Public preview of Unified Service Desk 4.1

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We are excited to announce Unified Service Desk 4.1 is now available in public preview with rich feature enhancements, improved performance and reliability.

Highlights of preview functionalities:

Unified Service Desk with Chrome process

Use Chrome Process to host web applications in Unified Service Desk client application. The Chrome Process is based on CefSharp, which is an open source framework , which uses the chromium core that powers many modern browsers.

Key Value Propositions

  • Chrome Process is available on different Windows OS versions.
  • Easy configurations to host the applications in Unified Service Desk.
  • Switch easily from one browser to another for your entire organization.
  • Chrome Process pooling feature that reuses the chrome processes and mimics inline navigation provides enhanced performance and memory optimizations

Read more on Use Chrome Process to host web application

Extend unified Service desk with Channel integration framework

Bring your channel providers and integrate them with Unified Service Desk client application using the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Channel Integration Framework.

If your organization wants to use the cloud-based channel widgets that you have developed using the Channel Integration Framework, you can integrate the same channel widget in Unified Service Desk with minimal configuration experience. In turn, this eliminates the need for developing multiple channels widgets for browser based experiences and Unified Service Desk.

Read more on Integrate channel provider using Channel Integration Framework and Channel Integration Framework (Hosted Control)

Cache specific configurations for agents

The Configuration Cache Version option causes the client caching feature to retrieve the configuration that has undergone change from the Customer Engagement server to the agent’s desktop and avoid retrieving all configurations.

Your organization may have several departments and each department has a configuration with agents added to them based on their roles. Whenever you a make a change to one of those configurations, the Configuration Cache Version feature helps to download only the configuration for which you've made a change.

Also, when the agents assigned to other configurations, signs in to the client application, the feature doesn't download the configurations thus improves the startup performance of Unified Service Desk. This is also helpful in better application lifecycle management for Unified Service Desk in cases where organizations want to make changes in their pilot/dev configurations without impacting the production users.

Read more on Cache specific configuration for agents

Single sign on for Unified Service Desk

Single Sign On (SSO) for Unified Service Desk provides a improved startup performance and user experience by authenticating users to access Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement apps without the need for entering the credentials multiple times. The elimination of need of entering the same password again minimizes the possibility of login errors and ensures seamless experience.

Read more on Single Sign On for Unified Service Desk

Call to action

You are encouraged to be part of the Unified Service Desk 4.1 Preview program to test and validate the feature and provide your valuable feedback.

How to access the public preview:

  1. You must be a Dynamics Insider to access the public preview. If you are not, please sign up yourself at the insider portal ( https://experience.dynamics.com/insider )
  2. Once you login to insider portal (https://experience.dynamics.com/insider) and you will see option to join the ‘Unified Service Desk preview’. Please join it.
  3. Once joined, the ‘Unified Service Desk preview’ will appear in your “My Previews” section. Open it to see the details. Navigate to download section and download files to install.
  4. You can report issues in the forum at the insider portal

(This blog has been authored by Karthik Balasubramanian and Deepa Patel with the inputs from Kumar Ashutosh , Sankar Venkataraman and Unified Service Desk feature team)