This blog post was updated June 15, 2020.

We’re excited to announce the general availability of Federated Authentication Service (FAS) to support Citrix Workspace. This enables true single sign-on for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops through Citrix Workspace.

Why FAS Matters

To understand the importance of this new capability, let’s take a look at Citrix Workspace and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops and the old path for authentication.

By now, you’re familiar with the evolution of Citrix Workspace — a modern digital workspace with intelligent features that organize, guide, and automate work. Citrix Workspace provides unified access to SaaS and web apps and files and gives workers a personalized and prioritized view of tasks and key insights. It’s designed to simplify work for the employee and support IT’s security requirements. One of the best parts for end users and IT? All these cloud-based resources can be made available through single sign-on.

SSO for On-Prem Deployments

A core part of our DNA is Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, a component of Citrix Workspace and a starting point on the cloud journey for many customers. Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops enables workers to access all of their virtual apps and desktops within Citrix Workspace.

Many Citrix customers have adopted Azure Active Directory, Okta, or another federated identity provider and are using it as their modern identity management system for access to Citrix Workspace. But most of these customers still have on-premises Active Directory domains, and many of their virtual apps and desktops are joined to the domain.

In this scenario, end users have to re-enter their passwords to launch a virtual app or desktop, even after authenticating into Workspace. This creates a challenge for many organizations that want a true SSO experience. What’s more, in this kind of environment, organizations looking to adopt password-free access couldn’t deliver Citrix Workspace to their users.

FAS for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops addressed the issue of single sign-on for on-premises deployments. The challenge: It didn’t support a Citrix Cloud deployment.

We’ve solved that problem. Now, both on-premises and cloud deployments have true single sign-on options for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops through Citrix Workspace.

See FAS in Action

To see FAS for Citrix Workspace in action and to learn how to enroll in the tech preview, check out this Tech Insight video from Lead Architect Dan Feller.

FAS for Workspace is now generally available for Citrix Workspace customers at no additional cost. To learn more about how to enable it, please visit the product documentation.