It is party time for all USD fans ….. A new version of Unified Service Desk for Microsoft Dynamics 365 has just been released. V2.2.1.

Why is This Good?

I get excited by each and every Unified Service Desk release. Why??? The answer is simple, each release gives us new features but more importantly history has shown that the product becomes more stable and performs better with each new iteration. I hope this release proves to be no exception, as below you can see that it includes improved diagnostics and error handling enhancements.

How To Upgrade?

If you are running USD already and want to upgrade, you will need to download and run the package deployer and client installer.

You can download Unified Service Desk from this link ….

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=50355

Note: I noticed that the package deployed version hasn’t moved onwards. If you are already running v 2.2.0 then you might only need to install the client. If your solution versions are as shown below then you will only need to install the client. (Bonus!)

What’s New In The Release?

Microsoft list the new features under “what’s new for administrators” and “what’s”. To save you a couple of lists I have listed all of the new features in one list below.

Diagnostics and error handling enhancements

Unified Service Desk now provides enhanced diagnostic information that lets you more easily identify and troubleshoot issues that may occur. Also, Unified Service Desk now prompts you to restart the Unified Service Desk client in case of non-fatal exceptions and automatically restarts the client in case of fatal exceptions. Diagnostics logging has been further enhanced to eliminate recording the entire JavaScript code that caused the exception. Now, only the faulty code along with exception description are recorded. More information: Configure client diagnostic logging in Unified Service Desk

Accessibility improvements

Tab key and Shift + Tab key sequence have been streamlined in the Unified Service Desk client for efficient and reliable keyboard navigation between controls within a panel. More information:  Help & Training: Accessibility in Unified Service Desk for Dynamics 365

Enhanced exception handling for custom hosted controls

Introducing SafeDispatcher that provides a powerful and informative exception handling mechanism for custom hosted controls in Unified Service Desk by providing out-of-box logging for unhandled exceptions with detailed information about the source and cause of the exception. This also prevents Unified Service Desk client from freezing or becoming unresponsive as the unhandled exceptions in custom hosted control code is appropriately handled by Unified Service Desk, and ensures that you can continue working on other areas in Unified Service Desk client. More information: Use SafeDispatcher for custom hosted controls in Unified Service Desk

Enhanced diagnostic logging for custom hosted controls

Introducing LogException Method that enables you to log rich diagnostic information for exceptions occurring in your custom hosted control, which makes it easier to identify and troubleshoot issues. More information: Configure enhanced diagnostic logging for custom hosted controls

Keyboard shortcuts for panels

Unified Service Desk now provides a single keyboard shortcut to traverse through all active panels in a recurrent manner. Further, you can also define keyboard shortcuts for individual panels in your panel layout so that customer service agents can directly navigate to a panel in the client application using the keyboard. More information: Keyboard shortcuts for panels

I guess in the real-world you guys aren’t quite as excited about a USD release as me! A USD release isn’t as news worthy as when a new version  of “that” phone is released. We “probably” won’t see people camping outside the USD flagship store. 

But hopefully you’ll still download and upgrade.

The new feature that interested me the most was the ability for the USD client to restart in the event of fatal exceptions. I wanted to show the prompts that USD gives when it needs to restart. But in my initial testing I could not get USD to crash.

Something I am actually very pleased to report. J