I recently read about the ability to simplify the user navigation in Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 Omnichannel for Customer Service and Customer Service Workspace apps. I’m all for something that might reduce my mouse clicks! In this post I will explain how I configured this option and give my initial thoughts.

Normally in the multi-session interfaces we have in Omnichannel for Customer Service or Customer Workspace apps user can manually create sessions by holding shift and clicking the mouse on a Dynamics 365 record / hyperlink. Or to open new tabs in an existing session they can hold the Ctrl key and click the mouse.

Don’t get me wrong this navigation works really well. But wouldn’t it be “nice” if users didn’t have to hold the shift or Ctrl keys? And more importantly had to put less thought into when to start sessions or open tabs in existing sessions.

As I have already mentioned we have two apps that contain this multi session interface. In my opinion the biggest benefits might be achieved by applying this idea to the Customer Service Workspace app. My logic being that with Omnichannel as users click on notifications for incoming communications new sessions will automatically start anyway. But with Customer Service Workspace we might not be using the communication channels and simply want to start new sessions as cases or any record is opened from dashboards or views.

You can read Microsoft’s full instructions on enabling this feature using the link below. I will mention the process in this post but I encourage you to read these instructions. And you will also need to copy some code which is best done directly from their instructions.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/customer-service/csw-overview#navigate-and-view-records

Setup Simplified Interface

So first of all I logged into Dynamics 365 and opened my Customer Service Workspace app. I then clicked F12 to open the developer tools and selected the console tab.

Next I copied the code mentioned above into the console tab to run it. After running the code you need to run one of three different commands.

For Customer Service workspace: CSWAppUtility.setMultisessionNavigationImprovementsSetting();

For Omnichannel for Customer Service app: OCAppUtility.setMultisessionNavigationImprovementsSetting();

For both the multisession apps: AppSettingUtility.updateAppSetting(‘msdyn_MultisessionNavigationImprovements’, true);

Below you can see that I ran the command for the customer Service Workspace and soon afterwards received a message that the update was successful.

Testing the change

Before I could test the change I did find I needed to refresh my browser. But once done I my simplified navigation was working. Simples!

As you can see below, from any “home” page clicking on a case (or any record type) will automatically start a session containing that case.

Tip: With the Customer Service Workspace you can define a session template for each entity. So if I want to control what tabs open in the session you could do this using a template.

Now my session is open clicking on any link will open a new tab in that session. Below you can see that I clicked on the customer name and a new tab opened.

But what happens if the user clicks on another account record? …. Well then another tab would open for the second account.

Or what happens if the user clicks on the same account again? …. If the record you are trying to load is already open in your session it doesn’t open another tab. Instead the existing tab is given focus. I really liked that feature!

If you create a new record (using quick create) the quick create form opens on the right hand side, as normal. When you have finished with the form you return to the tab within your session. Whilst in the middle of a quick create the rest of the screen becomes inactive. So you can’t swap sessions whilst creating the new record. (Which felt reasonable to me!)

And if you try and create a new record when no quick create form is available the new form simply opens in a new tab in the current session.

Also, if I am in a session and I would like a new session to open for the record I’m opening. Then I can still use “Shift Click” to start a new session.

Conclusion

So what do I think???

This is a subtle change but it is actually one that will greatly benefit users. I think anyone “just” managing cases or other entities directly in the Customer Service Workspace will find this simplified navigation to be exactly what they’d want. I doubt anyone will want to reverse this change after they’ve enable it.

I will flag that I haven’t tried to disable this style of navigation! And I’m not sure the Microsoft instructions mention an approach for removing this change. So you might want to test this out in a sandbox before upgrading your production instance.

I think mixing this change with session templates and app profiles could result in an excellent experience. If you don’t know about session templates or app profiles I suggest you look them up! Plus I might create a blog post for those soon.

All in all, nice job Microsoft.