Overview
The CAS Applications module allows you to easily publish installed applications for users as either RemoteApps or shortcuts on their Cloud Desktops. Applications are published to Collection Pools, and Collection Pools can be configured to allow access to RemoteApps only or to both RemoteApps and the full Windows desktop.
CAS Applications Module
Within the CAS Admin Console (cas.itopia.com) Applications module, administrators can create and publish applications to users. The behavior of publishing an application depends on the type of Collection Pool:
For Remote Desktop Services (RDS) Collection Pools, the selected application is configured as a RemoteApp and can be launched directly from the Cloud VDI Portal, the RD Web Portal, or the RD Web Client (Refer to End-User Access to Cloud Desktops for more information)
For Windows 10 Collection Pools, a desktop shortcut is created on the users' Windows desktops
Each instance of an application can be published to a single Collection Pool, but multiple instances of the same application can be published. CAS supports published .EXE, .BAT, and .PS1 files as applications; script files will be automatically configured to launch with their respective shell.
By default, an application is published for all users of a Collection Pool; however, administrators can publish the application to a subset of users by selecting specific users or groups.
Publishing an Application
For the example below, we will publish Microsoft Excel as an application for the Finance Collection Pool. We will publish the application only for members of the Office Users security group.
From the CAS Admin Console dashboard, use the left-hand menu to navigate to Cloud Desktops > Applications
On the Cloud Apps screen., click the Create button.
On the Create application screen, configure the following:
Application Name: Microsoft Excel
Version: 2019
Collection Pool: Finance
Application Path: Click Browse. Set Enumerate applications on to a powered-on Session Host for the Collection Pool, and allow some time for the enumeration to complete. When the list of applications is return, select Microsoft Excel 2019 and click Select. You can also manually type/paste the full path to the executable in this field
Publish for users: By default, the application is published for all users assigned to the Collection Pool. To limit the application to only the Office Users security group, check the box next to All Collection Users and click Delete. Then, click Add and select the user or group you wish to assign. You may add multiple assignments
Click Create.
If this Collection Pool is a Remote Desktop Services (RDS) Collection, users will now see Microsoft Excel available to launch as a RemoteApp from the Cloud VDI Portal. If it is a Windows 10 Collection, users will see a desktop shortcut for Microsoft Excel on their remote desktop session.
Considerations
Currently, publishing an application to a subset of users does not prevent other users from launching the application; any user that is assigned to the Collection Pool may be able to launch the application using other means (such as a Start menu shortcut or Windows Explorer). To prevent users from launching an application, itopia recommends using AppLocker, an included feature in recent versions of Windows. Learn more about AppLocker in our Helpcenter article Restricting Application Access Using AppLocker.
Published applications must already be present on all Session Hosts in the selected Collection Pool. Publishing an application does not install the application; administrators must either include the application in the Collection's OS image or use a package management solution to ensure the application is installed on Session Hosts.
An application may be published to multiple Collection Pools. Each instance of an application can only be assigned to a single Collection Pool, but multiple instance of the same application can be created in the Applications module, each published to a different Collection Pool.