We have already talked about dealing with multiple search results coming from entity searches in Unified Service Desk.

Results of CTI Search are just as easy to handle – they are very similar, however, there is one crucial difference. Generated as a result of a phone call (or a chat, or a sip call, etc), CTI search can be invoked at any time. If it was performed in the global session, it could overwrite results of any entity search executed previously (say, by a user). To avoid this accidental overwrites, CTI search results are only available in the new session:

As long as new session is created, identical code can be used:

protected override void DoAction(
      RequestActionEventArgs args)
{
  if (args.Action.Equals("DealWithMultipleResults", 
               StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))
  {
      var results = GetDesktopRecord().EntityResults;
      // results are List<Entity>, deal with it
      // e.g. bind it to the grid and pop the window 
      // in the FloatingPanel
  }
}

What if you don’t want to process multiple search results, don’t want to create a new session but simply are after CTI replacement parameters like ani or dnis? These parameters are available in the global session but not as documented [[cti.ani]] or [[cti.dnis]]. Simply use [[ani]] or [[dnis]], i.e. drop cti prefix and you’re good to go.

Unified Service Desk has a concept of Entity Search, that allows you to store parameterized fetchxml and reuse this definition declaratively (say, in Windows Navigation Rules), or via DoSearch action of the Global Manager, or directly from your code.

One aspect that Entity Search does not deal well with is the searches returning multiple results. USD captures the first result only, indicates the total count in the $Return parameter and sets flag that more results are available. Documentation deflects to the “custom hosted controls”.

Dealing with multiple results is surprisingly simple. USD surfaces only the first result but captures all of them, and information is readily available.

protected override void DoAction(
      RequestActionEventArgs args)
{
  if (args.Action.Equals("DealWithMultipleResults", 
               StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))
  {
      var results = GetDesktopRecord().EntityResults;
      // results are List<Entity>, deal with it
      // e.g. bind it to the grid and pop the window 
      // in the FloatingPanel
  }
}