Thank you for reading our monthly “What’s New with Citrix Workspace” blog series! We’ve had fun bringing you a whole year of updates on the latest and greatest additions to the Citrix Workspace suite of product offerings.
As the year comes to a close, I’m excited to share with you the latest on Citrix Workspace, including some updates that I hope will help get you thinking about your 2020 goals and how you can empower your employees to do their best work. Our latest features can help organizations turn their employee experience into a competitive advantage.
Citrix Workspace
Last week, we announced general availability of new intelligent capabilities within Citrix Workspace, which helps to remove the noise caused by complex technology systems and free employees to take control and do the work that matters most.
Citrix Workspace helps to organize, guide and automate the work experience. And with the new intelligent capabilities, you can:
- Automate repetitive, low-value tasks.
- Extract the most pertinent tasks and insights from systems of record and deliver them to individual users on any device or channel.
- Create single-purpose steps to simplify the execution of mundane tasks such as filing expenses, requesting time off, and submitting purchase orders, among other things.
- Build personal workflows around individual employees with context and smarts so they can spend less time on menial tasks and focus on meaningful work.
- Deliver the simple, intuitive experience your employees want and need to stay engaged and perform at their best.
Admins can use the low-code microapp page builder to customize workflows. Templated microapp actions will be available for popular SaaS applications including: Atlassian Jira, Google G-Suite (Drive, Calendar, Directory), Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Power BI, Microsoft Teams, Salesforce, SAP Ariba, SAP Concur, SAP SuccessFactors, ServiceNow, Tableau, Workday and Zendesk. You can also create your own microapps, leveraging custom applications with the generic web services connector and developer portal. In tech preview, connect to applications residing on-premises.
Another feature available in tech preview is our virtual assistance capability. Citrix Workspace’s virtual assistance capability delivers immediate access to relevant content and business data. Within a single chat bot, query data from connected applications with questions like, “What absences are pending my approval?” Users can perform actions directly within the results to eliminate time searching for information. This feature is also available in tech preview within Microsoft Teams, enabling seamless communication within the context of work.
Citrix Analytics
Self-service search enables you to easily find and filter events from your data sources. This capability has been available for Citrix Secure Workspace Access, Citrix Cloud’s Identity and Access Management service, Citrix Content Collaboration, and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops. Now two more services are available with self-service search: Citrix Gateway and Citrix Secure Browser.
Citrix Analytics receives events such as authentication stage, authorization type, VPN session code, VPN session state for Citrix Gateway users.
For Secure Browser service, Citrix Analytics receives events such as session connect, session launch, published applications, deleted applications for each user connection. Use the search box to query for the required events and explore the underlying data.
The Citrix Analytics overview page has been redesigned to enable access to all the Citrix Analytics offerings from a single page. You can request a trial, try the demo, or manage your Citrix Analytics offering. Currently, Security Analytics and Operations Analytics are generally available and active on this page.
Custom and new built-in Risk Indicators
With custom indicator support for Citrix Gateway, you can now define the conditions and the frequency for triggering risk indicators for Citrix Gateway events.
And speaking of risk indicators, first-time access from a new device detected by Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops will trigger the corresponding risk indicator. This event is triggered because Citrix Receiver has no sign-in records from this new and unfamiliar device. Similarly, Citrix Gateway detects access threats based on access from a new IP address and triggers the corresponding risk indicator. This event is triggered because Citrix Receiver has no sign-in records from this new IP address.
A sign-in from a suspicious IP address will also trigger risk indicators under the following conditions:
- Is listed on the external IP threat intelligence feed
- Has multiple user sign-in records from an unusual location
- Has excessive failed sign-in attempts that might indicate a brute-force attack
Rounding things out, administrators can now easily remove users from the watch list, either manually or via a policy. As always, be sure to check out our What’s New page in the Citrix Analytics documentation.
Security
FAS for Workspace
A core part of the Citrix DNA is the delivery of virtual apps and desktops to our customers. With Citrix Workspace, end users can access everything they need to get work done, including their virtual apps and desktops.
Many Citrix customers have adopted Azure Active Directory and are using it as their modern identity management system for access to Citrix Workspace. But, many of these customers still have on-premises Active Directory domains and at lot of their virtual apps and desktops are joined to the domain. In this scenario, end users would be required to re-enter their password to launch a virtual app or desktop, even after authenticating into Citrix Workspace. This creates a challenge for many organizations looking to create a true SSO experience. Organizations that want to adopt password-free access would be unable to deliver Citrix Workspace to their users.
The Federated Authentication Service (FAS) for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops solves this challenge for on-premises deployments because it must fully trust StoreFront to assert the user identity, and the StoreFront itself must be joined. We’re pleased to announce that FAS has been updated to support Cloud StoreFront to enable true single sign-on for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops through Citrix Workspace. It’s now in tech preview for Citrix Workspace customers. Learn more about FAS for Citrix Workspace in this blog post and this Tech Insight video.
Optimization for Microsoft Teams Now GA
Earlier this year, we introduced Microsoft Teams optimization with Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 1906. While the VDA component for the optimization for Teams was released, we are excited to announce that the compatible Microsoft Teams client for optimization is now available. Now with Citrix Optimization for Microsoft Teams, customers can deliver a fully native, fully featured Microsoft Teams experience within Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops. This is a continuation of the Realtime Optimization Pack for Skype for Business. Customers can also expect to see HDX Teams Optimization in the upcoming LTSR VDA release.
Because Microsoft Teams is bundled into Office 365, businesses that are on, or are migrating to, Office 365 can use the full Teams capabilities within their virtual environment. This optimization is dependent upon a future Microsoft release of Teams. Take advantage of the collaboration tools, app integration, and file storage capabilities included with Teams and that are now optimized with Citrix. Read more on the Optimization for Microsoft Teams in our dedicated product documentation.
A Great Year Is Ahead!
As you wrap up your annual planning, I hope you’re as excited as we are for 2020. Many of the customers I’ve spoken with are reassessing their workplace strategies and thinking through the impact technology has on employee experience. It’s time to give workers what they really need so they can do their best work. It’s time for an employee experience as seamless as the consumer experiences we’ve grown to love and expect. I look forward to sharing with you even more Citrix Workspace news in 2020 to help you transform your employee experience.
And if you haven’t seen it already, check out our recent webinar on the tie between modern digital workspaces and employee experience. In it you’ll gain detailed insights on:
- Why your company’s success hinges on great employee experiences and the engagement and productivity they bring
- How the right technology is a huge contributing factor to better business outcomes
- Why all digital workspaces aren’t created equal
Access the on-demand webinar today!
