Use window navigation rules in Unified Service Desk

Article
04/07/2023

Window navigation rules define the interaction between various controls in Unified Service Desk. You can use the rules to define the location of the sessions or the model-driven app pages to appear in the Unified Service Desk client application when invoked from a hosted control or an entity search. For more information about hosted controls and entity searches in Unified Service Desk, see Unified Service Desk Hosted Controls and Search data using entity searches in Unified Service Desk.

Note

Windows navigation rules don't work in the standard web application.

Window navigation rules in Unified Service Desk are run in the numerical order and as per the conditions specified. The order is particularly important when more than one rule applies to the conditions under which the control might appear. For example, it is possible to create default handlers that will match when no other rules apply. Such default handlers must come after the more specific handlers, otherwise, the specific handlers will never get used.

To create or edit window navigation rules

Sign in to Unified Service Desk Administrator.
Select Window Navigation Rules under Basic Settings. The page displays all the existing navigation rules in the system.
Select New to create a new navigation rule, or select an existing navigation rule to edit.

On the navigation rule definition page, specify or modify the following values if you are creating a new navigation rule or editing an existing navigation rule respectively. Fields marked with red asterisk are mandatory.

Field	Description
Name	This is the name of the window navigation rule.
Order	This is the numerical order of the rule that controls the order of execution. The smaller value here matches first. More specific rules should have a smaller value while more general or default rules should have larger values.
From	Select the hosted control from where the navigation or routing request originates. Note: If you select a CTI Desktop Manager type of hosted control in the From list, the interface on this page changes to let you define a CTI search. For more information about configuring a CTI search using window navigation rule, see CTI search.
From Search	Select the entity search name that initiates the OnLoad routing type rule (later) to display data from the related entities. When you want to access data that is not displayed on the form, you can use entity searches. When an entity search completes and returns data, the OnLoad routing type rule are run to allow you to load related entities. For more information about entity searches, see Search data using entity searches in Unified Service Desk.
Entity	Select the name of the apps entity for which the information will be displayed by the window navigation rule.
Url	This field is typically used for windows that do not represent the Microsoft Dataverse entities or are standard web URLs. This field is used instead of the Entity field, but can be used with the Entity field in certain circumstances. An asterisk () in this field is used to create a default rule that applies to any pop-up windows originating from the From* field.

Select the Result tab.

Field	Description
Route Type	- Popup: Used to determine how to handle a pop-up window. - OnLoad: Used to determine how to handle an entity search, the model-driven apps page, or external Web page after it is loaded. - In Place: Used to determine how to handle an in-place transition or loading of the model-driven apps form. For example, when you select on the contact name in an account page in the model-driven app, the contact information is loaded in the same frame where the account information was displayed. - Menu Chosen: Used to determine how to handle the selection of a menu item, when the user selects the down arrow next to a record name in the nav bar, and selects an item from the menu list. For example, when you select the drop-down arrow next to an account name on the nav bar of the account page in the model-driven app to select an item such as Contacts, Opportunities, and Cases.
Field	Indicates a filter on which the window navigation rule must be triggered. The value must be an attribute name from the entity page. Though a window navigation rule can be applied on a page that has multiple lookups, you can use the Field filter to apply the rule for a specific lookup.
Destination	- Tab: The item selected in the route type should target a tab. It enables the Target Tab and Show Tab fields. - Entity Search: The item selected in the route type should target an entity search to look up the data using a web service call to Dataverse. This populates the Unified Service Desk data so it can be used in replacement parameters.
Action	- Create Session: Only applies to a Popup route type. This action will load a session based upon the entity contained in the popup. For example, if the From is set to `Queues`, Entity is set to `incident`, Route Type is set to `Popup`, and Action is set to `Create Session`, double selecting an incident in the queue will create a session and load the popup in a tab identified in the Target Tab field. - Route Window: Direct the window to another tab within the same session. This is the most basic form of routing of windows. - Show Outside: When this rule matches, the pop-up window will appear outside the client application. This new window will not be under the control of Unified Service Desk any longer and will not participate in the Unified Service Desk session management. This is useful for displaying a window on a second monitor or for comparing a window against another tab or a window in another Unified Service Desk session. - None: No action is performed.
Target Tab	When this rule matches, this is where the window will be directed. If the target tab (hosted control) is a dynamic control, it will automatically be loaded and the window will be directed to it. If this field is set to the Global Manager and the Action is Create Session, the system will reevaluate the rules to determine the actual location of the window in the tabs. This is useful to avoid creating a Create Session rule for every route type that might pop up from a particular window. If you leave the Target Tab field empty, an entity search is performed using first entity search matching the type of entity from the popup.
Show Tab	After the action is taken, this field will be used to activate a specific tab.
Entity Search	This is the entity search (FetchXML-based web service definition) that will be used to look up the data. This will populate the data fields in the session with the fields collected by the call. For more information about entity searches, see Search data using entity searches in Unified Service Desk.
Hide Command Bar	This causes Unified Service Desk to hide the model-driven app command bar after the window is displayed in the new tab.
Hide Navigation Bar	This causes Unified Service Desk to hide the model-driven app navigation bar on the left of the window, when the window is displayed in a new tab.

Select the Advanced tab and update the condition.

The condition field is a JavaScript expression that results in true or false.
The window navigation rule is run only if the conditional expression is validated as true at runtime. In addition to the standard replacement parameters, you can use the [[url]] as a replacement parameter in the condition. The [[url]] replacement parameter is replaced with the URL of the target page at runtime.
The conditional expression is optional and does not affect the window navigation rule validation.
However, incorrect conditional expression causes the window navigation rule to fail.
Select Save to create or modify the window navigation rule.

Use window navigation rules in Unified Service Desk

Create or edit a window navigation rule

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