Since it was first announced at Citrix Synergy 2019, the tech world at large has been chomping at the bit for the intelligent capabilities of Citrix Workspace, and we got them in mid-December. If you’re not familiar with what all these new features can do, read Tim Minahan’s blog post on the release.

I’m a Technical Account Manager (TAM) on the Citrix Customer Success Services team in the UK. To give our customers the support they need, we have to stay on top of every update to Citrix solutions. This isn’t easy, considering our product teams’ pace of development, but we work hard to get this information to our customers so they can make the most of their Citrix investments. A number of TAMs were tasked with becoming subject matter experts for Citrix Workspace, so we can support the product internally and externally. Fortunately, I was one of them.

Diving into Citrix Workspace

It’s always interesting to dive into a new technology, and I was looking forward to seeing what Citrix Workspace’s intelligent capabilities were all about. As you probably know, we expect Citrix Workspace to revolutionise the way we work by enabling us to work the way we want, where we want, and on any device we want. It will help us to be more productive by delivering the apps we need through an intelligent feed that guides, automates, and organizes work. Indeed, it’s a bold aim, and I can understand that there might be sceptics. But, as they say, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.

I finally got some “quiet” time prior to the holiday to try it. After reading this excellent tech brief on Citrix Tech Zone, watching the accompanying video, (and these overview videos), I was ready to get started. I’d focused my research on the microapp component of Citrix Workspace. The intelligent feed feature is arguably the most-talked-about feature of the new release, but in my opinion, microapps are the real stars of the show.

At a high level, microapps enable Citrix Workspace to leverage publicly available APIs to enable two-way integration with SaaS apps. Some microapps are provided out of the box, and RSS feeds and interfaces to apps like Concur and Salesforce require minimal configuration. Then there is the microapp builder, which enables customers to design their own microapp integrations via a low-code interface. Those microapps appear in the Workspace feed. For me, this is the most exciting area because the only limitation here is the customers’ imaginations.

Building My First Microapp

Phil Wiffen, a Citrix colleague, explained on his personal blog how to set up a simple RSS feed microapp. I used his post to help guide my first attempt. In addition, another colleague, Anuj Magazine, translated Phil’s guide into this superb sketchnote (click the image to view larger).

Figure 1: Microapps sketchnote by Anuj Magazine.

Check out Phil’s post. Just 30 minutes after I read it, I had a functioning feed of Citrix blogs flowing into my Citrix Workspace. Considering that I had zero experience with microapp technology until now, I thought this was impressive.

Figure 2: First attempt. Citrix Blog feed.

Now I don’t have to switch from my Citrix Workspace to my RSS app to see posts; they automatically show up in my Citrix Workspace feed.

So what next?

My appetite was whetted. Now Citrix blogs are great, but could I easily apply Phil’s guide to another and arguably even more important blog? I’m a Pink Floyd fan and subscribe to a superb podcast, Brain Damage. Could I add this to my Workspace feed? I went back to Phil’s guide, though to be honest, the microapp interface is so intuitive I didn’t really need his guide the second time around; 20 minutes later, I had another card in my Workspace feed.

Figure 3: Second attempt. Some Floyd magic.

I could click on the card and get some nice detail on the item in question. The potential impact of the Citrix Workspace feed started to dawn on me.

Figure 4: Extra detail when selecting the card. This is a great episode!

Getting More Advanced

By now, I was ready to try something a bit more advanced. I had used the built-in RSS microapp, one of several integrations available out of the box. I wanted to try a custom integration using a randomly picked API.

I have an interest in renewable energy and general environmental and sustainability issues. There are some great real-time feeds of energy data that end up in lovely little dashboard pages like this one displaying the UK National Grid status. The NG provide this data publicly via an API. In theory, I could create a card that would inform me of the current mix of energy generation in the UK.

My normal way of learning is to scan the guides and documentation and then have a go at it. I’m a learn-by-doing sort of person, so there’s always a degree of trial and error. But without too much trouble, I obtained some meaningful data out of the service.

Figure 5: A custom microapp card.

I succeeded in getting a notification card to appear in the Citrix Workspace feed, and the design was good, too — a little icon and a picture of some lovely, non-polluting wind turbines. Click on the card and up pops some more data. It wasn’t too windy in the UK when this data snapshot was taken and with 3 percent solar, it was quite cloudy. It was very British weather!

Figure 6: Displaying the data behind the card.

Yes, it could do with a little more tidying up via customizations, but I think it shows the potential of Citrix Workspace’s microapp service. It certainly turned on a lightbulb for me.

At a high level, creating and implementing this microapp was simple. These are the steps:

  1. Create the microapp.
  2. Find the API base URL for the connector. It’s open to the public so no authentication needed.
  3. Test the connection and select the appropriate table.
  4. Design the microapp page using the builder — how it looks, what data to pull in, specific layout, and so on.
  5. Set the update frequency and add the subscribers.

That’s it!

Believe the Hype

Let’s be honest: There’s always a lot of hype that goes along with feature updates and new product releases. In the case of the intelligent features of Citrix Workspace — especially the microapp builder — it quickly became clear to me how this could transform the way users interact with apps and systems.

There are no real boundaries to what can be done here. After only a couple of hours, I had created a functioning Citrix Workspace feed providing useful data that is relevant to me. I found myself thinking, “What else I could do with it?”

It will be interesting to see how our customers use the microapp service. The potential was evident at our recent Citrix Converge developer conference. I encourage you to check out the videos from the conference. There’s no doubt that users will create Citrix Workspace microapps integrations that were never imagined by the product team. That’s the beauty of the microapp builder!

“Welcome to the revolution,” PJ Hough, Citrix Chief Product Officer and EVP, said when he introduced the intelligent capabilities of Citrix Workspace at last year’s Citrix Synergy. He couldn’t have been more right.