Many of our customers have progressed beyond the reactive crisis phase of COVID-19 to a new proactive strategy for returning workers to the office. Moving forward, office life will, without a doubt, have a new look. With worker safety at the top of mind, it’s likely that you’re considering an approach that supports flexible work environments. Some days you’ll work from home, and some days you’ll come in to the office. Citrix Workspace is the ideal solution to support these flexible workstyles because the experience it delivers is the same, regardless of device type or user locations.
The Citrix Workspace team is continually developing new features to help simplify, automate, and secure the delivery of Workspace services. Here are some of the highlights from June.
Citrix Back-to-Office Workspace Solution
On June 22, Citrix announced our back-to-office solution, built on Citrix Workspace, which our customers and partners can use to transition employees back to offices, enhancing their experience and enabling them to efficiently adapt to the new world of work. The back-to-office solution includes a resource center that will empower your facilities, IT, HR, legal, and security teams with best practices and templated microapps they can deploy easily to Citrix Workspace environments.
App Protection for Workspace Premium and Premium Plus Is Here
As organizations continue to support remote work and employees working from their personal devices, securing apps and data has become more crucial than ever. App Protection provides a layer of security when users access apps and data from an unmanaged device by rendering key logger and screen capture ineffective. Now generally available, App Protection for on-prem Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops customers is included with Workspace Premium Plus for customers with hybrid rights. Additionally, Workspace Premium and Workspace Premium Plus customers can protect their SaaS and web apps by signing up for the App Protection Tech Preview.
Learn more about App Protection.
Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) for Citrix Cloud Admins Now Generally Available
Password spraying and credential stuffing are common types of attacks used to gain access to critical systems. But, research from Microsoft shows that MFA can prevent 99.9 percent of account compromising attacks. Given its effectiveness and the need to protect sensitive data in Citrix Cloud accounts, MFA will be required for Citrix Cloud admins. This capability is now generally available, and admins are guided through the setup process upon login.
Learn more about multi-factor authentication for Citrix Cloud admins.
Federated Authentication Service (FAS) for Citrix Workspace
Citrix customers continue their digital transformation by embracing Citrix Workspace, a modern digital workspace with intelligent features that organize, guide, and automate work. But virtual apps and desktops remain a key part of how they deliver critical corporate resources to end users.
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-prem Active Directory domains, and many of their virtual apps and desktops are joined to the domain. In this scenario, end users must re-enter their passwords to launch a virtual app or desktop, even after authenticating into Citrix Workspace. With FAS for Workspace, end users can get a true single sign-on experience to their Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops after authenticating into Citrix Workspace.
Learn more about FAS for Workspace.
Feature Rollout Toggle
The intelligent workspace is defining the new market and shaping the future of work. We know that introducing a new experience can be difficult, and its impact is felt when Citrix Workspace touches so many users. We are introducing a new Feature Rollout Toggle that enables admins to rollout the new Workspace experience at their convenience.
Feature Rollout Toggle gives admins control over rolling out Citrix Workspace’s intelligent capabilities by turning on the experience with an on/off toggle before eventually enabling it for all users by default. The Feature Rollout Toggle lets admins enable new functionality to selected users or user groups, giving them time to configure the new feature and integrations, try it out, test it with a smaller group of users, update internal documentation, and prepare end users before rolling it out.
Citrix Analytics – Usage in Tech Preview
Currently in Tech Preview, Citrix Analytics – Usage will help customers better understand adoption and engagement of Citrix services, including Citrix Content Collaboration, microapps, and SaaS and Web apps (via Citrix Access Control). These user metrics include active users and top users. Product usage metrics include top domains accessed, top applications used, and data download volume.
Delivered at no-fee to customers who are entitled on supported offerings, usage analytics are accessed from Citrix Analytics. Choose Get Started on the Usage tile, turn on data processing, and you’re all set. Citrix Analytics – Usage falls under the umbrella of Citrix Analytics – Fundamentals. As we move forward, you may see other essential data added under this term. Please note, the former Operations tab has been deprecated, replaced by Usage.
You can see usage analytics in in the image below. Be sure to add your data sources to initiate the usage analytics. And check out our blog post on Citrix Analytics – Usage to learn more.
On-Prem Microapps Using the Connector Appliance for Cloud Services
We are pleased to announce that the Connector Appliance is now generally available, enabling the use of the Jira and HTTP microapps to connect to on-prem systems of record. The Connector Appliance enables a key use case for microapps, where the system of record is within the customer’s network rather than external, as a SaaS app. Initial use cases include the Jira microapp and the HTTP integration microapp, where customers can connect to their own internal REST/JSON systems (web servers).
Customers who want to harness the connector appliance for on-prem microapps will need to enable this functionality within their microapps integration configuration page within Citrix Cloud. All customers with a microapps service have access to the Connector Appliance. Learn more about the Connector Appliance.
Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 7 2006 – New Release for On-Prem Customers
We’re excited to announce the release of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 7 2006. It includes:
License Server Changes: We have made improvements with the Citrix License Server and have consolidated license management into the Citrix License Manger (CLM). Check out this blog post to see our progress with on-prem and learn how we are making it easier than ever to view your usage and make the move toward the cloud.
Enlightened Data Transport MTU Discovery for Windows: Enlightened Data Transport (EDT) has been the driving force behind improving the performance of ICA sessions over high latency networks. We are excited to introduce MTU Discovery capabilities to EDT that automatically determine and set the appropriate MTU for each session for optimal delivery and performance.
Session Recording web player URL Capabilities: We are continuing to expand on the capabilities within the Session Recording web player. This release introduces a frequently requested feature enabling admins to share and view recorded sessions through a secure URL.
Citrix Workspace app Enhancements: Recent highlights include improvements to Citrix Analytics features on the Citrix Workspace app for Windows, pairing and connection status for the X1 Mouse on the Citrix Workspace app for iOS, and experimental Microsoft Teams optimization on the Citrix Workspace app for Linux.
Remote PC Access support for Linux desktops: To further enhance our support for remote workers, we’ve added Remote PC Access feature support to Citrix Virtual Desktops and Citrix Virtual Desktops Essentials. We’ve also added support for Linux desktops in addition to Windows desktops, giving customers more device flexibility with remote workers. Take a look at what these changes can mean for you in this blog post.
New Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 LTSR
It’s been three years since the last Citrix Hypervisor LTSR. In June, we announced the newest LTSR, Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 LTSR. All the newest features since XenServer 7.1 are now included in this latest release. Here are the Top 10 reasons to more to Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 LTSR.
Plan Your Back-to-Office Strategy with Our Free Ebook
Citrix Workspace continues to focus on providing great experience for both the IT admin and employees, regardless of location. Check out our complimentary eBook, Ensuring safe workspaces after COVID-19, which will help you with your back-to-office strategy. This ebook will highlight best practices for returning to the office while giving examples of how Citrix Workspace can provide a consistent, productive, and secure work experience.
We’ll be back next month for another round of updates for Citrix Workspace.
