Install and deploy Unified Service Desk

Before you can install and deploy Unified Service Desk for Microsoft Dynamics CRM, you must identify the CRM instance on which you want to build and deploy the configuration. While you can use a new CRM instance, Unified Service Desk works best when the CRM customization is mostly complete. Unified Service Desk controls the call center agent’s view of Microsoft Dynamics CRM by manipulating windows, injecting JavaScript, and so on. If major changes occur to the CRM environment after Unified Service Desk is deployed, it might cause your Unified Service Desk configuration to no longer work as required. While Unified Service Desk configuration often comes later in a CRM implementation, having Unified Service Desk in mind when designing your CRM environment is beneficial.

Unified Service Desk installation and deployment is done in phases where initially you set up a development environment to configure agent applications using one of the sample Unified Service Desk applications as the base. Next, you test how your configurations appear and work using the the Unified Service Desk client application by connecting to the CRM instance where you configured Unified Service Desk. Next, you deploy the customized Unified Service Desk configuration on to a production instance of CRM, and the client application, along with any files and assemblies required for your customizations, to your agent’s computers in your organization.

Important

You can configure Unified Service Desk to integrate with third-party line-of-business (LOB) applications. However, before deploying an integrated solution (involving Unified Service Desk and LOB applications) in the production environment in your organization, you must thoroughly test your integrated solution to ensure that the performance results are aligned with your expectations. Unified Service Desk might not function appropriately if integrated with LOB applications that demonstrate user interface (UI) blocking, memory leak issues, and slow response times.

Listed below is the sequence that we recommend for installing and deploying Unified Service Desk in your organization. Before installing Unified Service Desk, ensure that you meet the system requirements: Unified Service Desk system requirements.

Step 1: Initial installation and deployment

Identify a CRM server where you want to deploy Unified Service Desk and a development computer that will be used for deploying Unified Service Desk packages and then connecting to the packages by using the Unified Service Desk client.

  1. Install the Unified Service Desk client on the development computer. More information: Install Unified Service Desk Client

  2. Deploy Unified Service Desk packages to the CRM instance. More information: Deploy sample Unified Service Desk applications to CRM server using Package Deployer

  3. Copy the files and assemblies required for custom functionality in the CRM 2013 SP1 or CRM 2013 SP1 with Product Updates package to the Unified Service Desk client installation directory. More information: Copy files on the client for custom functionality

  4. Run the Unified Service Desk client, and connect to the CRM instance where you deployed the packages to verify that everything is working fine. More information: Connect to CRM instance using the Unified Service Desk client

Set up additional development computers

To set up additional development computers for configuring your agent desktop applications using Unified Service Desk:

  1. Install the Unified Service Desk client on the computer. More information: Install Unified Service Desk Client

  2. Copy the files and assemblies required for custom functionality in the CRM 2013 SP1 or CRM 2013 SP1 with Product Updates package. More information: Copy files on the client for custom functionality

Step 2: Configure and test your agent application

Use your development environment to configure your agent application by building on a sample application you deployed (Base, CRM 2013 SP1, or CRM 2013 SP1 with Product Updates), and then test it by connecting to the customized package using the Unified Service Desk client application. More information: Use Unified Service Desk to configure your agent application

Step 3: Deploy the customized agent application

After you have customized your agent application through configuration or custom code, you must install the Unified Service Desk client application along with any files required for the custom functionality on your agent’s computers. Consider creating a ClickOnce application or an MSI package installer to bundle all the files together and deploy on the agent computers in your organization. More information: see ClickOnce Security and Deployment or Windows Installer

You might also want to migrate your Unified Service Desk configuration from a development/test to a production environment. You can use the new Configuration Migration tool to migrate your Unified Service Desk configuration data across CRM instance. More information: Migrate your Unified Service Desk configuration to another CRM server

In This Section

Unified Service Desk system requirements

Install Unified Service Desk Client

Deploy sample Unified Service Desk applications to CRM server using Package Deployer

Copy files on the client for custom functionality

Connect to CRM instance using the Unified Service Desk client

See Also

Concepts

Update Unified Service Desk
Security in Unified Service Desk

Other Resources

Administer and manage Unified Service Desk
Troubleshoot Unified Service Desk using debugger and diagnostic logging
Unified Service Desk Developer Guide

Send comments about this topic to Microsoft.
© 2015 Microsoft. All rights reserved.