Global Manager (Hosted Control)

The Global Manager hosted control type is the core of Unified Service Desk, and an instance of this hosted control is required by Unified Service Desk. This hosted control loads and reads all the Unified Service Desk configuration data from Microsoft Dataverse at application startup, interprets the window navigation rules, provides data to the toolbar components and agent scripts, and manages the data for the session. Only a single instance of the Global Manager hosted control type can be loaded.

Important

The three sample application packages for Unified Service Desk, New Environment, CRM Web Client, and Interactive Service Hub, come preconfigured with an instance each of the Global Manager hosted control type. For information about the sample applications, see Deploy sample Unified Service Desk applications to CRM server using Package Deployer.

In addition to providing interpretation for most of the functions in Unified Service Desk, the Global Manager hosted control type also provides the multi-language features in the system so that you can localize UI strings and messages in your application in multiple languages. For more information, see Add multilanguage support for your agent applications. It also provides the search provider, which is designed to be generic and adaptable through configuration.

Create a Global Manager hosted control

While creating a new hosted control, the fields in the New Hosted Control screen vary based on the type of hosted control you want to create. This section provides information about the specific fields that are unique to the Global Manager hosted control type. For detailed information about creating a hosted control, see Create or edit a hosted control.

Global Manager hosted control.

In the New Hosted Control screen, under the Unified Service Desk area, select Global Manager from the Unified Service Desk Component Type drop-down list. Also, ensure that you set the Sort Order value of this hosted control to 2 to ensure it is loaded by your agent application immediately after the connection has been established to Dataverse using the Connection Manager hosted control. For information about other General fields, see Create or edit a hosted control.

Next, select the Language Services tab to add resources for adding localized strings for your agent application’s UI. For information about how to add language resources, see Add multilanguage support for your agent applications.

Predefined UII actions

Global Manager provides a series of predefined actions that allow you to manipulate Dataverse record data through the web services. The predefined actions can be used during configuration to perform advanced functions in Dataverse.

The following predefined UII actions are available for the Global Manager hosted control type:

Audit

Add an audit entry to the Unified Service Desk audit logs. For more information, see Configure auditing in Unified Service Desk

Parameter Description
Name The audit entry name. You must add an option under the Options area (Settings > Unified Service Desk > Options (How do I get there?)) with the value set to 1.
Action String representing the action that is being audited.
TargetApplication String representing the target application for the audit.
CustomerId String representing the customer ID.
ContextId String representing the context ID.
ApplicationId GUID of the hosted control for the auditing.
AgentState String representing the agent state
ActionData Data to write out to the audit entry. If this parameter isn’t explicitly provided, it will use all the remainder lines in the Data field of the action call definition.

CallDoAction

Calls an action on another hosted control.

Parameter Description
panel Panel to find the active application, if no application is specified.
action Action to call on the hosted control.
data Data parameter to pass to the action.
application Hosted control name for which you want to execute an action call. If the hosted control name is specified, the panel parameter is ignored.

ClearAppBar

Undocks the specified hosted control in the client application.

Parameter Description
ApplicationName Name of the hosted control to undocked. If this parameter is not supplied, the client application main window is undocked.

ClearEntityList

Clears the list of accumulated search results, and should always be called before calling the DoSearch action

Parameter Description
global True if you want the search results tied to the global session to be cleared. You must be careful while storing search results in the global session as the search results are not automatically cleared by the system. In this case, you must call the ClearEntityList action before calling the DoSearch action.

Close

Closes the hosted control. Unlike the CloseActive action, if this tab is displaying more than one page, it will close all the pages displayed in the tab in your agent application.

CloseActive

Closes the active hosted control on the specified panel.

Parameter Description
The first line in the action call should contain the name of the panel to locate the active application. If no parameter is specified, MainPanel is assumed.

CopyToClipboard

Copies or appends the article URL to Clipboard.

Parameter Description
data Data that you want to be copied. You can also use replacement parameters. For example: data=[[$context.title]]
append Indicates whether or not to append the data to the Clipboard. Set true or false. For example: append=false.

CopyToContext

Copies a value or series of values to context variables. Context variables can be serialized with the session. This action takes a series of name=value pairs. The name is the name of the context variable.

CopyLogicalEntityToContext

Copies values from an entire section of the data parameters to the context.

Parameter Description
LogicalName The type or section of data parameters to copy values from.

CloseActivity

Closes an activity record in the model-driven apps.

Parameter Description
Id The GUID of the activity record to close.
LogicalName The logical name of the activity to close.
StatusCode The display name of the final status code after the activity is closed.
StateCode The display name of the final state code after the activity is closed.

For example, to close a phone call activity, you must specify the following parameter and values:

Id=<GUID of the phone activity record>

LogicalName=phonecall

statuscode=Received

statecode=Completed

After the activity record is closed, the $Return system replacement parameter will be populated with a Boolean value indicating whether the action was successful.

CreateEntity

Creates a new record in the model-driven apps.

Parameter Description
LogicalName The logical name of the entity to create the record.
RunAsync Set the parameter to True to create the entity record asynchronously so that Unified Service Desk is not blocked and remains responsive during the action execution.

Note: The associated sub-action calls and subsequent action calls for the CreateEntity action do not wait for the asynchronous create operation to complete. So, you must ensure that if you are running the CreateEntity action asynchronously, the sub-action calls that depend on the created record are configured to execute only when the target record is complete. This can be achieved using the ExecuteOnDataAvailable action on the Global Manager hosted control.

Each subsequent line in the parameter list contains a series of Name=Value pairs that will define your other fields to populate on create.

Entity References can be described like the following:

Param=EntityReference(“logicalname”, “id”)

OptionSetValues can be specified like the following:

Param=OptionSetValue(value)

Booleans can be described like the following:

Param=Boolean(value)

PartyList (used with email) can be described like the following:

Param=PartyList(email[“test@test.com”], er[“contact”, guid])

You can use any number of email and er entries to represent email addresses and entity references respectively.

Other values such as string values can be specified like the following:

Param=value

Once the record is created, the $Return value will be populated with the GUID of the newly created record.

CreateSession

Creates a session.

Parameter Description
BackGround Set the value of the parameter to True.
A session is created but the focus is not changed to the new session right away. All the sub actions on this action call are then executed only when you manually switch to this session.
SessionName Name of the session tab for the newly created session. This parameter is dependent on the BackGround parameter.

DeleteEntity

Deletes a record in the model-driven apps.

Parameter Description
Id The ID (GUID) of the record to delete.
LogicalName The logical name of the entity to delete.

DoRoute

Can be used to test your window navigation rules by simulating a popup window from a specific hosted control. It may be used in production to trigger the window navigation rules manually as per the requirement.

Parameter Description
name The ID of the entity that is the target of the queueItem
entity The Logical Name of the entity that is opened in a pop-up window.
id The ID of the entity that will be opened in a pop-up window.
frame The frame from which the popup is said to occur.

DoSearch

Calls Dataverse web services using the FetchXML defined as an entity search in Unified Service Desk For more information about defining an entity search, see Search data using entity searches in Unified Service Desk.

Parameter Description
name The name of the entity search to be used for searching the record.
global True if you want the search results tied to the global session to be cleared. You must be careful while storing search results in the global session as the search results are not automatically cleared by the system. In this case, you must call the ClearEntityList action before calling this action.
maxcount The maximum number of records to store in the EntityList results from this call.

Note

By default, the page count (number of records per page) for a result set is set to 50. This implies that if there are more than 50 records returned, it will be displayed in pages. If you want to specify a different page count value for the DoSearch action, specify the new value in the EntitySearchPageCount option. More information: Manage Options for Unified Service Desk

When you call the DoSearch action, the $Return replacement parameter displays the number of records found and stored in EntityList as a result of this search. More information: $Return.

DisplayMessage

Displays a message box to the user.

Parameter Description
text Text displayed in the message box. If this parameter is not specified, any remaining text (remainder parameter) or empty string will be used.
caption Caption displayed in the message box. If no caption is specified, Dataverse Message will be used.

ExecuteOnDataAvailable

Delays the execution of the sub-actions until a specified set of replacement parameters becomes available. A time-out value may be specified to limit the amount of time to wait for the replacement parameters to become available. If no time-out is specified, it will wait indefinitely or until the session ends. More information: Blog: How to use the special actions, ExecuteOnTimeout, ExecuteOnDataAvailable, ExecuteOnExpressionTrue

Parameter Description
milliseconds The time, in milliseconds, to indicate the amount of time to wait before this action expires, and is canceled. The remaining parameters should contain replacement parameters that need to exist before sub-actions can execute.

Data Parameter Example:

milliseconds=5000
[[account.Id]]
[[incident.Id]]

Important

This action applies to all the hosted control types. This action isn’t exposed by default when you create an instance of a hosted control type. To use the ExecuteOnDataAvailable action with an instance of a hosted control type, you must explicitly add a UII action called ExecuteOnDataAvailable to the respective hosted control instance. More information: Add a UII action to a hosted control

ExecuteOnTimeout

Delays the execution of the sub-actions until a specified time elapses. A time-out value is required to indicate when the sub-actions should be run. More information: Blog: How to use the special actions, ExecuteOnTimeout, ExecuteOnDataAvailable, ExecuteOnExpressionTrue

Parameter Description
milliseconds The time, in milliseconds, to indicate the amount of time to wait before the sub-actions execute.

Data Parameter Example:

milliseconds=5000

Important

This action applies to all the hosted control types. This action isn’t exposed by default when you create an instance of a hosted control type. To use the ExecuteOnTimeout action with an instance of a hosted control type, you must explicitly add a UII action called ExecuteOnTimeout to the respective hosted control instance. More information: Add a UII action to a hosted control

ExecuteOnExpressionTrue

Delays the execution of the sub-actions until a specified JavaScript expression returns true. A time-out value may be specified to limit the amount of time to wait before expiring. If no time-out is specified, it will wait indefinitely or until the session ends. More information: Blog: How to use the special actions, ExecuteOnTimeout, ExecuteOnDataAvailable, ExecuteOnExpressionTrue

Parameter Description
milliseconds The time, in milliseconds, to indicate the amount of time to wait before this action expires and is canceled. The remaining parameter is a JavaScript expression to evaluate. When this expression is true, sub-actions will execute.

Data Parameter Example:

milliseconds=5000
function IsAccountLoaded()
{
return “[[account.Id]$+]” != “”;
}
IsAccountLoaded();

Important

This action applies to all the hosted control types. This action isn’t exposed by default when you create an instance of a hosted control type. To use the ExecuteOnExpressionTrue action with an instance of a hosted control type, you must explicitly add a UII action called ExecuteOnExpressionTrue to the respective hosted control instance. More information: Add a UII action to a hosted control

ExecuteScriptlet

Executes the specified scriptlet.

Parameter Description
Specify the name of the scriptlet to execute in the Data field.

FireEvent

Fires a user-defined event from this hosted control.

Parameter Description
name Name of the user-defined event.

All subsequent name=value pairs become the parameters to the event. For more information about creating a user-defined event, see Create a user-defined event.

GetTemplate

Retrieves the contents of a merged email template.

Parameter Description
name Name of the template to retrieve.
id The ID of the entity to associate with this template for the merge operation.

InvokeCTI

Simulates CTI events

Parameter Description
type This is the type of CTI event, such as phone call or chat.
appname The desktop manager name to be used for this pop-up simulation.
ani The automatic number identification (ANI) or callers phone number.
dnis The DNIS or dialed number.
All remaining parameters will be passed as parameters to the CTI event processor.

LaunchURL

Launches a URL in Internet Explorer outside of the Unified Service Desk application. You must specify the URL as a parameter in the Data field.

LookupQueueItem

Looks up a queueitem in the system and obtain the information.

Parameter Description
Id The ID of the entity that is the target of the queueItem
EntityType The type or logical name of the entity referred to in the Id field.

The resulting queueitem details will be placed into the queueitem replacement parameter and may be referenced later.

MoveApplicationToPanel

Moves a hosted control to the specified panel in the client application.

Parameter Description
app Name of the hosted control to move.
panel Name of the target panel.

MoveToPanel

Moves hosted controls between panels at runtime.

Parameter Description
app Name of the hosted control to be moved.
panel Target panel for the hosted control.

New_CRM_Page

Creates a page for creating a new record of the entity specified, and treats the page as a popup from the specified hosted control. The window navigation rules are evaluated to determine the location where the page to create the entity record is displayed.

Parameter Description
LogicalName The logical name of the entity for creating a new instance.

Note

The rest of the parameters should consist of name=value pairs. These are the additional pre-populated values in the form for creating a new record for the specified entity. For more information about using this action, see step 4 in Walkthrough 7: Configure agent scripting in your agent application.

Open_CRM_Page

Opens an existing instance of the entity specified and identified by the ID, and treats the page as a popup from the specified hosted control. The window navigation rules are evaluated to determine the location where the popup should be displayed.

Parameter Description
LogicalName The logical name of the entity to open.
id The ID of the entity record to open.

Pause

Pauses execution of the action without blocking message processing. This action is different from suspending the current thread for the specified amount of time (Thread.Sleep) because the action allows the processing to continue. This action is useful when you are waiting for web operations to complete.

Parameter Description
milliseconds The number of milliseconds to pause.

Pops up a URL from the hosted control and runs the window navigation rules against it for routing the popup to the appropriate location.

Parameter Description
url Routes a popup from this hosted control using this URL as if it were a popup requested from the displayed control.
frame The frame from which this popup originated.

RealignWindow

Displays the hosted control at the specified location on a monitor. You can display hosted control on up to two monitors. This action is applicable for hosted control instances that are configured to be placed on a USDFloatingPanel or USDFloatingToolPanel panel type.

Parameter Description
screen Specifies the screen on which to display the hosted control. Valid values are 1 or 2. If you don’t specify this parameter, 1 is passed by default.
left Specifies the position, in percentage, from the left of the screen on the target monitor where the hosted control should be displayed. Valid values are 0 through 100. If you don’t specify this parameter, 0 is passed by default.
top Specifies the position, in percentage, from the top of the screen on the target monitor where the hosted control should be displayed. Valid values are 0 through 100. If you don’t specify this parameter, 0 is passed by default.
width Specifies the width, in percentage, of the hosted control window on the target monitor. Valid values are 1 through 100. If you don’t specify this parameter, 100 is passed by default.
height Specifies the height, in percentage, of the hosted control window on the target monitor. Valid values are 1 through 100. If you don’t specify this parameter, 100 is passed by default.

ReadSettings

Reads the previously saved settings from the $Settings replacement parameter.

Parameter Description
readfromcache True if you want to read the local cached version of these settings. False or missing otherwise.

RedoScreenPop

Pops the last screen again. This can be useful in cases where the session limit was reached and the pop-up wasn’t successful, or you closed the session but more work is required. This action requires no parameters.

ResetLocalCache

Resets the configuration cache in Unified Service Desk. The next time Unified Service Desk is started, it will download the configuration from the server. The user must have write access to the msdyusd_usersettings entity for this action to work.

RouteToQueue

Routes an entity to a queue in the model-driven apps.

Parameter Description
destination The target queue ID. This is mutually exclusive with the destinationqueuename parameter
destinationqueuename This is the name of the queue to route the entity.
entitytype This is the logical name of the entity to be routed
entityid This is the GUID/Id of the entity to be placed into queue.

SaveAll

Saves all forms in hosted control that allows multiple pages to be displayed (Allow Multiple Pages = Yes). If the hosted control allows only a single page to be displayed (Allow Multiple Pages = No), this is equivalent to the Save action.

SaveSetting

Stores a user-specific setting.

Parameter Description
name The name of the setting. This will show up in the$Settings replacement parameter.
value The value of the setting to save.

SetTheme

Applies a theme to modify the layout or look and feel of components of the user interface. More information: Use themes to customize the appearance of your application

Parameter Description
clear True if you want to completely clear the current theme before applying the specified theme. If this parameter is false, or not specified, the new theme information will be merged with the current theme.
The remainder parameter (what is left after the other parameters are removed), should contain the name of theme to use. This should be a XAML file (renamed to XML and uploaded as a web resource) web resource name, a URL from an anonymous access server, or the raw XAML representing theme.

SetAppBar

Docks a hosted control to the specified edge of the client application main window.

Parameter Description
ApplicationName The name of the hosted control to dock. If this parameter is specified, the parent window hosting this hosted control will be docked.
width The width in pixels of the docked window. If this is not specified, the current width of the window is used.
height The height in pixels of the docked window. If this is not specified, the current height of the window is used.
Edge The edge to dock against. If nothing is specified, Top is assumed. Specify one of the following values: Top, Bottom, Left, or Right.

SetEventTimer

Sets an event timer to start.

Parameter Description
name Name of the event timer.

SetSize

Sets the width and height of the hosted control. This is particularly useful when using "auto" in your panel layouts.

Parameter Description
width The width of the hosted control.
height The height of the hosted control.

SetWindowProperty

Sets the window state for the client application main window.

Parameter Description
WindowState One of the following values: maximized, minimized, or normal.

ShellExecute

This action is intended to launch a URL or command line. Note that the user must have rights to execute the application.

Parameter Description
The only parameter is the command line or URL of the application to execute.

ShowAbout

Displays the about dialog box for Unified Service Desk that contains information such as the name of the current user, Dataverse server and organization that the user is connected to, version number of the Unified Service Desk client application, and the support site URL.

ShowTab

Sets the focus on a tab (hosted control) in your agent application.

Parameter Description
The first line in the action call should contain the name of the hosted control to display in the foreground. Don’t use the display name of the hosted control. For more information about using this action call, see step 4 of Walkthrough 2: Display an external webpage in your agent application.

StopEventTimer

Stops an event timer.

Parameter Description
name Name of the event timer to stop.

TriggerEdgeWebView2PoolCleanUp

Cleans up the Edge WebView2 pool.

TriggerChromePoolCleanUp

Cleans up the Chrome pool.

Translate

Enables you to perform language translation using Microsoft Translator.

Parameter Description
value This is the text to translate. This value may be escaped for multi-line support.

Some valid examples:

value=$Escaped("my string<br>new line\\\"my text\\\"")

value=[[myapp.myparam]^]

value=$Escaped([[myapp.myparam]$])

For more information about these replacement keys, see Use replacement parameters to configure Unified Service Desk.
fromlanguage Name of the language to translate from. If this is blank, the system will attempt to detect the language of the specified value to be translated before translating. For a list of valid language values, see Translator Language Codes.
tolanguage Name of the language to translate to. For a list of valid language values, see Translator Language Codes.
clientId A client ID obtained from Azure for translation services. For information about registering with Azure.
clientsecret A client secret obtained from Azure for translation services. For information about registering with Azure.

The translated value is displayed under the $Return replacement parameter.

UpdateEntity

Updates a record in the model-driven apps.

Parameter Description
Id The ID of the value to update. This must be the GUID of the record to update.
LogicalName The logical name of the entity to update

Each subsequent line the parameter list contains a series of Name=Value pairs that will define your other fields to populate on update.

Entity References can be described like the following:

Param=EntityReference(“logicalname”, “id”)

OptionSetValue’s can be specified like the following:

Param=OptionSetValue(value)

Boolean’s can be described like the following:

Param=Boolean(value)

PartyList (used with email) can be described like the following:

Param=PartyList(email[“test@test.com”], er[“contact”, guid])

You can use any number of emails and er entries to represent email addresses and entity references respectively.

Other values such as string values can be specified like the following:

Param=value

WorkOn

This action is equivalent to selecting a queue item from a queue and clicking the WorkOn button on the ribbon. It marks the queue item as being worked by a specific agent.

Parameter Description
Id This is the Id of the queueitem. See LookupQueueItem for information on how to obtain the ID for a target entity.
Action Optional parameter allowing the administrator to specify that they wish to remove the WorkOn attribute to return it to the queue.

Valid Values:

Remove – Removes the WorkOn attribute and returns the item to the queue for others to work on.

Predefined events

Here are the predefined events that are associated with this hosted control.

DesktopReady

Occurs on startup when all the desktop initialization has completed and the connections to Dataverse have been established. This event will be fired only once, and it is common to use this event to set themes and do other startup actions.

SessionActivated

Occurs whenever a session is activated.

Parameter Description
SessionId ID of the currently active session.
IsGlobal Indicates whether this event applies to the global session. Returns True or False.
Activate This is set to True.

SessionClosed

Occurs when a session is closed.

Parameter Description
SessionId ID of the session that was closed.
IsGlobal Indicates whether this event applies to the global session. Returns True or False.

SessionDeactivated

Occurs when a session is deactivated.

Parameter Description
SessionId ID of the inactive session.
IsGlobal Indicates whether this event applies to the global session. Returns True or False.
Activate This is set to False.

SessionNew

Occurs when a new session is created.

Parameter Description
SessionId ID of the newly created session.
IsGlobal Returns True if the new session is a global session. Otherwise, returns False.

See also

UII actions Events View predefined actions and events for a hosted control View embedded help for actions and events Unified Service Desk Configuration Walkthroughs Hosted control types and action/event reference