Hello and welcome to the training module “XenApp and XenDesktop 7.

12 Product Release
Training”. My name is Rod Haanappel; I am a Senior Readiness Specialist on the Worldwide
Support Readiness team. Please use the Menu tab on the left to navigate between topics, and
view a transcription of the narration using the Notes tab on the left. Narration can be paused
and resumed using the play control below while the previous and next buttons will transition
from slide to slide.

While progressing through this module you will find references to specific technical
resources. Support engineers will find these resources particularly useful as they constitute a
deeper technical dive into the feature being presented. All technical material referenced in
this module can accessed by returning to this course’s home page on the Enablement
website.

Let’s begin!

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 This is Module 1 of the New Features in XenApp/XenDesktop 7.12. This module focuses on
the new Citrix Director enhancements including: Custom Reporting, integration of Director
Alert Policy notifications with Simple Network Management Protocol, and user-friendly
failure reason descriptions. By the end of this module you will be able to describe the
improvements made to Citrix Director and demonstrate how to configure them.

Prior to taking this course you should have completed the courses indicated in the Pre-
requisites section.

You will be required to complete a final assessment. The minimum passing score is 80%. This
course has been designed for Technical Support Engineers. It should take you approximately
20 minutes to complete the course.

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 By the end of this module, you will be able to:
• Describe the improvements made to Citrix Director and demonstrate how to configure
them.

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 Director has proven to be an essential monitoring and health check tool for help desk
technicians and administrators supporting Citrix environments.
XenApp and XenDesktop 7.12 introduces several improvements such as increasing the
maximum reporting period for Citrix Enterprise Edition users, providing user-friendly
troubleshooting descriptions and recommended actions for failures, the ability to easily
generate custom reports in CSV format, and now SNMP traps can be integrated into Citrix
Director alerts using PowerShell cmdlets.

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 Citrix Enterprise License Edition users can now select a “Time period” value of up to “Last
month” when creating reports in Director’s Trends view. Previously, the value was “Last 7
days” for Enterprise users.

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 The maximum “Time Period” that can be selected in Trend reports for the different Citrix
product license versions are shown in the table, with the Enterprise Edition changes
highlighted.

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 Director now has user-friendly connection and machine failure descriptions.
There are a couple of ways in Director for Citrix administrators to drill down to the “Failure
Reason” when Connection and Machine failures occur in a Citrix environment. The first
method is to click on the failure once it appears in the expanded Notifications bar. This will
automatically display the problem in the Filters view..

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 Another method is to use the Filters view directly to drill down to the failure.

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 However you arrive, the Failure Reason will be shown in the Filters view table.

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 From XenApp/XenDesktop 7.12, the “Failure Reason” is clickable, and linked to a user-friendly
troubleshooting description, as well as a set of Recommended Actions.

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 The additional user-friendly information helps the administrator to more efficiently
troubleshoot issues by narrowing down to one of the possible causes of an issue; which can
greatly help troubleshooting failed connections, Desktop OS VDA issues, and Server OS VDA
issues.

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 There is now a new Custom Reports tab in the Trends view.
Note that this feature is available only to those with XenApp or XenDesktop Platinum
licenses.
Using the user interface it is now possible to create customized reports in CSV format.
Previously, an administrator would have been required to write OData queries to extract real-
time and historical data available in the Monitoring database.
To create a Custom Report, click on the Custom Report button, then click on the Custom
Query radio button.

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 Then click on the Custom Query radio button.

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 Specify the details of the Custom Report you want to create. You can create a new Custom
Report query based on machines, connections, sessions, or application instances. At the
bottom of the page there is a button to Preview the report.

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 At the bottom of the page there is a button to Preview the report.
This is useful for making sure that the correct query details have been entered and that all
desired Output Columns have been added.

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 Clicking the Save button will add the query as a Custom Report. Notice here that the
administrator can “Execute” the report. This action creates the CSV file, in other words the
report itself, which can then be opened in Microsoft Office Excel for instance.
Notice also that there is the option to “Copy OData”. The OData query information built in the
background from the Custom Query, and is useful for sharing.

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 While we’re discussing building reports using OData queries, administrators are still able to
do this by selecting “OData Query” instead of “Custom Query” when creating reports. This
method of creating OData-based reports is much easier than using previous methods, such as
the “Pivot Table” method in Office Excel.

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 Once saved, the new “OData Query” report is added to the list of created Custom Reports.

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 Citrix Director now integrates Director Alert Policy notifications with Simple Network
Management Protocol (or SNMP), a standard protocol for network management. You can
configure a Director Alert Policy to send an SNMP trap message when the alert is triggered.
The SNMP trap message is then forwarded to the SNMP listener. There are many 3rd-party
SNMP listener products available that are capable of accepting the SNMP trap for further
processing.
Currently, the SNMP trap message can only be configured to be sent to one listener.

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 Click on each tab to see how Administrators use cmdlets to configure SNMP traps for Director
Alerts.

Tab 1: Configure the connection

Tab 2: Retrieve SNMP listener configuration
Tab 3: Enable a SNMP trap for an existing policy
Tab 4: Configure a SNMP trap for a new Director Alert policy

Please refer to the “Configure Director Alerts Policies with SNMP traps” document in the
Additional Resources pane for the syntax and parameter information required to set up
Director Alert Policies for SNMP notifications, as well as a component diagram.

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 Tab 1: Configure the connection
SNMP alerting in Director is configured using PowerShell on a Delivery Controller.
• Configure the connection to the SNMP listener with the set-
MonitorNotificationSnmpServerConfiguration cmdlet.
o This needs to be done before any Director Alert Policy can be enabled for sending SNMP trap
messages to the SNMP listener.

Tab 2: Retrieve SNMP listener configuration

SNMP alerting in Director is configured using PowerShell on a Delivery Controller.
• Retrieve the SNMP listener configuration with the new Get-
MonitorNotificationSnmpServerConfiguration cmdlet.

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 Tab 3: Enable a SNMP trap for an existing policy
SNMP alerting in Director is configured using PowerShell on a Delivery Controller.
• Enable a SNMP trap for an existing Director Alert Policy with the Set-
MonitorNotificationPolicy cmdlet.
o This cmdlet takes an existing Director Alert Policy and configures the alert to send the SNMP
trap to the SNMP listener using a new -IsSnmpEnabled parameter.

Tab 4: Configure a SNMP trap for a new Director Alert policy

SNMP alerting in Director is configured using PowerShell on a Delivery Controller.
• Create a new Director Alert Policy with the SNMP trap configuration with the New-
MonitorNotificationPolicy
o This cmdlet also uses the new -IsSnmpEnabled parameter.

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 With the 7.12 improvements to Citrix Director, administrators can now create CSV format
customised reports, in addition to just viewing customisable reports in the Trends view.
Administrators and help-desk engineers now have the benefit of user-friendly failure reason
descriptions which provide both possible causes and recommended actions. Enterprise
Edition users now have access to 31 days of historical data; up from 7 days in XenApp and
XenDesktop versions prior to 7.12. And finally, Director Alerts can be configured in
PowerShell to send SNMP trap messages to a SNMP listener when the Director Alert is
triggered.

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 Enterprise Edition users can now produce historical reports going back 7 days.
Help desk support engineers now have better guidance when troubleshooting failures
through user-friendly failure descriptions.
Because of the new Custom Reports feature, no longer do administrators have to deal with
the complexity of OData pivot tables in Excel.
And finally, Director Alerts can be integrated with SNMP traps.

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The Supportability team uses the component field in Salesforce to improve Product Quality,
identify top issues and drive Problems of Interest (POI), in addition to improving product
fixes, and troubleshooting tools. [1] It is important that cases are coded correctly, so
initiatives can be aimed at solving the most pervasive problems facing our customers.

How can you help?

If you believe a component is missing that leads to the selection of “No Applicable
Component,” or if you have questions regarding components and/or problem types, please
reach out to your local Supportability representative.

Windows App Delivery: Kimberly Ferrie, Chetan Thakker, Bjorn Paulson;

#Support_Supportability_Windows_App_Delivery_Team

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With the release of XenApp/XenDesktop 7.12, a new versioning scheme is used to identify
XenApp/XenDesktop and additional components. When coding cases where
XenApp/XenDesktop 7.12 is in use, be sure to select the appropriate version (7.12).

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