As a product manager at Citrix, I interact with customers from industries of varying scale. Almost every customer I speak with tells me that their organization is now prioritizing employee experience and that the Citrix Workspace experience fits with their organizational priorities. It comes as no surprise that so many Citrix customers have transitioned, or are in the process of transitioning, to Citrix Workspace from traditional Citrix StoreFront deployments. That’s why we’re making it easier than ever to help with this move.
As an IT admin, when you are transitioning end users from StoreFront to Citrix Workspace, most of your end users probably have a StoreFront store added to the Citrix Workspace app on their endpoints. You might opt to have both the StoreFront store and the Citrix Workspace store added to the Citrix Workspace app on the end users’ device simultaneously for a limited time during the transition. This involves a bit of a learning curve for the users. Admins often send out emails with instructions on how to add a Citrix Workspace store to Citrix Workspace app and how to switch between Storefront and Citrix Workspace.
This can be a lot of back and forth for users and administrators.
That’s why we built a feature that eliminates the friction. The StoreFront to Workspace URL migration feature enables you to seamlessly migrate end users from a StoreFront store to a Citrix Workspace store with minimal user interaction.
So, how does the feature work?
To enable StoreFront to Workspace URL migration, we have leveraged the Citrix Global App Configuration Service. The Global App Configuration Service for Citrix Workspace enables a Citrix administrator to deliver Workspace service URLs and Workspace app settings through a centrally managed service. Learn more about the Global App Configuration Service.
What if all your end users have a StoreFront store storefront.com added to their Workspace app? As an administrator, you can configure Storefront URL to Workspace URL mapping {‘storefront.com’:’xyz.cloud.com’} in the Global App Configuration Service. The Global App Configuration Service pushes the setting to all Citrix Workspace app instances, on both managed and unmanaged devices, that have the StoreFront URL storefront.com added.
Once the setting is detected, Citrix Workspace app adds the mapped Workspace URL xyz.cloud.com as another store.
Complete configuration details are available here.
What does the end user see?
When an end user (who has only the StoreFront store storefront.com added to Citrix Workspace app) launches Citrix Workspace app, the following screen appears.
When the user clicks Switch to Citrix Workspace now, the Workspace URL is added to Citrix Workspace app, and the user is asked to authenticate to Workspace. Users have a limited option to delay this transition up to three times.
The previously added StoreFront store storefront.com remains added to the Workspace app. Users can always switch back to the StoreFront store storefront.com using the Switch Accounts option in the Workspace app.
The user is onboarded with a guided tour that walks the user through all the capabilities of Citrix Workspace. Steps to switch back to the StoreFront store (if the need arises) are also presented as part of the tour. The end user flow is as shown below.
The feature allows both StoreFront and Workspace stores to be added to the Workspace app simultaneously. However, at some point you’ll want users to completely transition to Workspace. You’ll need to remove the StoreFront store from the Workspace app on end-user devices. You can control when to remove the StoreFront store storefront.com from the Workspace app on users’ end points by using another setting provided in the Global App Configuration Service.
Ready to try it out?
This feature is currently available as a preview on Citrix Workspace app for Windows. Download the latest Citrix Workspace app for Windows here. You can also check out the complete feature details. We would be happy to hear your thoughts on the preview. Please provide your feedback about the feature here.
