Wow… July is packed with important events! Independence Day on July 4, National Ice Cream Day on July 15, National Hot Dog day on July 18, National Tequila Day on July 24th.

Did you miss out on any of those? That’s OK because we’ve still got National Cheesecake Day on Monday July 30 (that’s today!)

With all of this celebrating (and eating), our Citrix Workspace product teams somehow found time to add a bunch of new features, services and programs to boost the value of the Citrix Workspace higher than ever before.

Here are some of the highlights:

Get ready for the new Citrix Workspace app!

At Citrix Synergy 2018, we showcased the Citrix Workspace app, the first comprehensive digital workspace solution that will transform how people work. We committed to delivering everything showcased at Citrix Synergy within 90 days, and our teams are currently making those final touches before the official release. While the official release is coming soon, you can get early access to the Workspace app and try it out in your XenApp and XenDesktop test environments with the Workspace app technical preview. You can learn more about the tech preview from our recently published blog post, “Your Citrix Workspace app Journey Begins!” and download the tech preview HERE. It’s important to note that Citrix Workspace app is fully backward-compatible with on-prem Citrix StoreFront. Your users can access all their desktops and apps in much the same way that they do it today with Citrix Receiver.

Unify Citrix services with Site Aggregation

As mentioned with Citrix Workspace app, our goal is to give users the ability to access everything they need to do work with seamless, unified access. That means giving them the ability to access the virtual apps, desktops, SaaS, and web apps, from a single point of access. You may be thinking that it would be a challenge if you’re already fully implemented with an on-premises XenApp/XenDesktop environment, but we’ve come up with a solution which integrates other Citrix cloud services as seamlessly as possible.

Meet Citrix site aggregation. Citrix site aggregation allows you to integrate your IT-managed XenApp & XenDesktop environment with other Citrix cloud services. You can learn more below:

Citrix Cloud has had a busy month; there are new things coming both in the services and in the platform itself. Starting with the platform, the License Usage functionality allows admins to free up licenses that are no longer in use. Now this is available in all geographies. In addition, site aggregation — the ability to easily import an on-prem XenApp or XenDesktop site to Citrix Workspace — is graduating from its Tech Preview phase. Site aggregation allows you to aggregate your existing installation with Citrix Cloud services. Your users can access all of their Workspace resources through the new customizable cloud hosted UI.

One of the easiest security services you’ll ever configure, Secure Browser service has expanded to an additional region, greatly improving the user experience for our customers in the eastern parts of North America. Another new global improvement for all Secure Browser users, globally, is the ability to launch the Secure Browsers through the Citrix Workspace app. This gives admins even more choice as to how to deploy the solution, in addition to the previously supported methods of using an URL or integrating with an on-prem StoreFront.

Introducing the Hybrid Rights Add-On for Citrix Cloud Services

As part of the summer launch excitement, we’re rolling out a new offering that will make our customers’ transition to the cloud even easier.

Hybrid Rights currently is a key feature of Citrix Cloud transition and trade-ups. Now it also will be available as an add-on for customers who purchase certain Citrix Cloud services outside of a transition or trade-up program. With this new offering, customers can add-on the right to deploy either the cloud service or the traditional software on-premises. The add-on is for an equivalent duration of time, to new and existing cloud subscriptions, giving customers the ultimate flexibility and control in this hybrid cloud world. The Citrix Cloud services eligible for the Hybrid Rights Add-On include Citrix Workspace Premium service, Citrix XenApp & XenDesktop service, and Citrix XenApp service. Hybrid Rights will continue to be included with transition and trade-ups, co-terminated to customer

Citrix Endpoint Management adds new features and special offers

There are so many good reasons to transition your existing on-prem XenMobile environment to the cloud including the highly available Citrix Cloud architecture, a dedicated XenMobile Migration Service team to walk you through the transition, automatic access to the latest features and fixes the moment they and the list goes on and on.

This month, there are even more reasons to make the move the Citrix Endpoint Management service from Citrix Cloud:

  • Newly approved transition prices enable our existing XenMobile on-prem customers to transition to the cloud at a price similar to what they’re currently paying for software maintenance. Contact your local Citrix rep or Citrix Partner for more information on this special promotional pricing.
  • New Secure Mail capabilities, such as improved photo attach and the ability to search and export Secure Mail calendar events to native calendar enhance employee experience.
  • QuickEdit no longer will be discontinued! In fact, we will be releasing a new version of QuickEdit to the app stores this Fall. All new and existing Citrix Endpoint Management (and XenMobile) customers will be entitled to use this application for document viewing and editing inside the secure Citrix container.

App Layering Enhancements

App Layering simplifies management of applications and images allowing you to roll-out flexible environments and patch or update individual components seamlessly. Our Layering team is hard at work on regular releases to update functionality, improve performance, and deliver new features. App Layering version 4.12 has just shipped – now with support for Windows 10 1803. We’ve also rolled out performance enhancements for administrators, improving the time to create new versions of App Layers by up to 40%. Find all the details HERE.

Citrix Analytics

We’re on the verge of making Citrix Analytics available for production environments. Soon you’ll be able to apply advanced analytics with artificial intelligence and machine learning spanning your Citrix Workspace. Detect hard-to-find malicious users and prevent data loss, ransomware, and other risky behaviors. Look forward to using this same technology in support of application performance and operations. To make it easy to get started, we’ve added a direct link to a built-in demonstration environment.

Directly from the Citrix Analytics panel in Citrix Cloud, choose “Launch Demo” and you get right into the Security analytics page with populated user data with risk profiles risk indicators, data sources, rules and more. We encourage you to take a look today and get ready to benefit from advanced analytics for your Citrix Workspace.

Simplified end-user experience for Information Rights Management

Security is at the heart of the Citrix value proposition. ShareFile (IRM) is a valuable tool that Citrix customers use to secure and to protect the integrity of the documents they are sharing externally with customers, partners, and vendors. The latest release of IRM includes:

  • Simplified experience for the end user – The previous version of IRM required the recipient to download software in order to access the file that was being shared with them. With this release, there immediately!
  • Support for cloud zones worldwide the new release, IRM won’t be limited to customers who store their data on-premises. Customers who store their data in any Citrix-managed cloud StorageZone will also be able to use this feature.
  • Support for virtualized environments and UEM – This release of IRM no longer requires recipients to download software to access shared files, making the experience in XenApp, XenDesktop, and XenMobile much more user friendly.

End users can now create custom workflows

Everyone could use some more time in their day. With ShareFile’s custom workflows, we’ll help your end users automate and digitize manual, repetitive tasks that take them away from high-value activities. Previously, ShareFile administrators had to add “Workflow administrators” with permissions to create workflows to their account. With this new feature release, any employee user will be able to create a custom workflow. Learn more about custom workflows and how they can save your organization time.

File preview for Personal Cloud Connectors

For many organizations, data lives in different repositories like SharePoint, OneDrive for Business, network shares, and personal cloud storage sites like Dropbox. ShareFile serves as a single pane of glass for all the documents in your organization when you implement ShareFile Connectors. We’ve further enriched the Connector experience by adding file preview for Office documents and PDFs. With this release, you’ll be able to access and preview documents stored in personal cloud storage sites right from ShareFile.

Stayed tuned. Next month there will be even MORE additions to the Citrix Workspace.

And don’t forget to mark your calendars for International Beer Day on August 3rd!