Archives: FAQs

Power cuts out without warning.  Device batteries die. The Wi-Fi connection gives up the ghost — all these things happen, and Apporto is prepared for them.

When a user’s session unexpectedly ends, Apporto’s servers keep it live for an additional 30 minutes (from when the connection was lost).  So a brief interruption is no problem; users can just pick up where they left off.

If the interruption is longer than 30 minutes, the server will close the session.  However, all data is automatically backed up in our Cloud storage, so the user won’t lose anything.

We’d love to hear them!  Send us an email at [email protected] or give us a shout through our customer service contact form and we’ll consider your request.  You won’t get a free t-shirt if we use it, but you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing you’re helping to make us even more useful and user-friendly.

Oh dear!  Contact our support team — by phone at 1(877)751-4081, email, or our online customer service support form — and we’ll squash it for you.  Please give us a detailed description of the problem, including when it occurred and what happened.  Our engineers will get right to figuring it out, and you’ll earn our deep thanks for helping us make Apporto even better.

Good to know:  If you contact us during normal business hours, we usually respond within a four-hour window.

First of all, we’ll let you know when we plan to temporarily suspend Apporto for maintenance or upgrades — and we usually do this during the slowest service times.  

When you sign up with Apporto, you’ll be given a detailed, customized Disaster Recovery Plan and a detailed, customized Business Continuity Plan, which contains contact information for our team’s top troubleshooters.  In the event of a catastrophic failure, consult the appropriate plan and contact the person(s) mentioned.

If your service is temporarily down or interrupted, file a support ticket as described above.  We’ll usually be in touch within a few hours (with the exception of weekends and holidays, in which case you’ll hear from us on the next business day.)

There are several ways to manage licenses with Apporto.  Our service can be integrated with your existing license managers during the implementation process.  You can also manage licenses directly within Apporto by clicking the “Licenses” screen in the admin dashboard.  This works if, for example, you want to limit the number of concurrent users for a specific app.

If you’re using an external license key server, we can set up a VPN between Apporto and that server to manage the licenses directly.

And yes, you can use your existing licenses with Apporto.  We’ll manage that during the implementation phase — it’s all part of our service.

We started Apporto in 2014 because we saw a gap in the IT marketplace. People wanted near-constant access to their desktops or applications. To be blunt, the existing options weren’t awesome. VDI, XenApp, and other traditional solutions were expensive. They were complicated. And worse, they often provided a poor experience to end users.

We thought there had to be a better way. A way that allowed people to use their apps and desktops no matter where they were or what device they used.

And that’s how Apporto was born. We built our service to be available anytime, anywhere. And we designed it to deliver a simple yet awesome user experience!

Apporto is based in the heart of Silicon Valley. We’re a dynamic, lean team that is dedicated to carrying out our mission to unshackle users from their desks, freeing them to access whatever apps they need wherever they are.

Where do we start? There are many things that make Apporto different from other virtualization providers. Here are the things we’re especially proud of:

• We’re Cloud-native. We didn’t have to adapt to using the Cloud; our whole business was designed to utilize cutting-edge technology.

• We’re dynamic in a lot of ways. Our autoscaling algorithms automatically manage resources to provide the best user experience in the most efficient way. And this translates into considerable cost savings for our customers, too.

• Everything in Apporto happens in the browser, from administrative tasks to actual app use. Unless you’re looking at native app delivery (which we’ll discuss later), Apporto doesn’t require the installation of any additional programs or plugins. If you’ve got a browser that supports HTML5, you’re good to go.

• We’re all about keeping it simple. This includes administrative duties; these can all be performed from an intuitive dashboard. And we like simplicity so much, we even do the maintenance, user support, and routine service ourselves. It doesn’t get much simpler than that!

• We provide role-based analytics to all of our users. This allows people to look at the statistics relevant to their job or function without wading through a bunch of unrelated info.

• We also offer multiple virtualization techniques, including thrifty container-based virtualization, flexible OS virtualization, and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI).

• We support both Windows and Linux desktops from just one platform.

Apporto works a lot like a utility: it streams virtual desktops and apps to browsers. It’s Cloud-based, so there’s no onsite hardware or infrastructure to worry about. Our team takes care of the tedious stuff (monitoring, backup, patching, etc.) while your team simply makes sure that your end users have access to the right virtual desktops and apps.

That’s it. No muss, no fuss. For more info, try a free 30-day pilot or contact us and we’ll be glad to answer your questions.

Yes. Apporto can deliver full Windows and Linux desktops on any device. And unlike many other desktop streaming options, we support persistent, Cloud-based profiles. They are easier to use, always accessible, and they reduce the risk of lost user data.

We use two techniques to deliver apps and desktops:

• Streaming. Apps or desktops run on a Cloud-based server; the UI is streamed to the end user’s browser.

• Native delivery. Apps are downloaded and installed directly on the end user’s device.

Some customers just stream virtual desktops and apps; others use both streaming and native delivery to support all their use cases.

For example, a researcher may have limited Internet access while “in the field” and may need an installed app; university students usually have Internet access and can use a streaming app.

Any device running an HTML5 browser can stream an app. PCs, Macs, iPads, iPhones, Android devices, and Linux computers – it’s all fine with us.

Good to know: Many streaming apps are designed for full-size screens, so users with larger screens will get the best experience.

We’ve designed Apporto to integrate with your organization’s Single Sign On or Active Directory service. After implementing Apporto, IT admins simply access the app store through a browser and get to work. Admins can manage the Apporto service as described in the next question. They can also look at usage analytics and set permissions for subadmins.

Apporto uses your existing hierarchy of groups, users, and devices to manage access to apps. This means that you can control access using very broad (e.g. all employees, all managers, etc.) or very granular (e.g. this job role, these devices) levels.

And we’ve kept the process as simple as possible: during the initial setup, Apporto’s integration module imports your AD or SSO hierarchy and uses that to establish groups. You can also manually create groups and/or users and specify their access rights.

As far as Apporto is concerned, all devices (whether domain members or not) live in the Cloud as one big connected family. Any device that’s authorized on the Apporto service and is connected to the Internet can access the Apporto app store.

Good to know: An HTTPS connection is used for all connections. This ensures that your data is always safe.

Nope. They just have to be online. On network, off network, across the lobby or across the world – it doesn’t matter to Apporto.

Any way you like.

Apporto supports an unlimited hierarchical organization. Groups can contain one or more individuals as well as multiple groups. (E.g. An “employees” group would also include the “management”, “IT”, and “sales” groups.) You can adjust group members as needed from the administration dashboard.

Yes. Individual users can access all the apps for all the groups they are in.

Some customers prefer to virtualize their software. In that case, we give them access to a dev server with full admin rights. They can install their software, configure it, etc. Once this setup process is finished, the image is moved to our autoscaling environment.

Alternatively, customers can ask us to do the virtualization; we’ve probably virtualized that software for another organization. We provide this service at no extra charge.

No, all are included in our service package.

Our written security policies are provided in the customized Business Continuity, Disaster Recovery, and Incident Response Plans we provide to our customers.  We review these policies every 90 days, and we continually monitor and assess our system’s security and performance.

All connections to the Apporto service take place over secure HTTPS. Plus, each organization’s information is stored separately, and we utilize private tunnels between our Cloud servers and your company as an additional safety measure.  Finally, we use only SOC-3 compliant service providers like Amazon and Microsoft to host our servers.

When using SSO, we do not store end users’ personal information.  All user files are automatically backed up in our Cloud server, and each organization’s data is kept separate from that of our other customers.

We do not share user information with third parties, and no U.S. user data is sent outside of the U.S.

Every user connection to Apporto uses HTTPS Secure.  Connections from Apporto to an organization use Site-to-Site VPN (IPsec) to maintain security.  We can encrypt users data on the virtual storage if requested.

First, users need a device — any device that has an HTML5-supporting browser will do.  Nearly all standard and mobile browsers — including Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Microsoft Explorer and Edge, and Mozilla Firefox support HTML5.

Secondly, users need an Internet connection.  And thirdly, they need to be authorized on your organization’s Apporto service.

Users just need to be provisioned through your organization. This can be done in a number of ways:
1) SSO integration (SAML, Shibboleth etc)
2) LDAP integration, and/or
3) Directly provisioned in the Apporto service.
Once you have added a user to the Apporto service and assigned them one or more apps, they’re good to go. You can choose to send them an email notifying them that they have been added to the service.

Yes.  Admins can set per-user storage amounts when they set up or change a user group within the Apporto service.  Up to 30 GB can be allotted to each user. No user data is lost when their allotments change.

Yes.  Organizations can choose between GPU and non-GPU environments, according to the requirements of their users.

Since Apporto is browser-based, users can use whatever mice, speakers, etc. that work with their device.  Users can also print from Apporto using either a Cloud printing service, a local printer connected to the device, or via PDF.

Apporto also supports the use of microphones and video through the browser.  

Yes, and in several different ways:

• Users can save their work to a PDF file and then print it on any local printer accessible from their device.

• If a VPN is set up between the Apporto service and the organization’s network, users can print directly to mapped network printers using the virtualized app’s print functions.

• Users can upload their files to a web-based print service.  The service will then print these files on a local machine.

True to our Cloud-based roots, the Apporto service is available anywhere in the world — well, anywhere with reasonably good Internet service.  We currently have customers in four continents (Asia, South America, North America, and Europe) and all over the United States. How do we do it? We locate server facilities near the customer and use those to provide their service.

End users can be located anywhere with Internet.  The only potential drawback is if the user is at a geographic distance from their organization’s Apporto server.  In this case, the service will still work, but the user may experience some delays (e.g. waiting a few seconds for a page to load or an action to be performed.)

DSL, fiber optic, cable, cellular (4G and up), and fixed wireless connections can all support Apporto’s service. Older cellular connections can also work with Apporto, but speed and/or latency problems can really reduce the user experience.

Because of high network latencies, a dial-up Internet connection or a satellite connection are not recommended for use with Apporto.  

That’s totally up to the admins in charge.  If the user’s email program is included in the virtual desktop image, that user can use email as they normally would.  But if admins don’t include an email client (or if they block email websites from the browser), then users will not be able to access their emails.