Chapter 11. The Interactive Service Hub

Tier 1—Tier 1 users see data with real-time multi-stream dashboards, and the data is based on entity views or queues. Multi-stream dashboards show data based on the same entity and are ideal for service support teams that support many cases at the same time.

Tier 2—Tier 2 users see real-time single-stream dashboards. This is typically useful for managers who need to monitor less data, but they need to see sophisticated data (either escalated or complex, for example).

Both types of dashboards (multi-stream and single-stream) are real time and are interactive in nature, allowing users to drill down on the data.

The interactive service hub architecture is similar to that of the Dynamics CRM mobile clients, in that the customization and business rules are cached in a local store. Every time you make a customization or change in the entities associated to the interactive service hub, you are asked to download the customizations, and that takes some time to complete, much like what happens with mobile clients.

The first time you access the standard CRM web interface, the system prompt you to try the interactive service hub, as shown in Figure 11.1 (found in the information bar across the top).

If you click the Experience It Now button, you are directed to the new interactive service hub user interface on a new tab or browser window (see Figure 11.2).

Once the interface downloads the metadata, you can start using this new interface, as shown in Figure 11.3.

The interactive service hub comes with four predefined dashboards out of the box:

Tier 1 Dashboard

Tier 2 Dashboard

Knowledge Manager

My Knowledge Dashboard

You can create custom (interactive service hub) dashboards but only at the system level in Dynamics CRM 2016. Note that this is different from the standard CRM user interface, where users can create their own personal dashboards.

SEE the “Configurations and Customizations” section, later in this chapter, to learn how to create custom dashboards.

You can use these dashboards to see some nice graphical interfaces of the data by clicking the chart icon next to the dashboard name (see Figure 11.4).

The charts shown in Figure 11.4 are also called visual filters because they allow you to filter the data by clicking on the chart components directly.

Clicking the icon buttons in the lower-right corner of the screen allows you to change the dashboard view to tiles (see Figure 11.5).

You can click each tile to display the list of records to easily navigate to them.

When you look at the stream view (shown in the columns on the form), there are some hidden (or not easy to catch) controls in the stream records. You can click the check boxes of any records inside the stream to display a list of actions on the top. For example, if you select a case, you see actions like Resolve, Cancel, and Do Not Decrement Entitlement Terms at the top of the column, as shown in Figure 11.6.

If you click the ellipsis (...), you see more actions you can take for the selected record(s), like Delete, Apply Routing Rule, Assign, and Add to Queue (see Figure 11.7).

You can add more entities here or add custom entities, but this navigation area is designed to be streamlined for the Tier 1 and 2 agents. You can make configurations here, though, as described in the “Configurations and Customizations” section, later in this chapter.

Today

Yesterday

This Week

Last Week

This Month

Last Month

Month Till Date

This Quarter

Last Quarter

Custom Time Frame

Figure 11.9 shows the interactive service hub time filters.

If you select the Custom Time Frame option, you see the Start-Date and End-Date calendars.

Apart from the time frame filters, each entity may have other fields configured to be used as filters. If you click the filter icon, you see the filters, as shown in Figure 11.10.

SEE the “Configurations and Customizations” section, later in this chapter for information on how to configure filter fields.

The recent record list also shows you the dashboard records you recently viewed.

The entities configured out of the box are Account, Contact, Activity, and Case. To add custom entities to this list, you can go to the CRM standard web interface and click Settings > Administration > System Settings. Then, on the General tab, you can set the Set Up Search options (see Figure 11.13).

Click Select to add entities, as shown in Figure 11.14. Be aware that the entities must be enabled for interactive experience.

SEE the “Configurations and Customizations” section, later in this chapter.

You see more entities here than in the interactive service hub because the interactive service hub shows only the entities that are configured to be displayed in the Service area. So if you add a new entity here, make sure the entity is configured to be displayed in the Service area so you can use it in the interactive service hub.

By default, you can only create entities of types Activity, which can be Phone Call, Task, Email, or Appointment. (Note that you cannot create Service activity records, nor can you enable them to work with this interface.) By default you can also create other records of the types Knowledge Article, Contact, Account, and Case.

This view shows a list of accounts. Notice that the view is not very different from the views in the standard CRM web user interface. However, there is a new icon in this interface, down in the lower-left corner. When you click this icon, you go to an entity-specific dashboard (in this case, a dashboard that works only for Account entities) that is not available from the Service > Dashboard menu option (see Figure 11.18).

If you click the chart icon, you see the visual filters, as shown in Figure 11.19.

For more information about Microsoft Social Engagement and how to connect it with Dynamics CRM, SEE CHAPTER 14, “Microsoft Dynamics Social Engagement.”

This interface also has the entity-specific dashboard icon in the lower left, and you can click it to go to the dashboard.

If you click the chart icon, you will see the visual filters, as shown in Figure 11.22.

To open a case, click a title record. Cases in the interactive service hub are displayed by default with a modern user interface, as shown in Figure 11.23.

You can click the phone icon to make a quick phone call to the customer, and when you do, an alert confirmation is displayed, as shown in Figure 11.24.

At the same time a quick form for a new phone call record opens on the right side of the screen, as shown in Figure 11.25.

There are some differences in the process flow between the interactive service hub interface and Dynamics CRM. For example, click the stage you want to work with, and you see the Make Active link on the bottom of the box displayed for the stage, as shown in Figure 11.26.

Making the stage active allows you to move to the next stage. When you do, you can click the Next Stage link to move the process flow to the next stage.

When you choose to create a new knowledge base article, you see a process flow not shown in the standard CRM user interface (see Figure 11.28).

The interactive service hub user interface has a rich text editor for entering article content that allows you to easily add images and links, as shown in Figure 11.29.

You add an image by entering the URL of an image file you have stored on any external website, and you can easily see a preview of the image before adding it to the content of the article (see Figure 11.30).

Enabling this check box alone is not enough to have your custom entity appear in the interactive service hub interface, however; you also need to add your entity to the Service area by checking the Service check box under Areas That Display This Entity (which basically adds the entity to the sitemap for the Service area).

When you check Enable for Interactive Experience for an entity, two new type of forms are created:

Main—Interactive Experience

Card

These new forms are explained in the next section.

The interactive service hub interface doesn’t allow you to change the form if you have more than one form created with permissions. Only the first one is displayed, and you might need to change the order by clicking the Form Order option and then selecting Main Form Set—Interactive Experience, as shown in Figure 11.32.

Choose the form you want to use and move it to the top and click OK.

Card forms are limited forms for which you cannot edit field attributes to configure events that occur on changes or loading or saving events. In addition, the sections are limited to only four fields (see Figure 11.34).

For example, if you add a new field called Website, it appears in the dashboard as shown in Figure 11.35.

A Card form has a special section called Color Strip, and you can add only one field to this section, and it can be of type Boolean Picklist or status Reason. You can configure the color in the field property page by selecting the option and then clicking the Edit button for the selected option. Figure 11.36 shows a color setting.

The colors you select are displayed to the left of the stream record as a vertical colored line.

Appears in Global Filter in Interactive Experience

Sortable in Interactive Experience Dashboard

Option Set (picklist)

Two options (Booleans)

Whole Number (integers)

Floating Point Number

Decimal Number

Currency

Date and Time

Lookup

When you set this flag on a field, you can use it in the global filter in the Entity interactive dashboards. Figure 11.38 shows a Billable field of type Boolean for the Timesheet entity.

Select the value you want to filter on and click Apply. You can then remove all filters by clicking on the last X (Cancel) button. To remove only a particular filter field, you can hover on the field and click the X button that appears.

When you select the field and click OK, you then see the field in the stream title, so you can click there to change the direction from ascending to descending or vice versa.

You are then asked to choose a layout, and you can select one of the following options:

Multi-Stream:

4-Column Overview

3-Column Overview

2-Column Overview

3-Column Overview II

Single-Stream:’

5-Column Overview

3-Column Overview

5-Column Overview II

2-Column Overview

The Multi-Stream and Single-Stream types differs in terms of where the visual filters and tiles will be displayed. The Multi-Stream option shows the visual filters on the top, while the Single-Stream option shows the visual filters and tiles to the right, as shown in Figure 11.41.

Say that you select the Multi-Stream 4 Columns Overview option (which is the default) and click the Create button. The new dashboard editor window opens, an in it, you enter a name for the dashboard. Also, unlike with standard dashboards, you must select a filter entity and the view for the selected entity (see Figure 11.42).

With the selected layout, you can add charts only on the top layer of the Visual Filters section for the entity type you selected for the dashboard (see Figure 11.43).

You can then add streams to the bottom layer of the dashboard. Here you can select any of the interactive service hub—enabled entities, and you can indicate whether you want to display a queue or an entity view (see Figure 11.44).

When you finished adding the visual filters and streams, click Save and then on Close in the command bar. Make sure to publish all the customizations before you try to load the new dashboard in the interactive service hub interface.