually copy them to your USD application folder on the client.

For starting a Case, you'll likely want to use the USD Tab Control to add a new button at the top of your default USD session for "Case". The USD SDK has a developer's guide that is very helpful. In it, Walkthrough 3 is for displaying Dynamics CRM records. It will walk through creating a toolbar and adding a button. Those parts will be what you want to read to enable a Case button.

Another note, the USD is almost 100% developer-oriented. Everything about how it's designed is intended to support developers building out a unified desktop. So familiarizing yourself with the SDK, and actually going through all the walkthroughs are key beginning points to really understanding USD.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Community Member on at

Like (0)

Report

Hi Wayne,

So I took your advice and tried to uninstall USD - I took solution pieces off of CRM and I deleted them from my computer - anything I could find USD related.

Anyways, long story short - now I can't get my solution pieces to go back in. There stating something's corrupted in the file or isn't in the right format.

Ideas or thoughts?

Thanks,

Kimberly

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Wayne Walton 13,730 on at

Like (0)

Report

Can you post the exact error, and what you're doing to get the error? I'm not sure I understand exactly what you're saying is wrong.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Community Member on at

Like (0)

Report

Hi Wayne,

Sorry I confused you. Since USD didn't reinstall correctly, I tried to erase everything USD related on my computer - so I could start over with a clean start. Once it was erased - I tried to follow your steps to properly installing USD. When I went to import the User interface, this message occurs.

Since I figured I might have messed up something "important", I did a system restore for yesterday, and received this message.

Every system restore I would try ended up the same. So now I'm at a loss as to what's the next step.

I clearly deleted something that didn't want to leave!

Thanks,

Kimberly

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Wayne Walton 13,730 on at

Like (0)

Report

Kimberly, USD doesn't actually install much in the way of your local system. It's encapsulated to the folder you stick it in, which is nice, because it's portable. That also means that it should not affect other parts of your system, and removing USD from a given computer is as simple as deleting that folder.

However, that's the client side. The CRM side are the solutions on the server. These are completely separate, and only touch the CRM server. That looks to be the solution error you're getting in the top picture. You see the button that says "download log file"? Click that and save the Excel document that you get out of that. If you can stick that on OneDrive or Dropbox and link it here, I can tell you exactly what error you're getting with your solution.

To recap: you don't need to system restore on your machine, just delete the USD folder to remove it. Link me the error log and we can move forward from there. :)

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Community Member on at

Like (0)

Report

Wayne,

I can't thank you enough for all of your help! I thought that it shouldn't matter, but since I couldn't get the file to upload correctly I started second guessing myself. Anyway, here's the link to dropbox... https://www.dropbox.com/s/id09mft2s058q3t/importlog_UiiForMicrosoftDynamicsCRM2011_3_0_1_123.xml?dl=0

Thanks again!
Kimberly

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Wayne Walton 13,730 on at

Like (0)

Report

So the error is "Translated labels for the following languages could not be imported because they have not been enabled for this organization". Which means there's a lot of language stuff going on. Did you install multiple language packs into your Dynamics CRM deployment? Is this solution just the default solution that comes with USD, or did you export and try to reimport?

If there is nothing else of importance in that CRM org, I would start with a fresh CRM org from the Deployment Manager and install USD fresh. I honestly am not sure where you got to where you are, so beginning at the beginning might be best.

Was this reply helpful? Yes No