When the Citrix product design team first started working on Smart Check, we knew it had to be something useful to our customers *first*. We followed our design process to understand the problems, as well as review insights from our accumulated knowledge around Citrix Smart Tools (formerly Citrix Lifecycle Management). Next, we dove into how customers were keeping their Citrix environments maintained and updated. The first step was stripping away everything except what the users absolutely needed and where they found their day-to-day value. After doing that, we knew whatever we produced had to be dead simple to onboard and deliver immediate value. In short, it had to be a true cloud service.
To follow up on my last blog post regarding our product team’s process of review on our previous services and how customers were using it, we quickly came to the realization that we needed a new service that customers would use frequently in order to gain trust in the reliability of Smart Check overall. Again, it needed to deliver immediate value. Helping ensure customer sites run smoothly via proactive health checks is where we knew we could add the most value. But what are the checks and insights we could deliver regarding how their Citrix deployments are working? How could we empower Citrix Admins to make the right decisions to keep things running smoothly? A lot of research and design iterations led us to this initial launch of Smart Check.
Early on, the Smart Check preview was a hit with Citrix Admins, helping them to keep their systems running well, which is precisely what we wanted to happen. Customers are not only using the system, but by a large margin are easily and effectively onboarding themselves without help. We made sure to include a step-by-step first time “What happens in Smart Check” to easily educate and guide the user through Smart Check for the first time.
Moving forward, we will continue to improve upon what we have started. The simple goal of delivering a valuable experience that gets customers the insights they need to keep their Citrix deployments performing well. At the end of the day, delivering a useful and resilient experience for their employees and end users is what matters most. Stay tuned for more exciting things to come!
We encourage you to take advantage of Smart Check and the rest of Citrix Smart Tools services at smart.cloud.com. Simply login with your existing Citrix credentials, or easily create your no-fee ID and password to get started.
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Twitter: @trodesign
