I do like to answer questions on Unified Service Desk (USD) for Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

I recently had someone request I create a blog post on how to show a url outside of USD. (Looks like I am taking requests now!! J)

To demonstrate how to show a URL in an Internet Explorer window outside of Unified Service Desk I will explain who to create a useful help feature.

The steps involved are;

1. Create a popup action.
2. Add the action to a toolbar button.
3. Create a window navigation rule.

Step One – Create a popup action

My action is shown below…

Step Two – Add the action to a toolbar button

Next I needed to create a toolbar button and add my action. I opted to show a help feature in my existing about toolbar.

Below you can see I have added a “Help” option to the about toolbar.

My help button is shown below. Notice that I have given the button an image and that importantly I have not entered anything in the show tab field. Once I had saved my button I simply added that action we created in step one. So simple stuff.

Step Three – Create a window navigation rule

If there is a clever bit to this example, then this is it.

What I am trying to achieve in this example is to load a web page in Internet Explorer but NOT to use a USD tab. As I want the page to load outside of USD. Loading “things” outside of USD is often a useful trick but you should keep in mind that once outside USD can have no further interactions with whatever was loaded.

My navigation rule looked like this;

Finally, I tested my simple change. You can see that I have a “?” icon in my about toolbar and that clicking this will load a page from my blog. Proving the IE window has loaded outside of USD is simple. If you close USD the IE window will remain. If the page you have opened closes when USD closes you have done something wrong as it isn’t outside.

Hopefully this very simple example has answered the question I was asked. Plus I have also shown that I take requests!!!
J