Admin Experience

Feature

Benefit

Image Creation & Deployment

While Apporto provides desktops as a service (including software installation and server management), we also offer tools that enable you to install software, create and deploy images – if you want to do this in house.

In the December Release, we introduced these tools for instances running on AWS. In the June Release, we have made several enhancements to the workflow and added support for instances running on Azure. 

Desktop Variants

For Admins who want to install software and create Windows desktops, we are introducing a feature called Desktop Variants to make this easy.  

First, all software applications are installed on a “base” desktop (eg. SolidWorks, MatLab, SPSS, etc.).  Installation can be done by Apporto or by your Admin.  Then, you may create variations of this desktop (eg. “Math Desktop” with Matlab, etc.).  Behind the scenes, other applications (eg. SolidWorks and SPSS) are masked so only relevant applications (eg. Matlab) are accessible on the particular desktop variant.

The process has four steps:
 

• Install all necessary software
• Create and deploy the image to production servers
• Create desktop variants
• Publish desktop variants to the relevant groups of users

Remote Apps

For very secure environments in which you want to provide access to a specific application (and no others), remote apps are a good solution.  Unlike desktops, only the application is streamed.  

For Admins who want to create Remote Apps, we have enhanced the application creation process.  The process is similar to Desktop Variants, except you may select only one application instead of multiple. 

In the December Release, we introduced support for LTI 1.3 integrations with Canvas and Blackboard.  This enables students to easily launch Apporto from the LMS.  Courses and sections in the LMS become groups in Apporto, enabling use of features like the virtual classroom, messenger, and faculty dashboard.

For the June Release, we’ve added two features to minimize administration:

•  Automatic creation of custom roles in Apporto.  For example, if a user is a faculty in Canvas for Math 101 Section A, the user will be a faculty in Apporto with permissions to Section A of Math 101.  (This will enable faculty users to launch Apporto from Canvas and start the virtual classroom – without Admins having to manually create custom roles in Apporto.)
    
• Ability to publish at the sub-account level for Canvas integrations.  For customers who use sub-accounts in Canvas (often this is to distinguish different schools, like school of engineering, etc.), the sub-account will be created as a top-tier group in Apporto.  In this case, the group hierarchy will be sub-account -> course -> section.  Publishing can be done at any level in the hierarchy, but ability to publish at the sub-account level will save time if you have 1000’s of courses and your desktops tend to align with various schools (eg. engineering desktop, architecture desktop, and so on.)

Enhancements and bug fixes:

• More responsive search in the Users screen (we removed page refreshes)
• Concurrent user threshold notification email for streamed applications and desktops (previously this feature was limited to native applications)
• Fixed an issue with pre-created accounts when special characters exist in the user’s email
• Ensured events that events scheduled within the next hour show correctly in the calendar

Student / Faculty / Staff Experience

Feature

Benefit

For very secure environments that require all work is done in a virtual desktop, we have enabled video conferencing in the desktop.  This will allow your staff and students to use tools like Teams and Zoom, that require a video camera, to be used within the virtual desktop.

Help Center & Video Tutorials

Created a series of video tutorials geared toward students and faculty.  In each case, there are “Getting started with Apporto” tutorials that provide an overview of relevant features. Additionally, there are “mini-tutorials” with 30-second to 2-min demos of specific features.  All videos are accessible from the Help Center:

https://www.apporto.com/education-helpcenter

We’ve also added a ribbon button (question mark icon) that enables users to access the Help Center from the desktop.

Enhancements and bug fixes:
 

• Fixed an H264 issue to reduce lag / buffering with graphic intensive applications on low end devices
• Ensure sessions end quickly when users close the browser (reducing the possibility of session conflicts when users start new sessions immediately after closing the browser)
• Improved handling students entering and exiting the virtual classroom
• Implemented tools like Rollbar to make it easier to debug issues reported by end users