Broadcast Announcements of Dynamics 365 in Unified Service Desk

Hello Friends! In my previous two blog posts (Working on Announcements in Dynamics 365 & Announcements using PowerApps) I walked you through about working on announcements using web-resource or by creating PowerApps control in Dynamics 365.

Today we'll see broadcasting announcements in Unified Service Desk. Before getting started I assume you have basic knowledge of what is USD, what are hosted controls, action calls, events, toolbar, etc. in USD.

Let's get started..
Step 1: Create a hosted control to show announcements in Unified Service Desk.

• Component Type : Standard Web Application
• Hosting Type : Chrome Process
• Application is Global : Yes
• Display Group : RightPanel

Step 2: Create Actions to navigate to Announcements.

As I have created two controls for announcements one is using html web-resource and another using PowerApps, here I'll create two actions either to navigate to web-resource or to PowerApps.

Actions which I am going to create will be associated with hosted control for announcements which I've created in Step 1. Navigate action for web-resource contains the url of html web-resource which I've created in this post.

 Navigate action for PowerApps control contains the url of canvas app which I've created in this post.

Step 3: Trigger the navigate action for PowerApps as a default control when USD desktop loads.

To display the announcements when USD loads we need to add the action to the DesktopReady event of CRM Global Manager.

We are ready to go and test our changes in USD, but I have created 2 different actions for 2 different controls (web-resource and PowerApps) so I'll add navigation buttons on About Toolbar of USD to navigate to any of the control.

Steps:

• Create Announcements Toolbar button
• Add Announcement Toolbar Button on About Toolbar.
• Add actions for navigation and expanding Right Panel on USD.

• Create two toolbar buttons
• Create PowerApps Control Toolbar button and add actions for navigation & expanding Right Panel to it.
• Create Web Control Toolbar button and add actions for navigation & expanding Right Panel to it.
• Associate this toolbar buttons to Announcements Toolbar button.

Finally, it's time to test our changes in USD. Let's see how to renders on Unified Service Desk.

Hope you understand the steps, feel free to connect me if you need any help.

Happy Learning..!

Announcement entity in Dynamics 365 on PowerApps

Hello Friends!! In my previous Blog post I walked you through about working on Announcement entity in Dynamics CRM.
In this post we'll learn about creating PowerApps application to showcase Organizational Announcement on user's mobile, tablet, etc. or even host the application in unified service desk so that all users get to know the latest news or information of an organization.

Let's get started..

Creating PowerApps for Announcement

• Navigate to PowerApps online IDE.
• Go to Data > Connections > Create New Connection (Dynamics 365)

• Now, go to Create > Start from data (other data sources).

• Next, select Dynamics 365 connection which we have created above, then select the dataset (your organization) and finally select the table (entity) i.e. Announcements and click on Connect.

• As we need Announcements App only for displaying the news or information of an organization and restrict users to edit the details, we'll delete the edit screen as it will be no longer required. 

• Once we delete the edit screen, the control (+) available on main screen start showing errors which we then need to resolve. Remove the below highlighted button control and command associated with it.

• After removing the control (+) from the browse screen the header label of the screen shows error message which we need to resolve from all the respective commands. Similarly we need to remove other two controls (Refresh & Sorting icons) and resolve the commands accordingly.

• Similarly we need to remove controls (Delete & Edit icons) from detail screen and remove the reference of icons from all the respective commands.

 

After resolving all the errors (use App Checker icon available at right upper corner of the IDE to check all the errors and warnings if any) and completing UI changes it's time to publish and test the app.

• To publish the app, Save the app and then click on Publish.

• To test the app on your mobile or tablet, please download Power Apps application from 'Play Store' or 'App Store' and connect to your Dynamics 365 online environment and then you can see the published app.

Here we learn how to create simple PowerApps application and use it on our mobile device.

In next blog we'll learn to host this PowerApps application in Unified Service Desk so that the organization can broadcast their important information quickly at contact centers.

Happy Learning..!

Working on Announcement Entity in Dynamics 365

Sometimes customer occasionally ask for the capability of Dynamics CRM to broadcast important news or information of an organization to a wide set of users at one go so that all users get to know latest announcements without fail.

Using Announcements in Microsoft Dynamics 365 you can circulate important information quickly to a wide set of users at one go. Announcements can also server as message boards, where you can post topics of your interest that you wish to share or get answers to.

Let's get started on how to create Announcements in Dynamics CRM.

• Make sure that you have the System Administrator or System Customizer security role or equivalent permissions.
• Go to Settings > System.
• Choose Administration > Announcements.
• On the command bar choose New.
• Fill in the information, as required.
• Title - Type a title for the announcement that clearly and unambiguously states the purpose and nature of the announcement.
• Body - Type the text for the announcement that you want to broadcast.
• More Information URL - Type the address of the website that provides detailed information about the announcement. (Optional)
• Expiration Date - Type the date on which you want to stop the broadcast and the announcement should expire.
• Save or Save and Close to begin the broadcast.

Now, we need to broadcast the newly created announcement to other users in our organization by using HTML web-resource and dashboard or by creating PowerApps hosted in Unified Service Desk.

HTML web-resource in Dashboard

• Go to Settings > Customizations > Customize the System.
• Under Components, choose Web Resources > New.
• Create new HTML web-resource.

• In a text editor, type following code snippets.

<html>
  <head>
 <meta charset="utf-8">
  <title>Announcements</title>
  <script src="ClientGlobalContext.js.aspx"></script>
  <script type="text/javascript">
       function LoadPage(){
     window.location.href = "/home/homepage/home_news.aspx?pagemode=iframe";
    }
  </script>
 <meta>
  </head>
  <body style="margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;" onload="LoadPage()">
  </body>
</html>

• Save and Publish the changes.
• Add this new web-resource to any existing or new Dashboard.

As per my own experience, Yammer is the far better alternative in Dynamics CRM in place of Announcements.

In this blog post you will find how to create Announcements viewer using PowerApps.

Note: Announcements (Settings > Administration > Announcements) are deprecated and will be removed in a future major release (More Info: link)