Citrix Workspace brings your applications and desktop to any device. But what should you do when you also want to bring together other document solutions (like your file server and Office 365), social feeds, other web, local and hosted applications and other sources of information? For this purpose, we offer the possibility to integrate Citrix in Workspace 365. Below I’ve listed several reasons to integrate Citrix in the digital workspace.
Why integrate Citrix in Workspace 365?
More and more applications are moving to the browser. That is why a decreasing number of people need a complete remote desktop solution. For this reason, you would want to offer a digital workspace based on the role of an employee. This could mean that you offer 20% of the employees a hybrid workspace (Citrix + Fileserver + Office 365 + Workspace 365), while the remaining 80% of the employees is happy with a complete cloud workspace (Office 365 + web apps + Workspace 365).
In the video above I show you how Citrix is integrated in Workspace 365 in such a way that everyone still experiences the same user convenience. People can reach both web and hosted applications, all information, applications and files with just one login and one click.
Why is one single login to Citrix applications important?
At many organisations, reaching applications is, unfortunately, not optimally set up. Recently, I was visiting a future customer. There an employee showed me that they, at that moment, still had to log in to a web portal (like Office 365 or an intranet), to subsequently download a Citrix client from there, start the remote desktop and after that log in again with other login information, to finally being able to start the application. The employee did not find this pleasant, as it distracted her from her main activities. From the Workspace 365 environment they will soon open the desired application with just one click, without an additional login.
Bring together Office 365, fileserver and Citrix Workspace
Most organisations have been working on a cloud strategy for years. In this strategy they’ve often already chosen to use Office 365 for the e-mail and file storage. These organisations are looking for a digital workspace in which they can, besides the new cloud services, also integrate their remote desktop (like Citrix Workspace) and file server. By integrating these services, they will be capable to innovate and transition to a new workspace more quickly, while being able to maintain the older technologies for those who need it. Besides that, Workspace 365 is independent from the underlying technology, so companies can choose for themselves if they want to use Citrix Workspace, Clientless RDP, Exchange, Office 365, etc.
From application to information
When we started developing the digital workspace Workspace 365, in 2010, we noticed that organisations found it important to provide access to applications from any device. For this reason, all applications (web, local and hosted) are accessible with just one click and you’re able to set up multi-factor authentication for the workspace and push applications to users and user groups. Later we added the possibility to set up conditional access, so, you’re able to help people protect sensitive data based on their network, device or browser type.
However, we noticed that the demand is shifting to accessing information. That is why it is easy to integrate web content such as videos, statistics, Google Maps (through iFrames) in Workspace 365. By making contacts, social feeds and news centrally accessible, people are better capable to focus on their main activities.
The next steps we’re making is enclosing actions towards third-party applications. With Workspace 365 Business Apps you will have the possibility to simplify specific business processes by linking them to live tiles in the workspace. Consequently, someone can, for instance, record a new lead in their CRM system, straight from the workspace.
How do I integrate Citrix in Workspace 365?
Naturally you’re curious right about now about how Citrix can be integrated in Workspace 365. To help you, we have extensive documentation on our support portal: https://support.workspace365.net/hc/en-us/categories/201565809-Remote-Desktop
Many articles are also written by people from the Citrix User Community about integrating Citrix within Workspace 365: https://www.christiaanbrinkhoff.com/2018/01/05/how-to-configure-workspace-365-to-use-office-365-and-citrix-xenapp-as-application-bridge-through-one-unified-portal/
If you need additional help or information, you can always contact us or one of our partners.
Mark Grasmayer
Product Evangelist
Copyright © 2021 Workspace 365
