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CtxUniverse

V4.1

ADMIN GUIDE BY ERIC SÉBASTIEN DÉCHAUX

INFRALOGIC INC. | #412c-1255 Phillips Square, H3B 3G1 MONTREAL, CANADA | 2016-11-08

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Contents

Contents .................................................................................................................................................... 0 Explainer ................................................................................................................................................... 4 User Interface ............................................................................................................................................ 5 CtxUniverse General Workflow ............................................................................................................... 7

1-Inventory module: .................................................................................................................................. 9 1.1 -Adding an application: ................................................................................................................... 9

1.1.1 -History: ................................................................................................................................. 13 1.1.2 -Statistics: ............................................................................................................................... 13

1.2 -Adding a Machine: ...................................................................................................................... 14

1.2.1 -History: ................................................................................................................................. 19 1.2.2 -Applications: ......................................................................................................................... 19 1.2.3 -Statistics: ............................................................................................................................... 20

1.3 -App/Machines: ............................................................................................................................. 21 1.4 -App. Managers:............................................................................................................................ 25 1.5 -Printers: ........................................................................................................................................ 26

2-Configuration module: ......................................................................................................................... 29 2.1 -Creating your Citrix infrastructure topology: .............................................................................. 29

2.2 -Managing your vDisk images and the versioning: ...................................................................... 34 2.2.1 -Creating a new version: ........................................................................................................ 35 2.2.2 -Deleting a version: ................................................................................................................ 38

2.2.3 -Merging versions: ................................................................................................................. 39 2.2.4 -Image history: ....................................................................................................................... 42

2.2.5 -Image statistics: .................................................................................................................... 44 2.2.6 -Image business rules: ............................................................................................................ 44

2.3 -Ticket and Incidents about the infrastructure: ............................................................................. 45

2.3.1 -Calendar tab: ......................................................................................................................... 49

2.3.2 -Incident statistics: ................................................................................................................. 50 2.4 -Configuration Change and Project Management: ........................................................................ 51

2.4.1 -Creating a new project: ......................................................................................................... 52

2.4.2 -Creating a new config. change: ............................................................................................ 56 2.5 -Logon Control:............................................................................................................................. 64

2.6 -System Refresh: ........................................................................................................................... 67 2.7 -License Management: .................................................................................................................. 71

3-Request module: .................................................................................................................................. 73 3.1 -Creating a Business Case: ............................................................................................................ 73 3.2 -Managing Change Request: ......................................................................................................... 80

3.2.1 -Creating a new change request: ............................................................................................ 82

3.2.2 -Specificity of other change request type: .............................................................................. 89 3.2.3 -Change Request history: ..................................................................................................... 102

3.3 -Creating a vDisk Request: ......................................................................................................... 103

3.4 -The Change Committee: ............................................................................................................ 107 4-Citrix Release module: ...................................................................................................................... 109

4.1 –Citrix Release, the core of the application: ............................................................................... 109 4.2 -The Citrix Release list: .............................................................................................................. 110 4.3 -Changing the status of a Citrix Release: .................................................................................... 111 4.4 -Creating a new Citrix Release: .................................................................................................. 111

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4.5 -Release logs and statistics: ......................................................................................................... 117 4.6 -Release Status view: .................................................................................................................. 118

4.7 -Change committee approving Change Requests: ...................................................................... 119 4.8 -Starting the testing phase: .......................................................................................................... 122

4.8.1 -Assigning a tester to a Change Request:............................................................................. 122

4.8.2 -Steps to complete install document: ................................................................................... 124 4.8.3 -Steps to complete test documents: ...................................................................................... 127 4.8.4 -How the test/install documents are built: ............................................................................ 129 4.8.5 -Change Request progress: ................................................................................................... 132

4.9 -Completing a Change Request: ................................................................................................. 134

4.10 -Regression testing: ................................................................................................................... 137 4.11 -Release meeting: ...................................................................................................................... 138 4.12 -Release workflow explained: ................................................................................................... 144 4.13 -Team Dashboard: ..................................................................................................................... 145 4.14 -vDisk application list: .............................................................................................................. 148

4.15 -Manually adding software to a vDisk: ..................................................................................... 148

4.16 -Release Calendar: .................................................................................................................... 150 5-Problem Management module: .......................................................................................................... 151

5.1 -Problem management view: ...................................................................................................... 151 5.2 -Opening a new problem: ............................................................................................................ 152 5.3 -Post Implementation Change Request: ...................................................................................... 156

6-Calendar module: ............................................................................................................................... 157 6.1 -Calendar view: ........................................................................................................................... 157

7-Timeline module: ............................................................................................................................... 159 7.1 -Timeline view: ........................................................................................................................... 159

8-Security Officer module: ................................................................................................................... 160

8.1 -Security Officer view: ................................................................................................................ 160

8.2 -Creating a new Security Request: .............................................................................................. 161

8.3 -Specificity of other Security Request Type: .............................................................................. 163 8.4 -Security Officer Statistics: ......................................................................................................... 165

9-Dashboard module: ............................................................................................................................ 166 9.1 -Dashboard view: ........................................................................................................................ 166

10-User Profile module: ........................................................................................................................ 168

10.1 -My account: ............................................................................................................................. 168 10.1.1 -Profile: .............................................................................................................................. 168 10.1.2 -Activity Feed: ................................................................................................................... 170 10.1.3 -Friends: ............................................................................................................................. 171 10.1.4 -Settings: ............................................................................................................................ 171

10.1.5 -Free Days: ......................................................................................................................... 171 10.2 -Notifications: ........................................................................................................................... 174

10.3 -Tasks: ....................................................................................................................................... 176 11-Admin panel module: ...................................................................................................................... 178

11.1 -App config: .............................................................................................................................. 178 11.1.1 -Modules config: ................................................................................................................ 180 11.1.2 -Geo locations: ................................................................................................................... 221 11.1.3 -DCO config:...................................................................................................................... 227 11.1.4 -Teams management: ......................................................................................................... 229 11.1.5 -CtxUniverse License: ........................................................................................................ 232

11.2 -Users management: .................................................................................................................. 233

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11.2.1 -Creating a user account: .................................................................................................... 234 11.2.2 -Deactivating a user account: ............................................................................................. 236

11.2.3 -Reset a user password: ...................................................................................................... 237 11.2.4 -Add/remove a role to a user: ............................................................................................. 238

11.3 -Human resources: .................................................................................................................... 240

11.4 -Stats & Reports: ....................................................................................................................... 243 11.5 -Roles & Authorizations: .......................................................................................................... 245

11.5.1 -How security works: ......................................................................................................... 245 11.5.2 -Roles and authorizations spreadsheets: ............................................................................ 246

12-Post-installation: .............................................................................................................................. 249

12.1 -Filling customized information: .............................................................................................. 249 12.2 -Importing your existing information into CtxUniverse CMDB: ............................................. 250

13-Faq: .................................................................................................................................................. 253

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Explainer

To make this document readable we may have fixed some copy screens or we may have taken only a

part of the window. We may also have modified fields size to get you beautiful and non-blurry copy

screens that would perfectly fit into the Word/PDF margin pages.

!!!WORKFLOW: explain how the workflow works

!!!: pay attention, very important

!!! Business rule: explain how CtxUniverse works in a specific module

: action item

check chapter 11.1.1.3 Applications config:

SRQ: Security Officer request

INC: Incident Maintenance

PRJC: Project

CONFG: Configuration Change

LGNC: Logon Control

BUSC: Business Case

CHGR: Change Request

VDKR: vDisk Request

PBR: Problem

REGR: Regression test

LGNC: Logon Control

TOPO: Topology/Images

Release: Release

PBR: Problem

Rme: Release Meeting

Admin: Web admin panel, manage all CtxUniverse settings

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User Interface

CtxUniverse is a web-based tool, it will work with current web navigators such as Google Chrome, IE

and Firefox. The first page is the login page. Please enter your credentials.

If you have forgotten your credentials, you may click on the Forgot password link and your password

will be send to your email.

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Once you are logged-in you can see the main menu bar on the left, composed by the admin panel, all

the CMDB modules and the arrow to collapse the entire menu.

On the top right, you will see the user profile menu, this will be detailed in a dedicated chapter.

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CtxUniverse General Workflow

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1-Inventory module:

1.1 -Adding an application:

Managing your software inventory is very important, having a clean and up-to-date CMDB inventory is

not only time saving but also problem saving. It is even more important with respect to Citrix releases

because you must maintain a trustable and reliable software inventory list to successfully track and

manage change request for your virtual images.

To add a software into the CMDB, you must go to Inventory/Applications

Click on + New application

The * sign before a field means the information is mandatory.

App. Type, Package, Publisher, Vendor, Availability, Service/Sub-service and Requirements are

customizable fields that you may wish to customize in the admin panel.

You may want to check chapter 11.1.1.3 Applications config.

Name your application, then fill-in other information fields as needed. You will be able to enter a lot of

valuable information such as the application type, number of licenses available and renewal date, the

critical level of your application, the requirements, status, the application manager responsible for this

application, if the application is available through an App-V package, if it is an internal development,

etc.…Fill-in as much information as possible to have a strong and detailed CMDB because later you

will be able to run powerful reports based on specific field combination such as -which software have

license expiring in the coming month? -how many software are internal development and packaged

with App-V?

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!!! For the vDisk field you may want to check chapter 4.15 - Manually adding software to a vDisk

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The field App Manager will only list people with the role – Application Manager, for more information

check Chapter 11.5.2 - Roles and authorizations spreadsheets.

Don’t forget to save your document.

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You will also have the possibility to load files into different tabs, for example you may want to load

install or user guides, license key file, procedure, program source, contact list, etc.…

To add a document to an application entry, go to the bottom of the page and click on the desired tab

then click on Add document button

You now have the choice to browse and upload a file or type-in an existing http or UNC path to a

network folder or even a SharePoint server. Give it a short description and Save changes.

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Here you go, your license document file is now attached there:

1.1.1 -History:

In CtxUniverse you’ll be happy to know that we keep track of everything. Every change made in

the CMDB is logged through a special tab, the “History” tab.

Here you will find information such as who added the software entry, who, when and what has

been modified.

1.1.2 -Statistics:

For a live insight on your application statistics! Here you will see useful stats such as application

classified by publisher, application packaged, application critical level and application status.

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1.2 -Adding a Machine:

Managing your machine inventory is very important, having a clean and up-to-date CMDB inventory is

not only time saving but also problem saving. It is even more important with respect to Citrix releases

because you must maintain a trustable and reliable machine inventory list to successfully track and

manage configuration change on your infrastructure.

To add a machine into the CMDB, you must go to Inventory/Machines

Click on + New server

The * sign before a field means the information is mandatory.

Platform, Application, Crit. Level, vCenter, Availability, Service/Sub-service/Location and

DCO/Racks are customizable fields that you may wish to customize in the admin panel.

You may want to check chapter 11.1.1.2 - Machines config and 11.1.3 - DCO config

Name your server, then fill-in other information fields as needed. You will be able to enter a lot of

valuable information such as the server type, if the server is part of the Citrix infra, the Operating

System installed, the kind of server (web, database, application, file, infra), if the server is High

Availability, the server status (active, on hold, move, decommissioned), if it is a virtual server on which

vCenter the server is hosted, if the server has to be monitored, who is the server owner, and where the

host is located…Fill-in as much information as possible to have a stronger CMDB because later you

will be able to run powerful reports based on specific field combination such as -how many physical

server we still have? -how many servers are decommissioned? -how many servers do we have in Paris?

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The field Server Owner will only list people with the role - System Admin (SA). For more information

check Chapter 11.5.2 - Roles and authorizations spreadsheets.

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If you want to setup monitoring for a specific server, you must select Monitoring/YES. Specify what

you want to monitor exactly and the email of the monitoring person/team. Once the form has been

saved, the information will be send to the email you will have specified.

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Be aware that if you choose Server type Virtual and Citrix Yes then you will have a new field

appearing to select on which environment (Citrix env) the server will be connected to.

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You will also have the possibility to load files into different tabs, for example you may want to load

install guides, start/stop server procedure, backup procedure, etc.…

To add a document to an application entry, go to the bottom of the page and click on the desired tab

then click on the Add document button.

You now have the choice to browse and upload a file or type-in an existing http or UNC path to a

network folder or even a SharePoint server. Give it a short description and Save changes.

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1.2.1 -History:

Here you will find information such as who attached a software to the server, who and when the

server entry has been added to the inventory and eventually who, when and what has been modified.

1.2.2 -Applications:

In the Applications tab, you will be able to see which applications are installed on the server and who is

the application manager. If the CMDB information is not correct you may manually remove this

application by clicking on the red trash icon. Be aware that manually adding applications are only

available for physical server or virtual server.

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To add an application entry to a server, just browse through the available list and click the green + icon.

You may directly do a Search if you already know the application name.

1.2.3 -Statistics:

The machine statistics view is very useful; it will give you instant insight on different counters such as

how many Citrix servers do you have? How many are still physical server? What are the machine OS

type and versions? Are the servers well dispatched between the different vCenter host?

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1.3 -App/Machines:

This double view allows to see the application list and on which server a specific application is

installed and the other way the machine view and what applications are installed on a specific server.

This is very useful to quickly get the information you need. For the sake’s of CMDB accuracy you can

detach/add a server from a specific application.

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You may want to detach a server if you have uninstalled the application, click - Detach

If you want to add a server click + Add server then select it from the list and click Save.

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You may also do it the other way from the Machines view but again, this is only possible if the option

is activated in the admin panel. See chapter 11.1.1.2 Machines config.

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For example, here on DWINTCTX01 we will be adding IE11 to the installed app list.

Click on + Add application button then in the list select IE11 and Save changes.

If you go to Inventory/Machines and select the server DWINTCTX01, go to the History tab you’ll see

the modification we just made.

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1.4 -App. Managers:

This menu is useful when you need to quickly find who is responsible for a specific application

(application manager). On the left, you will see the application managers list, just click on a specific

person to load his application list on the right.

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1.5 -Printers:

Get an instant view on your printers from the Inventory/Printers menu. See the status of each printer,

the hostname, IP address, Print Server hostname and IP, the device vendor and the model.

To create a new entry, click on the + New printer icon

Mention the printer hostname, specify if this printer will be attached/used by Citrix servers, specify the

IP and the MAC addresses.

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Mention the device vendor and exact model for your printer. Those two fields are customizable in the

admin panel, you may enter in the admin panel all the vendor names and models that you are using in

your company. Please see chapter 11.1.1.10 Printer config.

It could be useful to specify the serial number as well. If the printer is connected to a Print Server you

may mention the hostname and IP address. Specify the status of the printer, active/on hold/moved or

decommissioned. Mention if you are going to use the universal printer driver if available, the auto

printer creation, if it is a session based printing or if you have the Citrix Universal Print server in place.

Mention the printer owner name from the dropdown list. It will only list people with the role - System

Admin (SA). For more information check Chapter 11.5.2 - Roles and authorizations spreadsheets.

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The Printer Statistics tab will give you some interesting statistic on your printers.

For each printer, you also have access to an history tab that will show you all the modification that

happened on this specific printer.

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2-Configuration module:

2.1 -Creating your Citrix infrastructure topology:

In Topology menu, you will create something exactly like what you have in your real environment by

using environment and images. Here you will create a design view of your Citrix environment. This is

a very important part for your CMDB because the Release Management flow is based on updating

images.

Environment: This is a Citrix environment such as DEV, QA or PROD. It doesn’t have to be one Citrix

farm. For example, some companies have the QA and PROD on the same Citrix farm (same SQL DB)

using the same AD as well. This method facilitates the testing with respect to GPOs and AD accounts.

In this case, you would still have to separate and create an environment for QA and one for PROD but

this is up to you, you could also create your topology depending on your different Citrix Farms.

Image: Once you have created your environment you can attach an image - through a vDisk request

approval first – We will see this process in the next chapter. For now, let’s create an environment.

A Citrix provisioned image can have 3 status, we have reproduced this by using

colors: green for maintenance mode, yellow for the test mode and red for the production.

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To create a new environment, click on + New environment

Give a name to your environment, choose the type of environment, pick up a color for the background

square (for example choose blue for all your DEV env. and red for all your PROD env.). Choose who is

responsible for this environment, give it a short and extended description. Mention if the environment

is hosted on premise in your datacenter, in Azure or in AWS.

The Environment field is a customizable field. To rename entries to fit your own environment naming

convention please check chapter 11.1.1.5 Configuration module.

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Provide the path where your virtual vDisk will be hosted.

Now that you have added a new environment you may want to add images that will be connected to

this environment.

To create a new image, click on + New image

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Of course when creating an image it is created as a base image. CtxUniverse also manages versioning

under Configuration/Images menu. So basically you create your environment and base images on

Configuration/Topology but once created you will be managing your images and versioning under

Configuration/Images menu.

The Allow Edit option gives you the possibility to lock the image information so nobody could edit nor

create other versions over it.

Name your image, it could be the physical image name from your PVS or another name it’s up to you.

Choose the type of image, if you want to create your image in Maintenance, Test or Production mode.

Choose on which environment to attach your image, the dropdown list menu will show you all the

environments you already have created in Topology.

Type in the physical name of your image .vhd file. Give it a short description and an extended if

needed.

Choose the delivery method used for your image, you have choice between Stand Alone, PVS or MCS.

!!! The field Image request is very important, you won’t be able to add a new image if you don’t have a

valid and approved vDisk request. Please check chapter 3.3 - Creating a vDisk Request.

You will only see vDisk request created for the same type of environment (here DEV).

The last information to provide is the image owner name or the person that will be responsible to

maintain and update information. Other information fields linked to this person will show up

automatically. Save the form.

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Once saved you can see that your image has been created and attached to the environment in the

topology view:

If you want to edit/delete an environment you may click on the env link.

!!! You can not delete an environment if you still have images attached to it.

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2.2 -Managing your vDisk images and the versioning:

Through the menu Configuration/Images you see all the available image and their status.

If you click on the + or on Expand all then you will see the different versions (.avhd files) for the

images with versioning.

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Image naming convention has been designed as follow:

Image Name [Vx. y] where x = Base Image Version and y=Version Image Version

Example:

MSSql[V1.0] - Base image

MSSql[V1.2] - Version 2 of Base image V1

If later, you consolidate to a new base image then you will have:

MSSql[V2.0] - Base image now at version 2

MSSql[V2.1] - Version 1 of consolidated Base image now at version 2

The main concept is to be able to keep track of merging history. Base images always start at first

version - V1.0 (initial version) any versions over for this base image will be V1.X

2.2.1 -Creating a new version:

Same as under a provisioned image under Citrix, there is a business rule that denies the creation of a

new image if your actual image is at maintenance status.

So, this is normal if you don’t see the +Add new version button with an image on maintenance mode.

You can do that only with an image on test or production status (yellow or red icon).

To create a new image, under menu Configuration/Images, click on +Add new version button

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!!! Images created here are not created in your infrastructure (it wont create images and versioning in

your PVS), this is not linked but it must reflect perfectly what is currently existing in your infra. The

topology must reproduce your existing environment for the CMDB integrity’s sake.

You don’t have to worry about image number as stated before CtxUniverse will handle that for you.

Type-in a description, specify the type for your new version (maintenance, test or production).

Choose whether your image is to be part of a Citrix Release or if you have a vDisk Request, your

image to be used as test, POC or anything else but not for a release.

If you choose for a Citrix Release then choose for which release it is meant to be attached.

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If you choose vDisk Request, then choose which one has been approved for this image.

Once your image has been created you see it attached to the base image or under another existing

version. In this example, the version 1 becomes not editable and only the version 2 could be edited

(same rule is in place on a provisioned image under Citrix PVS).

You may see all the versions in the base image page as well:

If you want to edit an image or change the status, then click on the link like shown bellow:

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You may edit the description and type of image (once your install has been done you can change it to

test or production mode for example).

2.2.2 -Deleting a version:

You could perfectly delete a version, except if the version is part of an approved ongoing release.

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!!! For integrity’s sake, you can not delete a version that is included in an ongoing release.

However, we kept the possibility to create another version over a version that is being used in a release

because in a release process this might be useful. For example, if you have a problem in DEV and you

need to create a new version to test something then it is possible. The version locked is the one attached

and chosen for the release.

2.2.3 -Merging versions:

Merging options have the same logic and business rules as a real Citrix provisioned environment. There

are two options which are Merge to a new base image and Merge to a consolidated image.

!!! Business rule: Be careful, there are actually no restrictions to merge & consolidation. You can

consolidate while a version or a base image is involved in a release. Please make sure you don't merge

if one of your version is involved in an ongoing release!

!!! If you merge or consolidate images that are involved in an ongoing release, attached to change

request or on testing phases ...the image name will appear with a [deleted] prefix.

2.2.3.1 -Merge to a new base image:

Combine all versions and base image to a new base image. Example here we want to merge the Base

version and the modifications that have been done in the version 1 and 2 to a new Base image to

consolidate.

Click on Merge to a new base image

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On the merge to a new base image window you will see a summary of the actual images, choose the

purpose of the merge, either you have a vDisk request to justify it or it is for a Citrix Release, then

provide the number associated to your request. Choose the status of your new base image

(maintenance, test or production), provide the consolidated image name and a description then save to

begin the merge.

Thus, you will see a new image in the list:

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2.2.3.2 -Merge to a consolidated image:

Combine all versions into a new version keeping the base. Click on Merge to a consolidated image

Choose the purpose of the merge, either you have a vDisk request to justify it or it is for a Citrix

Release, then provide the number associated to your request. Choose the status of your new base image

(maintenance, test or production), provide the consolidated image name and a description then save.

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You will see that your new base image is still here but the two versions have been consolidated to a

new Version 3.

2.2.4 -Image history:

Everything is logged in the history tab, CtxUniverse keeps track of all image changes. We keep history

tracking at the database level and keep records for integrity’s sake.

If you want to consult image changes history, click on the image you want to consult.

Go to the History tab.

Then you will see all the actions that have been taken on this specific image.

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You see here that when we merged to a new base image then the Base image is now V2 and we have

merged to consolidated image V1 and V2 to V3 so we are now at V2.3 (Base Image version 2 and

versioning over base version 3).

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2.2.5 -Image statistics:

There is another useful view that allows you to see image statistics with different counters. Information

such as image status, type or delivery methods. More counters will be implemented on next

CtxUniverse releases.

2.2.6 -Image business rules:

- CtxUniverse prevents the deletion of an image (base image or version) when the image is being

involved in an active release, active Configuration Change or an active Incident (not yet closed).

- CtxUniverse prevents merging and consolidation of images being involved in an active release, active

Configuration Change or an active Incident (not yet closed).

- When an image is deleted (base or version), applications are detached from this image.

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Pay attention to eventual message windows on the corner right, at the bottom of the page. A red

window will pop-up for an error and a green one if everything is ok.

2.3 -Ticket and Incidents about the infrastructure:

CtxUniverse is a full CMDB platform and as such it handles Incident management. However, this is

not a helpdesk level 1 tool, the incident management part is meant to be dedicated to the Citrix

infrastructure (operation or project team) with incidents related to server, application or vDisk only.

The main view allows you to see the Incident list. The incident severity is defined as follow:

Green: Low

Green: Normal

Orange: High

Red: Critical

Here is the different possible status for the incident:

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!!! Incident to be opened here are planned maintenance tasks that you will be executing to fix an

existing problem. Example, a helpdesk agent has reported a Java error on a specific server, then the

infra sys admin will open here an incident with a planned date to fix the problem.

The maintenance task feature is very important because it allows you to do an inventory and count all

the incidents that happen on the infrastructure. It requires an approval process before planning a

maintenance task so it lowers the risk of miscommunication and errors.

We will see in detail how to open an incident and what are the business rules and workflow for this part.

Click on +New Incident

Give it a summary name, choose what type of Incident type it is (software or hardware type). Choose

the Severity level.

External Ref# field might be useful if you already have another CMDB tool and you wish to mention

another reference number here. You must setup a SQL request query in the admin panel to link to a

specific table on your other database. Please consult Chapter 11.1.1.7 Tasks and Incidents config for

more information.

Mention which server or application is targeted by the maintenance. Eventually you could also mention

on which vDisk, if this is a Citrix server or an application installed on a vDisk.

The Date field is when the maintenance will take place, it is not the date when the incident is open!

Starting time is the time when you plan to start the maintenance, RTO time is the recovery time,

meaning it’s the deadline time if something goes bad and you need to restore and come back to the

original states. If everything goes well, then it will be your finish time but RTO time should always be

there. Finish time is the upper limit time, including the time required to go back to the original state.

!!! You are eventually allowed to enter past dates, it could happen if you must solve an urgent incident

on the infrastructure and don’t have time to open the incident right now. You could do it later by

specifying past dates. Please consult Chapter 11.1.1.7 Tasks and Incidents config for more information.

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The other fields will provide details information about the maintenance task, a mandatory description

field, prerequisites, action and impact fields are optional.

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The owner field will be filled automatically with your name and information.

You can choose who will be executing the maintenance task, for example you may want to open it for a

colleague.

Choose a business approver in the list, usually your team lead. Setup the impact level that this

maintenance task may have, 1 being the lower and 5 the highest rank.

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If you are done completing the form you may Send to approval so you don’t waste time, you may also

save it as Draft if you need to fill-in more information later.

The approver will receive an email alert and a task will be pending on his personal dashboard so he/she

can approve or refuse as soon as possible. He/she will be able to open the form and at the bottom click

on Approve or Refuse.

Once the maintenance task has been approved you will see new elements in the Resolution part, the

status will show Approved or Refused. If approved and after the maintenance task has been completed,

then you must mention if it is Completed (success) or Failed (failure).

!!! The option to require a business approval for Incident is an option and could be changed in the

backend. Please consult Chapter 11.1.1.7 Tasks and Incidents config for more information.

2.3.1 -Calendar tab:

The calendar tab on the maintenance allows you to get an instant insight and a global view on planned

tasks. If you want more details on a specific incident, you may click on it and the form will open.

You may change the main view for month, weekly or daily. The view of the day will show up with a

light red color background.

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2.3.2 -Incident statistics:

The maintenance statistics view is useful to compare how many incidents vs configuration change you

have. How many are Active or Closed. The severity, how many are critical etc.…

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2.4 -Configuration Change and Project Management:

CtxUniverse allows you to manage Projects and Configuration Changes. The project management

feature is not really linked to the Citrix release workflow but it allows to manage small projects and

configuration changes on the Citrix infrastructure. It is perfect to manage KLO projects (keep the light

open) or any other projects that don’t required the virtual image lifecycle workflow.

This module includes Project and Config Change (configuration change).

A project is a folder that will contain different configuration change tasks. It details the project goal and

targets, it is created by a project manager that will assign resources (group). A project coordinator will

be assigned to follow up on the project. The project must be approved by the IT Director or somebody

assigned for this role. Team lead, IT operation or IT project people create configuration changes and

get them approved by a business approver. Config. Change could stay stand-alone, added to an existing

Project or linked to an existing Incident (maintenance).

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!!!WORKFLOW:

Business rule implemented:

- When a Config. Change is approved and the Project state is also approved, then the Project state is

automatically updated to "In Progress" state.

From project perspective:

- You cannot close a Project "Completed/Canceled" if you have active Config Changes. All Config.

Changes must be in closed states (Success or Fail).

From config change perspective:

- Config. Changes may only be attached on approved Projects only.

2.4.1 -Creating a new project:

Click on + New Project

Project

Manager project

config

change

Team Lead, IT

oper., IT project

business

approver

Incident config

change

Team Lead, IT

oper., IT project

business

approver

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Give it a summary name, and eventually if you already have another tool to manage your project you

may scroll down the windows to find you external project number (this needs to be setup in the admin

panel with a SQL query). For more information please check chapter 11.1.1.6 Projects config.

A project might or might not be linked to a Citrix environment. The field is not mandatory because

usually you won’t manage your release management here, this is for small project and KLOs. However,

the field is there for a reason, it allows you to mention on which environment the project is related, you

won’t be able to choose on which vDisk, it is only the environment by itself.

Give it a detailed description, the project start date and the expected finish date.

The field created by will automatically be filled-in with the creator’s name and information. You must

assign a project coordinator that will follow-up on the progress, that might be the project manager

himself or somebody else.

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Then you might choose which team will be involved in the project, when mentioning team that means

they must create their own Config. Change and attach it to this project. For example, if FINANCE,

DEV and IT BACK END have been selected then each of them must create their own Config. Change

and attach it to this project.

You may save the project as Draft if you don’t have all the information yet and want to come back

finish it later or you may send it to approval if you are done.

You will see your project in the project list with the actual status.

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The project must be approved by the IT director or somebody assigned with this role. It must be

somebody with financial and budget responsibilities to validate the project.

!!! This feature can be disabled in the admin panel if you don’t require a business approval for projects.

For more information please check chapter 11.1.1.6 Projects config.

Once approved you will have the possibility to add Project documents and Action list:

!!! If a project should be canceled, all the Config. Change attached to it must be marked either as

completed or failed status otherwise the project can not be canceled nor completed.

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The different possible status on Projects are as follow:

2.4.2 -Creating a new config. change:

Like said before, you may create a stand-alone Config. Change or attach it to an existing project.

If you want to open a new Config. Change and attach it to an existing project, you may click on the

chosen project and click on the Config. Change tab inside the project itself.

Click on + Add new Config. Change

Give it a summary name, mention which kind of Config. Change type it is (Software, Hardware, Infra

or Network), the linked project number is already there because you are adding a new Config. Change

from this project. You could also mention an incident linked to this project, a specific server if you

want to use it to install a new software, an existing application if the Config. Change concerns an

existing application (if you have selected a specific server, then only installed applications for this

specific server will show up).

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!!! You may notice that the vDisk field is not present here, and this is because a Configuration Change

is not really part of the release lifecycle management. To make a modification on a vDisk, you must go

with the Release module, this is the best practice. Configuration Change must be used for small project

and changes on the infrastructure but not to modify virtual image itself, in fact anything that is outside

of a release and doesn’t have to modify the CMDB data.

Mention task start date and end date, give a detailed description, eventual prerequisites, action list,

impact that the Config. Change might have on the project and what is needed to do a recovery/restore

or anything to come back to the original state if required.

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Owner will be automatically filled with your name, this is the creator of the Config. Change.

Executed by, is the person that will execute and be responsible for the Config. Change, it could be the

same person of course.

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Choose among the Business approver list who will be responsible to approve your request. Choose a

level about the business impact that your Config. Change may have on the infrastructure and the end-

user work (1 being the lowest and 5 the highest).

Save your Config. Change as a draft if you are not done yet and if you need to provide more

information later or send it to approval if you are ready.

The different possible status on Config. Change are as follow:

Once it has been sent to approval you can see your Config. Change in the list

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If your Config. Change is attached to a project then you may also see it from the Projects tab.

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Once the Config. Change is approved then the status of the attached project will change from approved

to In Progress.

Once your Config. Change has been executed, mark it as Completed or Failed and save it.

When your Config. Change is marked Completed or Saved then you can not modify information, the

form becomes read-only.

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For each Config. Change you can get information on the history tab

There is also a Calendar associated with Projects and Config. Change, it allows to get an instant view

on all the planned/scheduled tasks, daily, weekly or monthly.

When you click on a planned Config. Change showing up in the Calendar view then it opens the

Config. Change form page so you can get all the details.

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The Statistics view allows you to see Config. Change vs Incidents (Maintenance) numbers, how many

tasks are active and closed, and Config. Change types.

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2.5 -Logon Control:

Logon control is a feature that we have introduced in the latest v4. It allows Sys admins and people

from helpdesk to identify and get instant information on Citrix servers that have been Logon disabled

and for what reason. We have found, especially in big companies, that having this information being

accurate is not only very important but it will save you a lot of time. In a big Bank, I have seen IT

people literally struggling to get information about who has disabled logon on a specific server and

why. It was not uncommon to get the information after few hours of investigation, precious hours that

could have been assigned to something else more important.

With Logon Control in CtxUniverse you get the insight instantly, you know who has changed the logon

control, why, and when is the expected date to allow logon back again.

!!! For now, changing the logon control here in CtxUniverse is only for information purpose, it wont

really change the status on your Citrix infrastructure but in a next release we have in mind to

interconnect CtxUniverse with your AppCenter/Studio console through PowerShell commands to

disable/allow logon directly, so everything can be managed only from CtxUniverse.

You will find the Logon Control under Configuration module; the main view show you the list of

actual servers with status Prohibit Logons only and Prohibit Logons until server restart. You instantly

see who has changed the server status, the reason and the expected date to change it back to allow

logons.

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The different possible statuses are as follow:

Create a new Logon Control entry:

Click on + New Logon Control

Choose in the list which server is concerned, choose which status you want to change to, give it a

detailed reason. If you know when the server will be changed back to allow logons and reconnections

choose the date in the Until field, and finally choose the critical level.

By default, your name will appear in the field Changed by, with all your information to contact you if

needed. Resolution is In Progress and when you are done please change the status to Completed. Save

your form.

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When you are done fixing the server, it could be reactivated for logons, go back to your form and click

Completed.

You will be able to keep track of all the Logon Controls changes in the history tab.

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You are also able to get history details for each Logon Control form, just click on a specific one and

click on his history tab.

2.6 -System Refresh:

Refreshing a system is a common operation under Citrix, sometimes you may have to refresh your dev

environment with what is actually in Prod, to get the latest “clean” actual version. Go to

Configuration/System Refresh.

!!! Business rule: The system won't allow you to do a refresh while images are still involved in an

ongoing release.

Refreshing an environment must be clearly planned. It usually happens days or weeks after a successful

release to production. For example, when developers need to have the latest production image to

develop new features or install new software.

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In the main list view, you see all the environment except Prod of course, you never refresh Prod, Prod

is usually the source of your refresh and destination is usually DEV but could be something else like

Sandbox, why not QA or PreProd as well.

For example, let’s refresh the MsSql image in DevOps environment with the actual Prod version. Click

on the + on the left of the image to be refreshed, then click on Refresh this image.

You see that your image has no versions over the base image so it could be refresh.

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!!! Business rule: The system won't allow you to do a refresh if there are existing versions over the base

image. You must merge first.

Then mention for what purpose is the refresh, you have the choice between “For Citrix Release” or

“vDisk Request”, for both of us you must mention the reference number from the dropdown list. If

there is no Number associated with a vDisk request, then you will have first to create a vDisk request

before refreshing. Mention from which env you wish to refresh, it is either QA or PROD and choose

the image you want to refresh from. It must be a base image with no versions over it! Then Save it!

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Once your Dev vDisk has been refreshed you will see a new icon in Refreshed column, it will indicate

that it has been successfully refreshed.

You may check in Configuration/Images, the refreshed image will have the new description:

You may also check in the History tab of the image.

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2.7 -License Management:

The license management module is the CtxTools or UDadmin GUI tool that has been integrated to

CtxUniverse. It allows you to manage your XenDesktop User\Device Licenses. Basically, the

application visualizes the output of UDadmin Citrix internal command, and provides an easy way to

release single license at once, just select the specific user or device and hit Detach.

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There is also an additional feature that allows exporting the current usage to an Excel file for reporting

purposes.

So, if you click on the Export button, you will get an excel file with a user list with all the usernames or

devices with a license logged.

The Refresh button will update and refresh the list, please note that the refresh is being done every 15

minutes on the Citrix License server.

If you have hundreds or thousands of users, you may want to use the Search option:

If you want to check the settings for this module, you may want to refer to Chapter 11.1.1.5 -

Configuration module

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3-Request module:

The request module is very important, it allows it sys admins and project managers to create Change

Request, vDisk request, or even Business Case. By offering the possibility for those who have

creativity to suggest ideas to the upper management, CtxUniverse will be the perfect tool to help

improve the IT business processes of your company.

3.1 -Creating a Business Case:

Let’s start with the business case feature.

To create a new Business Case, click on + New business case

Give it a summary quick description, mention which type of business case it is, you have choice among:

IDEA: A general idea that could improve processes.

SOFT: An idea that could improve the use of a specific software, like for example suggesting a new

version or a new way to use/support the application.

HARD: An idea to improve the actual infrastructure or any physical/virtual servers.

ORGA: An idea to change/improve the actual organization, adding a member, hiring someone etc.…

CORPO: Anything related to the corporation, that could improve internal business processes.

Business case types are customizable in the admin panel. For more information please check chapter

11.1.1.8 Business Case config.

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Give a priority level to your business case, be careful when choosing Critical level, business cases form

go to upper management and stakeholders so you better justify for the Critical status.

The purpose field is customizable in the admin panel. Business case purposes are customizable in the

admin panel. For more information please check chapter 11.1.1.8 Business Case config.

By default, the following options are available but could easily be changed depending on your needs.

Customer Service Improvement, Cost Savings, Daily Tasks, Innovation, Risk Mitigation, Asset Value

Improvement, Market Opportunity, Workforce Engagement, and Team Productivity.

External Ref# field is also an option to setup in the admin panel, it allows to receive SQL Queries result

if you have another tool for your business cases and you want to retrieve a case number. For more

information please check chapter 11.1.1.8 Business Case config.

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The business case could be related to a Linked project or incident, this could be a proposal solution to

fix a recurring problem in the team or in the organization.

In Problem statement, describe exactly what the problem is. Mention how you are suggesting to solve it

in the Recommendation field. Describe what benefits you are expecting with your proposed solution.

Schedule an expected starting date to begin implementing your business case, select the planned end

date, this will be the date when results/improvements are supposed to be readable/visible.

Estimated effort is the work hours needed for your business case, make sure your numbers are accurate.

For example, in this business case we decide to allow 8h/day, once per week for 40 weeks. Somebody

from the Test Unit end-user team will be teaching/transfer knowledge the Help-Desk team people.

The estimated cost is 24000$ based on a 75$/hourly rate of a level3 tech. Estimated effort and

Estimated cost are not mandatory fields, don’t worry if you are not good with numbers but still want to

suggest good ideas.

The Proposed resource field will allow you to suggest people involved in this business case.

During the entire project, you might want to setup different milestones, you can specify each milestone

details, end date and estimated cost for each part. For now, CtxUniverse allows only 3 milestones but in

a next release this will be up to 20 with the possibility to setup the required number in the admin panel.

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The Created by field will be filled-in with your name, and information so we can easily contact you if

necessary. The Assigned to field is by default setup to a stakeholder group, if there are more than one

they will be listed in the dropdown window.

You also have the possibility to Send to a legal representative if there are some potential legal issue

involved, you may also to send your business case to a financial representative if the budget should be

reviewed and approved.

Setup the risk level, 1 being the lowest and 5 the highest. Setup the complexity, 1 being the lowest and

5 the highest.

The Planified budget saving field, is the potential amount that could be saved by the company once

your idea would have been implemented.

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The Planified improvement rate field is the improvement % you expect once your solution is

implemented.

The last part to setup in your business case is the path of events you expect. You will have to mention

what are the required steps in order to succeed with your idea.

For that purpose you can use different status/action available for each step in order to build your own

workflow path:

ANALYZE, APPROVED, CONTINUE, MEASURE, POC, QA, RENEWAL, RESULT, START,

TEST, TRIAL PERIOD, VALIDATE

At any time during your business case life, you may add information and files with the Business case

documents field in the bottom of the page. This allows you to add information during the idea/project

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implementation. You could for example add a deliverable plan as an Excel file, add a more detailed

cost item plan, some meeting minutes documents, etc…

You may save your business case idea as a draft if you are not done yet and if you need to come back

later to finish it. Once you are done and you are sure of all the information you have provided then you

may send it to approval.

Once your form has been sent to approval, only a member of the Stakeholder group will be able to

approve or refuse it.

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The different possible status on Business case are as follow:

You also have the History tab on each business case to get in-depth and detailed information.

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3.2 -Managing Change Request:

The Change Request is a very important part, it is the core feature along with Citrix Release module to

build your Citrix release. Project Managers, Business Analyst and Sys Admins create Change Requests

and attach them to a planned Release.

!!! Change Requests in CtxUniverse are mandatory linked to a planned vDisk Release.

Here is the workflow of a Change Request: The Release Manager creates a new release. Business

Analysts, End-Users with special authority, people from IT oper and IT project teams, create Change

Request and attach them to a specific release. You may notice that there is a double approval system in

place, this is the best practice and the CtxUniverse methodology. You will avoid potential problem

using a double validation process. The Release Manager has to validate the Change Request first

because he is the “master” and the project manager of the release, and once approved by the Release

Manager the Change Request is ready to get examined by the Change Committee. Only once the

Change Committee has approved then the Change Request is attached to the release.

!!!WORKFLOW:

There are different statuses for a Change Request:

Release

Manager release

change

request

Business

Analyst, End-

Users, IT oper,

IT project

change

committee

release

manager

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The main view in Request/Change Requests will give you the list of all Change Requests created.

We’ll see later how to check Change Requests for a specific release.

In the main Change Requests list view, you will be able to see the Change Request number, it always

starts by CHGR following by 6 numbers, a summary, the creator of the Change Request, the attached

release number, the release type and the release date (Go/No Go date).

You may use filters if you want to see only those approved, rejected, etc.…

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3.2.1 -Creating a new change request:

To create a new Change Request, click on + New Change request

Mandatory fields are followed by a *. Give your Change Request a summary name. There is usually no

need to mention if you are asking to add/remove something because it will be mentioned later in details

but to get an instant view on the Change Request list view, you may want to mention it in the summary

as well.

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There are pre-defined Change Requests, so you may choose which one fits your request:

Depending on which Change Request type you choose, the form will adjust to show you different fields.

We will see each of them in details. But first let’s see the common information you must fill-in.

Give your Change Request a priority level, usually for a security update it should be CRITICAL:

Category and Sub-Category are fields that you might want to customize to fit your internal business

processes, some companies have their own code/sub-code or categories/sub-categories to identify

different Change Request types. For more information please check chapter 11.1.1.9 Change Request

config.

External Ref# is a SQL Query created in the admin panel, specifically to retrieve information if you

have another tool to manage your Change Request and want to inter-connect with CtxUniverse.

Basically, this query will pull information from your other Database and list references/word/numbers

in the dropdown list. For more information please check chapter 11.1.1.9 Change Request config.

Choose a Release number available in the list. Once you have chosen, the other fields Release date and

Release type will be automatically filled-in (that information is taken from the Release itself, which has

already been setup by the Release Manager).

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!!! You will only see releases with “Draft” and “Planned” status, that means the Release has already

been created and it is still on draft or it has already been scheduled by the Release Manager but hasn’t

started yet (“In Progress” status). This is the time to attach Change Requests to this Release. For

example, you cannot add a Change Request to a “closed” or “in progress release”. More details to come

in the Citrix Release module.

A Change Request is sometimes a request that is coming from an existing incident or a project. You

have here the possibility to attach your Change Request to an existing Incident or Project.

Give your Change Request a detailed description in the field “Description”.

The field Created by will automatically be filled-in with your name, you must choose the Release

Manager in the dropdown list; don’t worry you should know him, usually they are 2 or 3 in very big

organizations, and only one in other small/medium enterprises.

The field Executed by is not mandatory and could be filled-in later by the Release Manager once he

will be reviewing your Change Request. He is usually the one that knows which group will be

responsible to execute/follow the Change Request.

As said before, depending on the Change Request type you have chosen, the next part will be different,

the part shown bellow is dedicated to a Change Request type: WINDOWS UPDATE.

We will detail other Change Request types after this chapter.

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Give it a detailed description again, this time more information on the specific Windows Update is

asked. Mention if you are asking to add or to remove a Windows Update.

Mention if the windows update is about fixing a bug/issue. Indicate the Windows Update number (KB)

if needed.

Explain in detail if your Change Request carries some Risk, give it a Risk level, one being the slowest

and 5 the highest. To better explain the necessity to implement your Change you must mention what is

the Risk if the Change is not accepted and executed!

Depending on the Release you have chosen earlier, you will see what environments (Citrix Farms) are

available for this very specific release. This is being setup by the Release Manager.

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For each environment, you need to choose on which vDisk you want to have your Change Request

installed/deployed/tested/validated.

Here we have selected the vDisk available in each environment, usually there are more than one vDisk

per environment so you should choose carefully, you may ask the Release Manager’s advice if needed.

In case you have chosen the wrong vDisk, the Release Manager will refuse your request.

The flow on a Change Request is complex but we have simplified it with only necessary workflow and

validation steps. Simplicity beats complexity, isn’t it? There are 6 steps:

1-The Change Request is categorized and saved, 2-The Release Manager will review and approved, 3-

The Change Request goes to the Change Committee for another review (usually the Change Committee

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is composed by 3/4 people), 4-Once accepted the Change Request goes through the testing/validation

process, 5-The Change Request goes to Production if validated during the final Release Meeting for the

Go/No Go, 6-Post implementation, after the Change Request goes live, there is a period we call post-

implementation to check if there is any problem coming after few days.

The workflow path will update by itself, you have nothing to declare here.

You may save your Change Request as draft is you are not done yet or if you are ready to send it for

review then choose Send to approval and Save.

You could also upload some documents if required. If the Change Request is about installing a

Software then you could upload the source files here, you could also give information if a license is

required during the setup, you could also update Word or Excel documents from meeting minutes.

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Once send to approval you can see that the workflow path has already changed and the main menu at

the bottom has more options. In the workflow path, you now see that it has been categorized and saved.

Now the Release Manager must review your Change Request. There are different options for him to

make a choice with, he could return your Change Request if it is missing information, he could

temporary put the Change Request on hold, he could refuse or if accepted he will then choose to send it

to the Change Committee.

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Before approving by sending to the Change Committee, the Release Manager must select which group

will be in charge and responsible to execute the Change Request.

Once approved by the Release Manager, the Change Request will temporary disappear from the

main list and move to Request/Change Committee view. Please check chapter 3.4 - The Change

Committee to see what is going to happen next with your Change Request!

3.2.2 -Specificity of other change request type:

Like we said before, there are pre-defined Change Requests, when you choose a Change Request type

you will have the common and shared fields but you will also have one specific area depending on the

Change Request type.

We are going to review them one by one here.

-SOFTWARE:

You may choose your software from the dropdown list coming directly from the CMDB, it means if

your Change Request is about installing a new Software into a vDisk then you must first create an entry

in Inventory/Applications.

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Mention if you want to install, update or remove a Software, if the Change Request is about fixing an

existing issue. Specify also if you require an install documentation.

The next step is very useful if you are using SCCM and/or App-V. You may want to install this

application as an App-V package first and if its failed then your second option would be to install the

Software in the image directly. You can mention also how do you want your App-V package to be

mounted in your image (by script, by SCCM, or directly mounted in the image).

Here are the different options you can choose to mount your package App-V:

Here are the different options you can choose if your software doesn’t work with App-V:

You may notice that when you select SCCM yes, you still have the possibility to select App-V as well,

this is because some companies are using both SCCM and App-V depending on their environment,

persistent VDI, non-persistent, physical or virtual, etc.…

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-DATABASE:

Give the DB Name, DB Server, credentials, a description for your database, do you want to

Install/Update or Remove a DB, is it to fix an issue, do you need to have the install documentation

created during the setup.

-GPO/GPP:

Mention which AD domain name, which OU and a detailed description.

What type of action do you want, install, update, enable, disable or remove?

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Is it to fix an issue, do you need the install documentation, and do you need a GPO backup before

doing the change/update.

Mention what policy type, computer or user configuration, the GPO/GPP path, a detailed description, if

you need enforcement and inheritance.

-PERMISSIONS:

Mention the path of the file/folder targeted by the permission Change Request. Give the name of the

group/user that needs to be added/removed.

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Give it a detailed description, mention the action on permissions you require (install/update or remove),

if it is a share folder, if it is to fix an issue, and if you need an install documentation to be made during

the setup.

Define the required permissions.

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-PRINTER:

Give it a printer name, the printer server name, a detailed description, the action required (install/update

or remove), if the printer is installed by GPO, script or directly in the image, if it uses a generic driver,

if it is to fix an issue, and if you require an installation documentation to be made during the setup.

-CONTENT:

Mention the path and a detailed description, the action required (install/update or remove), what kind of

content you want to manage, it could be Binaries, Config, Files, Internet Links, Media and Shortcuts.

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As usual mention if it is to fix an issue and if you need an install documentation to be made during the

setup.

-CERTIFICATE:

Mention a certificate type, see the dropdown list bellow:

Mention a display name for your certificate, the certificate path, a detailed description, the annual

expiration and the new expiration date.

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The type of action needed, install/update or remove, how the certificate will be installed by GPO or

directly in the image, is it to fix an issue and do you need an installation documentation to be made

during the setup.

-CITRIX RECEIVER:

Mention what is your actual Citrix Receiver version, what is the target version you wish to install, give

it a detailed description, the action required (install/update or remove), is it to fix an issue and do you

need an installation documentation to be made during the setup.

If possible, you should mention the list of fixed bug with the new Citrix Receiver.

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-PUBLISHED APP:

One Change Request that you will be using a lot is certainly this one, all the options here are the ones

from the AppCenter console.

Choose in the dropdown list which application you want to publish under Citrix AppCenter or Studio

console. The location path of the application in your shared server. The working directory path, a bit of

a description and the desired display name for your published application.

Mention the required action such as install/update or remove, with App type you must mention if your

application will be accessed on server or streamed to the client.

Mention if the application needs to be pre-launched, if it is an App-V package and if you allow Access

Gateway connection to this application.

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Mention if this is to fix an issue and if you need an installation documentation to be made during the

setup.

Specify the maximum instance number on this specific application, example if you mention 10 then a

maximum of 10 users can use this application at the same time. Do you need a start menu shortcut to be

created and do you want a shortcut on the user desktop?

Mention the users that you want to add/remove to this application, give details. Mention if you need a

load evaluator on this specific application and give some details. Specify on which server you want to

publish your application.

!!! The user Start menu is often managed by GPO/GPP so you must mention here if you also need to

set this up under your GPP, give details here.

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-PUBLISHED DESKTOP:

Give a name to your published desktop and give it a description. Specify the action required such as

installing/updating or removing. Mention if Access Gateway connections will be allowed to launch this

remote published desktop.

Mention if you are creating this published desktop as a workaround to fix an issue. Specify if you need

an installation documentation to be made during the setup.

Mention the users that will have the authorisation to launch this desktop, give details. Specify which

server it is. Specify the maximum instance number, example if you mention 10 then a maximum of 10

users will be able to launch this desktop at the same time.

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Mention if you need a load evaluator and give more details. Specify if you need to have an icon

published by GPP on the start menu, give details.

-WINDOWS UPDATE:

Give a detailed description about the Windows Update KB you plan to install. Mention if you want to

add or remove them and if it is to fix an issue or just a normal update.

Mention the KB numbers that you plan to install/remove

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-REGISTRY:

Mention which key you want to modify, specify the string and give a detailed description.

Specify the required action such as install/update or remove the registry entry.

Mention if you are creating this registry entry to fix an issue. Specify if you need an installation

documentation to be made during the setup.

Here are bellow the usual Windows registry keys, you may choose which one fits your need.

Specify which type of entry you want to add/modify/remove and the value.

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Here are bellow the usual Windows registry values, you may choose which one fits your need.

3.2.3 -Change Request history:

You can follow a Change Request on every step of his “life” but it is sometimes good to refer to the

History tab if you need to see the whole path, what has been the modification made on it and who

worked on this specific Change Request.

It could be very useful to refer to the history tab to get information on an old Change Request,

especially if you need to trace something.

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3.3 -Creating a vDisk Request:

Click on + New vDisk Request to create a new image request – This is mandatory if you want to create

an image because it must be approved by the Release Manager.

Give it a summary and mention if the request if for a new vDisk (base image) or a New version over an

existing vDisk.

Choose on which environment the image has to be created, please make sure to choose carefully

because you won’t be able to create the image if environments are not matching.

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Mention the vDisk mode when the image will be created, private, cache on device hard drive or cache

in device RAM.

The purpose for this new image, is it for testing, development, for an external consultant or a new

persistent image?

Target date to deliver this image. If this new image is somehow linked to an incident or a project and

created to prepare a fixing or test something. (incident or project must already be created so it can show

up in the dropdown list)

Give it a detailed description and setup a deletion date if the image is to be created for a temporay POC

or Project.

Your name will show up automatically in the field Created by so you don’t need to mention anything in

there. You also don’t need to mention the Release Manager unless there is only one person and you

know he will be the one approving.

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Save your form as a Draft is you are not done yet or Send it to approval if it is ready.

Once your vDisk request is send for approval you may monitor to see the status in Request/vDisk

Request.

Here are the different possible statuses:

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Release manager to approve the vDisk Request:

The Release manager should regularly review the list to see if there are some pending requests that

require review and approval. For that matter he receives email alerts and he is notified in his personal

dashboard so the approval review flow should go smoothly.

The Release manager must mention his name in the Release Manager field and the Executed by field as

well. This is to allow only a group or an individual person to create the vDisk. Then either click to

Approve or Refuse the request.

At anytime you may check the History tab to see what happened to a specific vDisk request.

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3.4 -The Change Committee:

It is highly recommended to have at least 3 people in this Change Committee, ideally one technical,

one project and one manager. These people must be senior profiles with a very good comprehension on

what is a Citrix virtual image release.

They have a dedicated view to see Change Requests in pending review. Here is how the menu

Request/Change Committee looks like:

The Time icon is very important, the Change Committee may instantly see if they have late Change

Request to approve. They see the Change Request number, the summary, by whom it has been created,

the attached release and release date. The different status on a Change Request can be as follow:

Now if we open this Change Request, we see that in the workflow path, the Release Manager step has

been marked done. The next step is getting it approved by the Change Committee.

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If the Change Committee rejects the Change Request then they will mention the reason in the Update

from committee field. The creator owner of the Change Request still has the possibility to escalate and

ask for the Change Request to be reviewed again, but you better have a good reason ☺

Once approved or refused the Change Request disappear from the Change Committee view and goes

back to the main Change Request list view.

!!! Business Rule: The Change Committee will only be able to review Change Requests with their

attached release setup to “In Progress” mode (it means the release is not on draft nor on planned mode

but has been validated to start). So the Release Manager has to carefully plan few days or even a week

for the Change Committee to do their work on reviewing the Change Requests in the queue. We will

see more in details and how it works in the next chapter.

The Change Committee will start reviewing Change Requests when the Release has officially started

(“In Progress” status).

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4-Citrix Release module:

4.1 –Citrix Release, the core of the application:

The Citrix Release is CtxUniverse’ core module. Everything is based on a Citrix Release when

managing the application life-cycle for a vDisk. The first step in the release management workflow is

to create the release itself, then we attach Change Requests to this newly created release, and then we

follow the testing and results through this specific release. By using a tool such as CtxUniverse you not

only automate and accelerate your release but you also track and manage logs for everything that has

been done during this release. With the report module, you may improve your processes and see what

went wrong during a release, or who has not done the job on time.

The Citrix Release module is composed by different categories and sub-menu that allows you to

manage the entire release workflow path. We will go through each of them.

The workflow for a Citrix Release could be explained like this. The Release Manager creates a new

Citrix Release and mention which environments and vDisks will be used during the release. IT oper

team, IT project team, end users, app managers, and project managers add Change Requests to the

newly created release.

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4.2 -The Citrix Release list:

The main view is very important, from here you can see all the Citrix Releases, the Release type, their

statuses, the delivery date, and who has created the release (Release Manager).

If you click on a specific Release you will see all the attached Change Requests.

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If you want the details on a specific release, then you may click on the blue link directly. It will go to

the release page, showing all the information you require.

4.3 -Changing the status of a Citrix Release:

Only the Release Manager can do that. From the release page, at the bottom he will be able to change

from Draft to Planned, and then when the release is ready to start he will change to In Progress status

and save the form.

4.4 -Creating a new Citrix Release:

From the menu Citrix Release/Release List click on + New release

When creating a new release, the number id will be by default the actual year followed by Rx, x being

the number of release you already have created (since you are using CtxUniverse). For example if this

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is the first release you create in 2017 but you already have done 5 releases in 2016 then the release id

will be 2017R6.

Give it a summary name. Mention the Release Type, it could be Business, Infra or Business + Infra.

Mention what will be the delivery date (the Go/No Go date). What is the purpose of the release, it

could be Feature based, update based or time based. Those 3 purpose types are editable in the admin

panel, each company might want to use their own purposes, however those 3 entries are the ones to be

used for best practices. You may want to check chapter 11.1.1.10 Release config.

The External Ref# field is to be used if you have another CMDB tool that already manages your release

and you want to mention the number here. This is a SQL Query that will read and pickup information

from another table into another database. The query could be setup and saved in the admin panel. For

more information please check chapter 11.1.1.10 Release config.

Give it a detailed description.

Mention who is the Release Manager responsible to follow the entire release from the beginning until

the Go live. The other information about how to contact the Release Manager will be filled

automatically.

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Now you must mention which environment you will be using for the release path. This information is

very important because different objects will show up depending on which path you choose.

The validation env is the environment that will be used as validation before going to Production. That

will also be used for the Regression testing part, the validation env being the one that will be compared

to the latest version image for regression test purpose.

Depending on which environment you have selected, the Deployment path will reflect what you have

chosen. Here in this release we have selected Dev, QA and PROD.

For each environment you must select what action will have to be done, you can choose between

Install, Install & Test, Import vhd and Test only. The best practices of course is to install on Dev,

install & test on QA and import the vhd on Prod but each company may have their own way for the

deployment path.

What we recommand is while installing on Dev, you create the documentation. In QA it should be

another team member or even better a dedicated QA team that will install again by following the

documentation that has been done earlier. Test thoroughly in QA, and once the validation is done then

the virtual disk can be sealed and imported to the Prod environment.

In the next section, you must choose which vDisk will be used in this release. It is common to see many

vDisks in each environment so you have to browse in the dropdown list and choose which vDisk you

want to use. In the example bellow you see that for DEV we have an Install start date and Install end

date. For Prod there is no date because we will only import the vhd/vhdx file.

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!!! If you have multiple DEV, QA or PROD environments, you will see all of them. For example you

have DEV ZOOM BANK CARD, DEV INSURANCE ZOOM, DEV ACCOUNTING ZOOM then all

will show up but this is up to you to choose if all the DEV env are concerned or just one service.

So let’s choose the vDisk for DEV ZOOM BANK CARD with the Install start date/Install end date.

So let’s choose the vDisk for PROD. There is no date here because we will only import the vhd/vhdx.

And let’s choose the vDisk for QA and setup all the due dates:

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For QA we have more dates to fill because you will also do the testing so you must mention the start

dates and end dates for each testing categories. There are 3 different testing phases, Launch Test (LT),

Functionnal Test (FT), and Performance Test (PT).

Be careful when you schedule testing dates, the Release Manager has to leave enough room for all the

team to do their job, testing is often time consuming. A good Release Manager will certainly know all

these details and adjust the timing accordingly.

When the release form is completed, the Release Manager may save it as Draft first, so he will be able

to double check everything and eventually edit things. Then when everything has been confirmed and

validated he could change the status to Planned.

Once all the Change Requests have been added and attached to the release (and approved by the

Release Manager) then he may change the status to In Progress so the Change Committee can start to

review the Change Requests.

!!! Business Rule: The Release Manager won’t be able to change the status of a Release from Draft to

Planned if there is not at least one Change Request created and attached to this release.

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The workflow for the Release is the following:

!!!WORKFLOW FOR CHANGE REQUESTS CREATION:

DRAFT/PLANNED MODE

IN PROGRESS MODE

!!!WORKFLOW FOR CHANGE REQUESTS REVIEW FROM CHANGE COMMITTEE:

DRAFT/PLANNED MODE

IN PROGRESS MODE

review

Release

Manager release

change

requests

Business

Analyst, End-

Users, IT oper,

IT project

Release

Manager release

change

requests

Business

Analyst, End-

Users, IT oper,

IT project

Release

Manager release

change

requests

Change

Committee

Review

Release

Manager release

change

requests

Change

Committee

Review

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!!!WORKFLOW FOR RELEASE STATUS CHANGE:

DRAFT PLANNED

DRAFT PLANNED

4.5 -Release logs and statistics:

You may want to check the history and logs for a specific release, go to the desired release and click on

the History tab.

If you want to check statistics on all the releases you may go to the main Release list view and click on

Statistic tab.

Release

Manager release release

Release

Manager release release

change

request(s)

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You will be able to instantly see the Active releases (In Progress) and the other ones. The Release types

and the deployment path most often used.

4.6 -Release Status view:

The Release Status view, while having a similar look to the Release List view, is in fact quite different.

Here you will be able to see the chosen attached vDisk and for each vDisk, the attached Change

Requests. This view allows you to see everything instantly. Indeed, you will see the Release, which

vDisk are being used and what are the Change Requests attached to each vDisk. You will also be able

to see what are the testing statuses for each Change Request. We will see this part in a next chapter.

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Release List view:

Release Status view:

!!! Business Rule: You will be able to see Change Requests attached to each vDisk only once the

Change Committee will start approving them, at this time they will start to pilled up here in this view.

4.7 -Change committee approving Change Requests:

Now we will see how Change Requests will be added to the Release Status view. Remember the

Release Manager has approved some Change Requests but they were still waiting in the Change

Committee queue view. Now that the Release Manager has changed the release status to “In Progress”,

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the Change Committee will be able to approve (or reject) each Change Request. So let’s carry on with

our examples and come back to the Change Committee view to approve them.

The Change Committee will review all of them and decide to approve or refuse.

Once approved, a Change Request will have his workflow path updated with Change Committee step

marked as completed.

Now if we come back to the Release Status view we can see that the view has changed. Under each

concerned vDisk we can see the attached Change Request.

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Once testing phase will be started, and results are coming in, the small squares LT, FT and PT will be

filled up by the appropriate background color depending on test result.

You may have noticed that DEV vDisk squares are greyed out, this is because during the setup of the

Release, the Release Manager has chosen to do the Install only for DEV and that testing was not

required.

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4.8 -Starting the testing phase:

On Citrix Release module, the testing view is a list of Change Request with attached testing documents.

For each Change Request there are 4 documents, Install, Lt, Ft, and Pt.

Install means we will install the software/gpo/printer/etc…, Lt means we will launch to see if it has

been installed successfully and if the program is responsive, Ft is functionnal testing and Pt stands for

performance test. All of them are very important.

It is one of the main CtxUniverse concept to attach the testing documents to a Change Request,

allowing a better accuracy and reading to activities follow up.

It’s either the Release Manager that will manually assign people to Change Requests, or IT people will

assign themselves to available Change Request. Both methods are ok, it depends on your organization.

If you have a dedicated Release Manager then he will probably have time to check who is available and

assign the correct resource to do the testing.

4.8.1 -Assigning a tester to a Change Request:

To assign somebody to a Change Request, choose one that has already been approved and expand the

view. Click on Install link first and later on do the same for the 3 other documents (Lt, Ft and Pt).

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Once the form is showing up, assign somebody to all the “Executed by” fields.

!!! Business rule: Something worth mentioning here. You won’t be able to save the form if you have

different vDisk attached to your Change Request and if one of the Executed by field is being left empty.

You must assign people to all the vDisk install/test part, it might be the same person but in some cases,

it might not. Some companies have different team to do the install and the testing, some even have a

dedicated team for QA environment.

Once saved you can see people’s name attached to each documents.

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4.8.2 -Steps to complete install document:

Click on Install link document, the header gives you a summary and description of the Change Request.

Next down bellow is the testing setup part, you will see different section depending on how many

vDisk have been selected and linked to the Change Request by the Release Manager. Each section

represent one vDisk, for this specific vDisk you must mention who will be executing the install. If we

detail each step, you must do:

1- Assign somebody to execute the Install, the person assigned will receive a notification and the task

will also be available in his personal dashboard.

2/3- Click on Test started and once you are done, mention the time needed to complete the installation.

You may use Test on Pause if you need more time and/or require more information.

4- Once your install is finish, click on Done – here maintenance means your vDisk is on maintenance

mode (read/write), it is usually the case when you install something on your image – you can also see

the vDisk icon in green color that means maintenance mode.

5- Write down some comments about the installation process.

6- Select if the install is considered: successful (green square), ok but with warning (orange square) or

failed (red square).

7- Once you are sure that everything has been completed, then you must sign.

You may have noticed the red clock icon, that means you are probably starting your install being late

on the planned date.

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Once you have completed everything related to the first vDisk you may save the form.

Once you have saved it, you will see “Completed” status and more information about your signing.

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The calendar view allows you to see what is the planned date to execute the Install/Test.

4.8.3 -Steps to complete test documents:

These are the same steps as the Install document so we won’t detail them here again. Click on “Lt” link

which means Launch Test.

Choose your name if you are going to do the testing job, click on test started. Once you are done testing,

write down a comment, mention the time needed to test, and the test result, then click on done and sign.

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You can see in the form that the test is scheduled 5 days from now. We are January 4th (A) and the

scheduled date for the launch test is January 9th (B). Why the clock icon is showing red but we are 5

days ahead? Please check chapter Clock timer options on Chapter 11.1.1.1 General settings.

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4.8.4 -How the test/install documents are built:

If you remember, the Release Manager has designed the deployment path when he has been creating

the release. We have chosen Dev, QA and PROD to be used for this release, for each environment we

mentioned what type of deployment action must be done, Dev was only installing (basically to do the

documentation and check if the install goes well), QA we install again and deeply test, and for PROD

we do nothing because we copy and import the QA vDisk.

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So, the install/test documents will be created and attached to Change Requests depending on what

environment has been selected for deployment path and what kind of action is required for each of

them.

If we carry on with our example you can see that if we enter the Install document for the Change

Request bellow, we will see DEV and QA vDisk because on both we need to install.

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Now if we open the Lt document (Launch test), which is part of the 3-different kind of test that must be

done, you can see that we now only have QA because we mentioned that testing must be done only on

QA. We could have also chosen Install & Test for DEV environment but usually not having GPOs

applied in DEV the testing won’t be useful. In fact, it all depends on how your AD and Citrix farms are

setup. It’s up to each company and that’s the beauty of CtxUniverse. You can design and customize

your own deployment path, depending on your internal business processes.

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4.8.5 -Change Request progress:

In another testing document, here the Ft (functional testing), you can see that the test is scheduled to

start on January 11th and end on January 24th, 20 days from now as also mentioned by the Progress icon

clock.

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To quickly check a Change Request progress, you should use the Release Status view. You will

instantly see if testing has been done and more importantly what is the result of each test.

So, if we come back to the Release Status view, now that we have started to test, you can see the color

squares showing up for each Change Request. Here the testing results for CHGR000008 are ok for

launch and functional but we have a comment/alert for the performance test.

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Now if you click on the Change Request link as shown bellow, it will open up the Change Request

detail page.

You can see at the bottom of the page that we have completed one more step in the Change Request

workflow path with Testing & acceptance item checked. However you may notice the Warning status

comment because of the bad performance test result.

4.9 -Completing a Change Request:

There are different ways to open a Change Request view but at this point, when it comes to close them,

we highly advise you to do it from the Release Status view so you can see if all the tests have been

done. So, when you click on a Change Request link (here in blue), you will go to the Change Request

page form.

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!!!WORKFLOW TO COMPLETE A CHANGE REQUEST:

LT COMPLETED

FT PT

Once you are in the Change Request page form, go to the bottom and choose Completed. You may

want to write down some information about the Resolution info but this is not mandatory. Save it.

The Change Request has been marked as Completed.

In the workflow, you may have noticed that Go Production is not yet checked Done, it is because the

Change Request must be reviewed once more by the Release Manager and the Change Committee

during the final Release Meeting for the Go/No Go decision.

The Go Production step will be checked out only once the Change Request will have been marked as

“Validate” during the Release Meeting.

Release

Status

view

Change

Request

Change

Request

page

Release

Meeting

view

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!!! If you haven’t completed all the tests, then you won’t be able to mark your Change Request as

Completed. Please make sure all tests have been marked as done and signed.

Once the Change Request is marked Completed, all the test documents will show the following

message if you open them: Warning Change request is on Completed state

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If you come back to the Change Request view or the Testing view, then you will see the Change

Request status changed to Completed.

4.10 -Regression testing:

Once you have completed all your Change Requests, there is another remaining step to be done before

going to the final Release Meeting. You must do some regression testing to check if nothing has been

broken by the newly installed components/settings/software.

!!! Business rule: Regression testing is done with the validation environment image. The one specified

by the Release Manager during the Release setup. Only images with already installed software will

showup here in this view. You don’t do regression testing if there is not already something installed on

your image so if you have an empty image without any software, nothing will show up under release.

It is not possible to save test items if a Change Request is still active!

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Activate the Regression testing for your image by clicking on the switch.

Once the switch has been turned on, you will see all the actual software installed in your image.

Mention who will be doing the regression test and save it. Test the software one by one by launching

the application and doing some basic testing. Once done save it again.

4.11 -Release meeting:

The next step is the Release Meeting. Once you have completed a Change Request, it is available in the

Release Meeting view under the attached specific Release number. The Release meeting is the place to

validate Change Requests. Depending on test results, the Release Manager and eventually the Change

Committee will decide and mark which ones will go to Production.

The release meeting view is up only if you have completed at least one Change Request. They will start

to pilled-up in this view when all the tests have been signed and Change Requests marked as

completed. If you see an empty view that means no Change Request has been marked as completed yet.

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In the view bellow you can see that we have only one Change Request completed. You can see all the

test results for this specific Change Request. However, you are not yet able to go to the Release

Meeting page because not all the Change Requests are completed yet. As mentioned in the message, a

meeting can be started only on active releases and with all the Change Requests closed.

We have completed all the Change Requests attached to Release 2017R6 so now the icon is available,

we can access the Release Meeting.

You may wonder how the final test results are rendered? Here we have one Change Request with green

status and one with orange. If a single test item (Install, LT, PT, FT) is on warning or error status, then

the aggregated result will always reflect the worst test result. For example, you may have your Install,

LT and FT on green but if PT is red, then the aggregated result will be red.

Let’s click on the Meeting button.

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The Meeting page header will show you some information about the ongoing release.

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For each Change Request you can see all the vDisk attached and for each of them the test results. (for

viewing purpose in this document, we have cut down the printscreen in two parts).

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The Release Manager along with the Change Committee should review each result and click on

Validate to send the Change Request to Prod. If you don’t validate that means you reject it.

!!! Business rule: The Release Manager doesn’t have to validate all the Change Request before clicking

on Go Live button, it is up to him to decide which one will be send to Production. Validating a Change

Request here means that the action will be written in the CMDB. For example, if the Change Request is

about installing a software then it will be visible in the concerned vDisk on the Change requests tab.

Before clicking on Go Live button, the Release Manager must also take a look at the regression testing

view to check if there isn’t any problem. If already done, then the regression testing reference will be

shown just under the meeting form with the agregated result. The Release Manager can go to check the

Regression testing view to see more details about all the regression testing that has been done.

It is up to the Release Manager and the Change Committee to decide if the Release is a Go or No Go.

!!! Business rule: The Release Manager can not Go Live without validating the regression testing!

If a Change Request hasn’t been marked “Validate”, it will show up as Rejected by release meeting.

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Once the Release Manager has clicked on Go Live button, this is how a finished and successful Release

looks like in the Release Status view. The Status is tagged at On production and the string that link all

the Change Request together is now green. (it is orange for the “in progress” Releases).

Now if you want to check what has been installed in your image you may go to Configuration/Images,

select your vDisk and go to the Change requests tab.

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If you have installed new applications you may also check the Applications tab

4.12 -Release workflow explained:

Let’s explain again the entire workflow process for a Change Request. From the creation phase to the

validation and the Go/No Go to Production.

DRAFT/PLANNED IN PROGRESS

LT COMPLETED VALIDATE

FT PT

1- The Release Manager creates a new Release on DRAFT mode while finishing the settings and

changed to PLANNED when he knows the Release will take place and has been approved by upper

management and stakeholders.

2- IT people, Project Managers and End Users start to add Change Request to this newly created

Release. The Release Manager review the Change Requests and decide to approve or reject.

Release

Status

view

Change

Request

Change

Request

page

Release

Meeting

view

GO

PROD

Release

Manager release release

change

request(s)

change

request(s) Change

Committee

review

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3- When all the Change Requests have been added to the Release and when the time to start the

Release has arrived then the Release Manager officially changes the Release status to IN PROGRESS

mode. At this point no Change Request could be added anymore. It is time for the Change Committee

to approve or reject.

4- When a Change Request is approved by the Change Committee, a new object is created in the

Release Status view and 4 new documents are created in the Testing view. At this point people can start

the Change Request Install and Testing.

5- Once all the tests have been completed for a specific Change Request then it could be marked as

completed.

6- As soon as a Change Request is marked as completed, it becomes available in the Release Meeting

view. However, the Release Meeting button will only be available once all the Change Requests

attached to the Release have been marked as completed status.

7- The Release Manager and the Change Committee will now decide, depending on test result and

regression testing, which Change Requests will go to Production and which ones won’t.

8- Once the Go Live button has been clicked, the Release is marked as Completed.

4.13 -Team Dashboard:

The Team dashboard view is the same as the Personal Dashboard that could be seen when you just

login-in, but in this view you see all the other people and not only your tasks. This view is very useful

for Project Managers and Team Leads to check who is working on what and who might be available to

take on a coming task. This is like a kanban tool but even better because connected to your CMDB!

Basically in the dashboard you will see all the assigned tasks. They are classified by categories and

could be easily filtered for a better and quicker efficacy.

Here are some of the task categories and how they are organized. On the right of each you will see how

many tasks are waiting in the queue.

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You might want to play with filters when it comes to check for particular tasks. You have different

search features. You may want to search from a Work item such as showing only the one Config

Change tasks or only the Maintenance tasks.

You might want to check tasks with a specific Status, such as filtering Closed tasks for example.

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You could also search for a specific owner, for tasks assigned to a specific person, and for priority level

tasks.

Here is an example of assigned tasks, you will see who is the owner/creator of to the task, what kind of

task it is, the link to the task itself (title in blue), the scheduled date status to see if you are on time or

late, the priority level which is blue=normal, yellow=high and red=critical, the deadline to execute the

task and depending of the task type you will have more information such as who is assigned to do the

task or who has approved it.

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4.14 -vDisk application list:

vDisk application list won’t appear on the application inventory because they are added by the release

management process flow and managed under Images.

To see application inventory for vDisk, you must go to Configuration/Images, select the specific vDisk

and click on Application tab.

For example, here we have selected MsSql image - prod vDisk, on Applications tab you can see there is

one application installed on this image.

4.15 -Manually adding software to a vDisk:

Usually it’s not a best practice to manually add software to a vDisk when using a CMDB Release

Management tool such as CtxUniverse because it has to follow a specific workflow build with approval

and lot of steps. We authorized and activated this feature in our platform in order to simplify the

CtxUniverse setup. Often, if not everytime, companies will have existing environments and images so

they would need to upload/update their software list into the newly created environements/vDisk base

images in CtxUniverse.

This option is only available if turned ON manually in the admin panel. Check chapter 11.1.1.2

Machines config.

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To manually add a software to a vDisk, you must use in fact the opposite way, you will attach one, or

as many as needed, vDisk to an existing application in your inventory. Go to Inventory/Applications.

Select your application, for example here Antidote.

Then in the vDisk field select which vDisk have the application installed on them. If the option in the

admin panel was turned OFF, then you won’t be able to add anything in this field. It will be read only!

When you are done adding vDisk to your applications then you must turn it back OFF.

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4.16 -Release Calendar:

The release calendar is a must to have when you manage a Citrix release, with lot of steps and activities

to plan, that’s nice to have a graphic calendar view where you can see all the schedule. It is only

showing active releases, and if you have different release running at the same time, you can click on the

specific one, there is one calendar tab per release.

In the screenshot above you can see each all the virtual disk that has been assigned to the release, each

of them with their specific schedule, for installation and testing phases. If you have different release,

you can swith to another one by changing the tab.

The different colors indicate the release status, light green for new release, blue for an active release,

orange if the release is on hold and green if closed.

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5-Problem Management module:

5.1 -Problem management view:

The problem management module has been made to manage problems during an ongoing release

(while on QA testing for example) or after a release has been pushed to Production. Even with

thorough testing, it is possible to come into issues in the following days of the Go Live. With the

problem management module you are able to quickly take action, by immediately create an incident

linked to a specific release and Change Request.

The view will show you on which Release and vDisk the problem has been logged. You will see the

problem severity and the status, which Change Request is causing the problem, who is the person that

reported the problem and who is responsible to follow up the problem.

The different possible statuses are as follow:

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5.2 -Opening a new problem:

We will detail all the required steps to open a new problem. Click on + New Problem icon.

Give it a summary name and a severity level. A problem with a Critical level would probably push the

Release Manager to change the Release to “on Hold” status. Mention for which Release you want to

report the problem and coming from which Change Request (mandatory). On which vDisk you are

having the problem (it should be on your validation env but we let you choose), and finally specify the

application which is impacted.

Mention the date when you are reporting the problem, give it a detailed description and the impact on

the end-user.

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Give it a business impact level, 1 being the lowest and 5 the highest. Mention what could be a possible

solution, the starting and expecting finish date to resolve this problem.

Resolution will have to be specified once you will have fixed the problem, and you also have to

mention if you wish to remove the Change Request from the Release. Save your document as a Draft, it

is considered a draft until you decide to give it a Resolution status (gree-orange or red depending if you

have fixed the problem or not).

Specify who is reporting the problem:

And who will be responsible to follow-up on this issue:

Save your document.

Here you go, your problem has been opened in Draft mode.

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Click on the blue link to open it and update information as needed.

You might want to change the severity of the Problem depending on new information or progress.

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To close your Problem, choose a resolution, if it’s not fixed then you might also want to remove the

attached Change Request from the Release. When you choose a resolution, the DRAFT mode is

deselected. Save your document.

The Problem status is now marked as Completed.

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5.3 -Post Implementation Change Request:

After the release went live and during an interval of two weeks without any problem logged, then the

Change Request is marked with label completed “Post Implementation”.

Else, if one problem has been logged, the problem reference (name of the problem) will show up with

label "PRBLxxxx" – and status will be Completed.

Now if we look at a Change Request that has been approved and went live 2 weeks ago, without any

problem logged for this CR, it is now marked as Done for Post implementation step!

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6-Calendar module:

6.1 -Calendar view:

The Calendar view allows you to see everything that has been planned. From Project to Release,

Install, testing, etc… you may want to adjust the calendar by monthly/weekly or daily view.

You can click on any item, that will bring you directly to its own page to check more information.

You may want to activate some filters in order to only see specific items. You may want to select only

a specific Work item, a Status and a Priority filter.

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Here are the available work items and the available Priority filters.

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7-Timeline module:

7.1 -Timeline view:

The timeline view is very useful if you want to check what has been done since the CtxUniverse setup.

Everything is logged here and presented like a Timeline history.

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8-Security Officer module:

8.1 -Security Officer view:

A good Release Management platform won’t be complete if you can not manage all the security

requests coming up during a business release. Some companies are still using an excel sheet send by

email to a security officer, thanks to CtxUniverse it will now be included in your CMDB platform with

a workflow for approval, tracking and history.

The main view will show you the Security type, the reference number starting by SRQ, the description,

who is it assigned to, the expected delivery date and the actual status.

The 4 different types of Security Requests:

The different Statuses:

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8.2 -Creating a new Security Request:

To create a new Security request click on the + New security request button.

Give it a summary description, choose what kind of Security Request type you need, here we are

adding a user to a specific group so it is an Access group request type. Choose the request priority

level. Mention if your request is linked to a release (ongoing or past). If not part of a release then it

might be linked to a change request, a project or even an incident? Those fields are not mandatory so

that might be a normal request, not linked to anything. Give it a detailed description.

The created by field will be filled with your information and you have to select who will be responsible

to execute this request once the Security Officer will have approve it.

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Mention the user name to be added in the group (AD names) and give comments if necessary.

Choose Draft mode if your request is not yet completed or Send it to approval if you are ready.

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8.3 -Specificity of other Security Request Type:

There are 4 different security request type.

We are going to review them one by one here.

-Access Group:

We have seen Access group in an earlier example just before. Give the user name and give the group

names where the user need to be added. If needed write down some comments to explain or detailed

what is the reason for this security access requirement.

-Port:

If you need to open/close a specific port (one or more) on a specific machine then you may choose Port

request type. Mention which device (network appliance) or which Server, the port number, to open or

to close and write down some comments about why it is required.

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-Security Access:

If you need to give authorizations to a specific folder or file then you may choose the Security access

request type. Mention the user name or the group name, the folder or the file where the permission

needs to be granted and which server.

-Traffic:

If you need to create a new traffic between 2 machines or 2 devices then you may choose the Traffic

request type. Mention between which devices or which servers you need to create a network flow,

which port needs to be open or close on both sides and you may want to write down some comments

about what kind of traffic you are creating (XML, HTTP, Session Reliability, etc…).

For each Security Request you may want to check the History:

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8.4 -Security Officer Statistics:

On the Security Request main view, you may want to check some statistics, you will find out how

many security request types have been opened, their statuses, and if they were linked to change

requests, releases, incidents or projects.

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9-Dashboard module:

9.1 -Dashboard view:

When you first login-in to CtxUniverse, the dashboard is the main view you will get. This is a summary

view of all your tasks. This is your personal view, it is linked to your profile. You can see right away if

you have planned tasks to do, if you are late or if you have been assigned new tasks. You may apply

filters to clean the view if you have too many items in the window. This is similar to the Team

Dashboard view from the Citrix Release module, except that this dashboard view is only showing your

personal tasks.

If you wish to see your dashboard in full-screen then click on the following icon on the top-right corner

of the window.

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Click on the blue link of any document if you need more information about it. This will get you directly

to the corresponding form page.

Each color on the left of the task has a special priority level which is as follow:

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10-User Profile module:

10.1 -My account:

The user profile menu is located on the top right of CtxUniverse window. You access your profile by

clicking on the Welcome icon, Profile. This is also the place where you will be able to Logout of the

application.

10.1.1 -Profile:

The first tab is Profile. Here you will setup all your personal information, your picture, your status and

the groups you are member of.

You may want to upload your picture? Click on it to get the change avatar option.

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Fill-in all the other information such as your birth date, email, extension (work phone), the date you

joined the company, and your office location (CtxUniverse manages multi-office). You can not modify

your team membership groups, it is added by your team lead.

Click on the Empty words to fill-in your information.

To validate/save your entry, click on the blue checkmark.

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You may change your status by clicking here:

10.1.2 -Activity Feed:

Activity Feed allows you to see all the modifications you have made in the system. All your activities.

See what kind of operation has been done, like Editing for exemple, when it has been done and by who.

Click on the item link to go directly to the specific page.

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10.1.3 -Friends:

This feature will be available in the next CtxUniverse release and will allow you to add friends.

10.1.4 -Settings:

In Settings you may setup what kind of Notifications you want to receive in the Notification panel. For

more information please check chapter 10.2 - Notifications.

Settings page allows you to change your password as well.

10.1.5 -Free Days:

Free days allows employee to setup their day off time and holidays so that other team members and

project managers/release managers are aware that you are not available to take on test/tasks at these

specific dates.

If you see the following message that means the HR team haven’t setup your account yet. Please check

chapter 11.3 - Human resources for more information.

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Once configured you should see the following information. It will show you how many free days you

are allowed to take.

To plan free days click on + Plan free days icon.

Specify your vacation duration, give it a description and save it as draft if you are not yet sure of your

dates or send it to approval if your trip is already booked!

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Once saved, you can see your request status, waiting to be approved by HR or your team lead.

You may notice that once your document has been saved (Draft or Send to approval), there is a new

status Obsolete if you want to cancel your request.

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10.2 -Notifications:

On the top right corner you have the notification icon with a purple background and a bell icon.

It will indicate how many unread/unchecked notification you have.

Anytime you may click on a specific notification to get more details.

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Once you have opened the Notification windows the counter will get back to 0. You may click on See

all notifications, click on any of them to get to the detailed page.

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10.3 -Tasks:

The task module allows you to instantly see your task alerts. If you click on it you will see how many

New tasks are assigned to you, how many have been sent to approval and how many are active. This

alert icon might be very useful to remind you on remaining tasks to close.

You may want to click on See tasks with details to open all your tasks.

You will be able to see what is the status of the task, the reference, a summary, owner, executed by,

approved by, updated by, last edited and when it has been added. The status here is showing as

Approved but the task has bot yet been completed!

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Click directly on the link to go to the specific task and get more details.

Then once the task page has been opened (it is a Config. Change in this exemple but it could be

anything else.) then you may choose Completed if succecssful or Failed if something went wrong.

Don’t forget to save your form.

Then now, you don’t have any more active task!

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11-Admin panel module:

11.1 -App config:

This is the admin dashboard panel where you will be able to customize CtxUniverse settings.

On the top left menu, click on the red icon.

The Admin dashboard page allows you to see an overview of Users & Roles. How many roles are

defined, how many covered/uncovered and assigned roles.

In the right part you will be able to see Users in roles. You instantly see users’ roles and there is a

search to make things even easier for you.

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!!! The Incomplete roles tab means there is only 1 user with this role and it is not best practice at all! It

indicates that if someone is sick or on holidays then there is no backup available! It is highly

recommanded to have at least 2 users for each specific role!

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11.1.1 -Modules config:

There are 9 different modules, we will be explaining them one by one.

11.1.1.1 -General settings:

This part allows you to setup the internal email notification system. First mail setting is for event and

notification emails and the second one is for internal system error reporting.

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By default the feature is turned off, so you will have to turn it ON.

For both of them please specify the Mail Sender Address, it could be the same such as

noreply@ctxuniversedemo.com but then you better choose 2 different Sender Names.

Mention the server name, the domain, the user name and password to be used for sending emails.

You could eventually mention a Bcc recipient. Save your changes when you are done.

You may want to Test the configuration to make sure emails are successfully sent.

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11.1.1.2 -Machines config:

Machines configuration allows you to customise different information for the machine inventory.

The first setting is to allow software to be manually attached to a virtual machine, by default the setting

is set to OFF but you may turn it ON if necessary.

This parameter will allow you to attach software to a specific virtual machine from the Inventory/App-

Machines menu.

By default, manually software attach is only authorized for physical machine and not for virtual

machine, because virtual machine could have disk and applications managed by a workflow approval

process.

If you look at the same menu but for a virtual machine, then you won’t see the + Add application icon.

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Let’s turn it ON to see if we will have the option to manually add an application.

Now if we come back to the Inventory/App-Machines menu and if we check the same server, buttons

have been added! You are now able to remove or add applications.

!!! This feature could be useful if you need to make some manual adjustment to your CMDB or during

CtxUniverse first setup/deployment in your company. The manually software attach feature is only

available for Virtual Machine, not for vDisk! There is another option to do the same thing for vDisk.

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The next item to be customised is the OS categories. There are 4 main OS already setup, IBM AS/400,

Linux, Unix and Windows. For each of them few sub products have been already recorded. You may of

course add new entries as you wish. For example, let’s add a Windows Server 2016 entry.

Click on the Windows icon to load up the different products. Click on the + to add a new entry.

Give it a ValCode and a description (the description will be the one seen in the dropdown windows).

Click IsActive if the entry is to be shown on the possible options and give it a SortOrder if you wish.

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The new entry is now available in the + New server form page.

You may want to configure other OS with products and versions you are using at your company. For

example, you may want to add another Linux to the existing entries, let’s say CentOS. Click on the

Linux icon and then on the + to add your new entry

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To modify or get more info on an existing entry, click on the green pen icon:

To delete an entry, click on the red trash icon:

Next item on the list is Server Application. You may setup your own entries that will reflect what kind

of application servers you have in your company.

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When you want to add your own entry, it is like what we have seen before with the Operating systems

window, you just must click on the +, give it a ValCode, a Description and save changes!

Modifications for Server applications will be available in the + New server form page under

Application (what kind of application server it is).

Anytime you can disable an entry without deleting it by removing the IsActive checkmark.

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It will then show Orange status for inactive state.

The next item is something lot of sys admins will find very useful! You have the possibility to add all

the vCenter hosts. You could then mention for each server entry you create, on which vCenter they are

hosted.

Same here if you want to add a new entry just click on the +, give it a ValCode and a Description then

save your changes.

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Modifications for vCenter hosts will be available in the + New server form page under vCenter.

Last item you can customise for Machine configuration page is Service and Sub/Service. When no

service is selected in the dropdown list and you click on the + then you will be adding a new Service!

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To make sure you are creating a new Service and not a sub service you may check the ClsCode, it

should be SERVICE. Give it a ValCode and a Description and then save your changes.

We now have 3 services, let’s create a sub/service Level 1 under the main service HelpDesk.

I select HelpDesk from the dropdown list and make sure it is selected. I will then select the black +

icon from the window just under.

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Check that the ClsCode is SUBSERVICE, give it a ValCode, a Description and save your changes.

We now have created the new Service HelpDesk with a SubService Level 1.

Modifications for Service/Sub Service will be available in the + New server form page under

Service/Sub Service.

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11.1.1.3 -Applications config:

There are 4 customisable fields, Application type, Application publisher, Application vendors, and

Application dependencies.

You may setup your own Application type depending on your internal needs.

Click on the + to add your own entry. For example, here we are adding a new entry Development to

Application type.

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Once added this new entry will be available in Inventory/Applications under App. Type field.

Next one on the list is Application publisher, you may want to edit/add your own, by default the main

ones are already setup.

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Click on the + to add your own entry. For example, here we are adding a new entry for Application

publisher. We are adding RSA. Save changes.

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Once added this new entry will be available in Inventory/Applications under Publisher field.

Next in the list is Application vendors. If you have partner, or dedicated vendors where you buy all

your software and hardware, then you may add your own list here:

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Click on the + to add your own entry. For example, here we are adding a new entry for Application

vendors. We are adding Staples. Save changes.

Once added this new entry will be available in Inventory/Applications under Vendor field.

Last in the list is Application dependencies. If you have applications that have specific requirements,

then you may add your own list here.

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There are 6 different tabs, including, Java, .Net, IE, Firefox, DB and Other. If you wan to add an entry,

make sure you are on the corresponding tab.

Let’s add a new entry to the DB tab. Click on the + and let’s add Oracle.

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Once added this new entry will be available in Inventory/Applications under Requirement part and DB

field. Under requirement you will find all the 6 different categories.

You may have noticed the Other category, its to add your own requirement, a customisable field.

11.1.1.4 -Printers config:

Printer config allows you to configure your own device vendors list. You may also want to add models

for each vendor.

If you want to add a new printer vendor click on the green +

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We are adding Epson manufacturer. Click Save changes.

Now we will be adding a new model under Epson. Select Epson and click on the black +

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Enter your model name and click Save changes.

The Printer configuration module will populate the following fields in Inventory/Printers:

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11.1.1.5 -Configuration module:

The configuration module allows you to create your own environments in CtxUniverse in order to

duplicate what you already have in your workflow processes. This configuration module is related to

Configuration module/Topology. In best practices, you could have as much as 7 environments in a

complete workflow path: Sandbox, DEV, Test, QA, User Acceptance, Pre-Prod and Prod, but not all

companies have the necessity for such a big infra. The 7 default environments have been setup in

CtxUniverse, you can not delete any entry but you may activate/deactivate or rename them as you wish

to match with your internal naming convention.

For example if you want to edit DEV environment name for DevOps, click on the green pen and edit

the entry as follow.

!!! a DEV environment will stay a DEV environment, whatever how you choose to name it! You will

see the environment type in the read only field ValCode.

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To rename the entry, change only the Description field, here we are changing DEV for DevOps, then

Save your changes.

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Once changed you see that your DEV environment has been renamed to DevOps.

What you change here in the Configuration module on the admin panel, will show here in the Topology

environment map and in the naming when you choose to create a new environment square.

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In the configuration module, you also have the license manager module settings. (this is not to manage

CtxUniverse own license but Citrix user/device licenses. This is the CtxTools (UDadmin GUI) that has

been integrated to CtxUniverse. You must enter your Citrix server license hostname and a

username/password that has full access on this license server. If you don’t want to use this option, you

may turn it off.

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11.1.1.6 -Projects config:

Project preferences configuration will allow you to mention if your internal business process requires

an approval workflow for the Project management part. The Project management is part of

Configuration management and allows you to manage KLOs or small internal projects affecting the

Citrix infrastructure. For more information, you may want to check chapter 2.4.1- Creating a new

project.

If the switch if turned ON, then any new Project will have to be send for review and approval.

If the switch if turned OFF, then the creator could save it directly with Approved status without any

review.

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Basically it all depends on your internal business processes, you may want the Projects to be handled

by project managers only, in this case they don’t have to go through an approval process because they

should know what they are doing, instead if you open the Projects to everybody including sys admins

then you may want to add some security and screening by enabling the approval process; a project

manager or even the team lead should be able to validate and approve projects depending on their

assigned roles.

The other setting to manage for Project configuration is the external reference field. If you are using

another tool to manage your projects, you may want to add a custom SqlQuery to establish a

connection to a specific table to get your own ref number or any other information that may be useful

to link both CMDB system together.

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The External Reference information is shown here on any Project form page, the External Ref# field.

11.1.1.7 -Tasks and incidents config:

You have the possibility to manage few settings for the Tasks and Incidents management module. More

features will be added in the next CtxUniverse releases. Same as the Project management module, you

have the choice to turn on/off the business approval workflow for Incidents. This is up to you and it all

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depends on your internal business processes. You may also authorize past dates when creating a new

incident, indeed sometimes when production bugs arises, you may want to focus on solving the

incident and the incident entry is logged after. We are going to detail both features.

If you turn ON the business approval for Incidents, it will enable the approval flow for every new

incident created in Configuration/Maintenance/New incident. The Send to approval requirement will

show up.

If you turn OFF the switch, this will activate the option to approve it directly when saving it. In both

cases, you must mention the business approver name, this is mandatory.

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The allow past dates feature will authorize the creation of incidents after the problem has been fixed. It

might be useful if priority must be made on solving the incident first, then create an entry later. But

keep in mind that CtxUniverse is not a helpdesk management tool, the Incident management part

(Maintenance) has been made to record/log all the level 2/3 incidents on the Citrix infrastructure.

When turned ON you will be able to create a new incident entry with past dates here in the dates field:

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The other setting to manage for Task and incidents configuration is the external reference field. If you

are using another tool to manage your incidents, you may want to add a custom SqlQuery to establish a

connection to a specific table to get your own ref number or any other information that may be useful

to link both CMDB system together.

The External Reference information is shown here on any Incident form page, the External Ref# field.

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11.1.1.8 -Business case config:

You may want to manage an external reference field for Business case as well. If you are using another

tool to manage your business cases, you may want to add a custom SqlQuery to establish a connection

to a specific table to get your own ref number or any other information that may be useful to link both

CMDB system together.

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Turn the switch ON and fill-in all the necessary information to connect to your external database. Write

down your SQL Query and Test the connection. Save your changes when you are sure it is working

fine.

The External Reference information is shown here on any Business Case form page, the External Ref#

field.

The other setting you may want to customize is the Business case types. By default, there are 5

different business case types: IDEA, CORPO, HARD, ORGA and SOFT.

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Let’s add a new one. We are going to add HEALTH category. Click on the black +. Once done click on

Save changes.

The Business case type field is shown here on the Business Case form page. This is a mandatory field.

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The last setting you can customize on the Business Case configuration module is the Business case

purpose field. By default, there are 9 different business case purposes such as shown bellow:

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You may want to add one, edit or delete any entries as you wish. The way to do it is the same:

+ : Add a new entry

: Modify an existing entry

: Delete an existing entry

: View history

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11.1.1.9 -Change Request config:

You may want to manage an external reference field for your Change Requests. If you are using

another tool to manage your Change Requests, you may want to add a custom SqlQuery to establish a

connection to a specific table to get your own ref number or any other information that may be useful

to link both CMDB system together.

The other setting you may want to customize are the Category and Subcategory for your Change

Requests. By default, nothing has been setup so each company can create their own categories.

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Click on the green + to add a new entry. In this example, we are adding a category 100 which will

classify your Change Requests per your own internal business categories if you already have a naming

convention defined. You could also add numbers if you have a list of code for each category. For

example, 100-Server Management, and sub-category 101-Reboot.

Click Save changes, now we are adding a sub-category 101-Server Reboot, select the newly created

category and click on the black +.

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Save changes. The new category and sub category have been created.

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Now they will be available in the dropdown choice list for any newly created Change Request.

11.1.1.10 -Release config:

You may want to have an external reference field in your Release form page. If you are using another

tool to manage your Release, you may want to add a custom SqlQuery to establish a connection to a

specific table to get your own ref number or any other information that may be useful to link both

CMDB system together.

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The External Ref# field is located just under category/sub-category in the Release page form:

The other module is the release purpose, by default we have added the 3 common purposes for a

Release which are Feature, Time or Update based. But you may add your own if you have other

business requirements.

You may want to add one, edit or delete any entries as you wish. The way to do it is the same:

+ : Add a new entry

: Modify an existing entry

: Delete an existing entry

: View history

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The last setting you can manage here for Release config is the regression test setting. Regression tests

are planned to be started with x days before the Go-Live date, x being the setting you may adjust as per

your requirements. By default, we recommend 3 days of intense regression testing but that really

depend on the release size and how many people do you have available to do the testing.

Change the value here and Save changes.

11.1.2 -Geo locations:

Geo locations is in the app config/admin dashboard. It allows managing office and datacenter locations.

First you should create all your addresses. If you are an international or national company with

different locations, click on + Add country

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Type in the Country Code and Country Name, here we are adding Canada. Save changes.

Now we add a city, click to + Add city

Type in your city name and Save changes.

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Now we add a street to the newly created city. Click on + Add street

Type in your street name and Save changes.

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Now let’s add a new datacenter location, click on the blue +

From the dropdown menu list choose Country, City, Street then complete the rest of the address with

street and office/room number. The way this feature has been implemented allows you to enter

different office addresses located in the same street or different floors/offices in the same building.

Here is how it looks like with few datacenter addresses.

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Now let’s add an office address. Click on the blue +

From the dropdown menu list choose Country, City, Street then complete the rest of the address with

street and office/room number. The way this feature has been implemented allows you to enter

different office addresses located in the same street or different floors/offices in the same building.

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Here is how it looks like with few office addresses.

The datacenter location field will show up in the Inventory/Machine form page.

The office location field will show up for example, in the Inventory/Printer form page.

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11.1.3 -DCO config:

DCO config is in the app config/admin dashboard. It allows managing your datacenter and racks.

Click on the blue + to create a new DCO. Enter a short and a long description. Save changes.

Once done click here to show the Rack list attached to this DCO.

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Click the blue + to add one more rack.

Type in the rack name with a short and long description, then Save changes.

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Here is the rack view with the newly added racks.

DCO and Rack fields will show up in the Inventory/Machine form page.

11.1.4 -Teams management:

Teams management settings is in the app config/admin dashboard. It allows managing user groups.

In the main view, you can see all the existing group. If you want to add a new one click on + New team

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Give a code and a name to your new group, mention if the group has an email address, give it a detailed

description and check if the group has the authorization to approve Projects. Save your group.

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Edit a group by clicking on the corresponding blue link.

If you want to delete a group check DELETE THIS TEAM and save it.

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11.1.5 -CtxUniverse License:

CtxUniverse License info allows you to manage your license. In the top left menu click on the red icon.

Then you may click on License info icon.

You will see if your license key is valid, the CtxUniverse version, the license expiration date, how

many environments you may create under this license mode, how many vDisk, and how many user

would be able to use CtxUniverse platform.

When we provide a license number to your company, you must enter the key here and click Go! To

validate.

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11.2 -Users management:

User Management is the orange icon located on the top left part of the User Interface. It allows you to

create new users, reset password, assign user roles, and team assignments.

The main view list all the users, with information such as account status, first name, last name, login

name, AD login name, last login date, roles assigned to users.

: enlarge page to full screen : refresh page : hide the window : delete the window

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Click on the search icon to enable/disable columns, check what kind of information you want to see on

the main list view.

Click on the printer icon to format a printable view of your user list

11.2.1 -Creating a user account:

Let’s add a new user. Click on + Add user

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Enter all the necessary information, first name, last name, login name, AD login name, and email.

Click on the switch to activate the user. Click on Reset password to generate a temporary password to

communicate to the user.

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Then you choose which role assign to the user and Save the page. For more information see chapter

11.5 - Roles & authorizations

11.2.2 -Deactivating a user account:

Click on Users management icon.

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Locate you user in the list or Search the name. Click on the green pen icon to edit the user page.

Disable the user account by turning the switch to OFF

11.2.3 -Reset a user password:

To reset a user password and generate a new temporary password. Click on Users management icon.

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Locate you user in the list or Search the name. Click on the green pen icon to edit the user page.

Click on Reset password icon, a new password will show up on the screen.

11.2.4 -Add/remove a role to a user:

To add or remove a specific role to a user. Click on Users management icon.

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Locate you user in the list or Search the name. Click on the green pen icon to edit the user page.

Select which role you want to add or deselect the one that must be removed. Save when you are done.

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11.3 -Human resources:

Human resources module is the blue icon located on the top left part of the User Interface. It allows you

to manage employee and contractor wages and their day-off. Approval of free time is done in this

module.

In the main view, you can see the user list, the hourly rate, the monthly payment and their allowed free

days. Here you can only modify user’s financial information, if you wish to add a new user, you must

use the User Management module.

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To view or modify user’s information just click on the blue link.

Make the modification and click Save.

In the Free day’s request tab, you see all the pending approval free time requests. There is a filter

allowing you to only show the pending or the approved request.

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These requests come from your own profile/free days’ tab, when you are planning days off.

Coming back to the pending request, the team lead or HR person will approve your request

Or reject it.

Even when your vacation has been approved, it can still be canceled/rejected if required.

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11.4 -Stats & Reports:

CtxUniverse allows you to get powerful reports and statistics. Click on the green icon on the top left

panel to access the reporting module.

There are 6 reporting modules available, Applications overview, Machines overview, Printers overview,

vDisk overview, vDisk versions overview, and Security request overview.

On each graphic, the horizontal represents the time frame and the vertical is the number of objects.

When you mouse over the graph you can see the daily updated numbers.

The graph shows only the active records, if you want to investigate details and create your own

customized reports then you must export the log file by clicking on the green icon situated bellow the

graphic.

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You can then open the Excel file to get all the details… With filtering and advanced Excel options you

will be able to create fantastic reports!

This will allow you to quickly check for customized information such as, which software will have

expiring license in the coming months? how many internal dev apps do we have? how many Internet

application type? Possibilities are endless!

In the next CtxUniverse releases, we will be adding more reporting modules.

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11.5 -Roles & Authorizations:

Roles and authorizations are hardcoded in the application and could not be edited/modified. They

define the permissions and what is possible to do in CtxUniverse for a person with specific roles

attached.

11.5.1 -How security works:

In CtxUniverse you have Users, Groups and Roles. Users are members of groups, and on top of that,

roles are assigned to users (not groups). Roles give authorizations to do specific actions in CtxUniverse.

Authorizations are then given at user level. Groups are used to notify different teams, manage tasks and

notifications. Roles and authorizations are hardcoded and can not be modified, but you can create your

own Groups depending on your business processes and how you have named your different teams in

your company.

You add users to specific groups, groups receive emails, notifications and tasks to do.

You assign roles to users, roles give authorizations to specific actions inside CtxUniverse platform.

!!! Roles are cumulative, it means that if a user has a role that doesn’t allow the creation of a vDisk

request, for example only R (read access) and he has another role which is RW (read, write access) then

the addition of these 2 roles is RW so he will still be able to create a vDisk request. We provide a

complete spreadsheet bellow with all the security and authorization roles in CtxUniverse. You can not

modify them, they are hardcoded in the application.

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11.5.2 -Roles and authorizations spreadsheets:

The following spreadsheet shows the association between roles and actions in CtxUniverse.

Description INC SRQ PRJC CONFG BUSC CHGR VDKR Release Web App Admin RW R R R RW RW R R Stakeholder R R R R RWA R R R

PM Lead RW RW RWA RW RW RW RW R PM Coordinator RW RW RWA RW RW RW RW R CIO RWA RW RW RWA RWA RW RWA R Security Officer RW RWA R RW RW RW R R Team Lead Oper. RWA RW R RWA RW RW RWA R

App. Manager RW RW R RW RW RW R R

Business Analyst R RW R R RW RW R R Developer RW RW R RW RW RW RW R System Admin RW RW R RW RW RW RW R

DBA RW RW R RW RW RW RW R UT technical R R R R R R R R

UT functional R R R R R R R R

UT performance R R R R R R R R UT QA R R R R R R R R UT end-user R R R R R R R R

Business Unit RWA RW R RWA RW RW RW R Release Manager R R R R R RWA RWA RWA

Legal R R R R R R R R

Finance R R R R R R R R

Citrix Committee R R R R R RWA R R

Approval request Y Y Y Y Y Y N Y

Here is a reminder of item/action codes in CtxUniverse:

INC: Incident Maintenance REGR: Regression test RelTest: Release testing phases

SRQ: Security Officer request LGNC: Logon Control vDiskRefresh: vDisk refresh

PRJC: Project TOPO: Topology/Images Admin: Admin panel CtxUniverse

BUSC: Business Case Release: Release Rme: Release Meeting

CHGR: Change Request PBR: Problem VDKR: vDisk Request

Legend

R Read

W Write

A Approve

- Deny

Approval request: Y=there is an approval process somewhere. N=no approval required.

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(following…)

Description RelTest REGR PBR Rme vDiskRefresh LGNC TOPO Admin Web App Admin RW RW R R R R R RWA Stakeholder R R R R R R R - PM Lead R R RW R R R R - PM Coordinator R R RW R R R R - CIO R R RW RWA R R R -

Security Officer RW RW RW R R RW R -

Team Lead Oper. RW RW RW R RW RW RW - App. Manager RW RW RW R R R R - Business Analyst RW RW RW R R R R - Developer RW RW RW R R R R - System Admin RW RW RW R RW RW RW -

DBA RW RW RW R R R R - UT technical RW RW RW R R R R -

UT functional RW RW RW R R R R - UT performance RW RW RW R R R R - UT QA RW RW RW R R R R -

UT end-user RW RW RW R R R R -

Business Unit R R R R R R R - Release Manager RW RW RW RWA RW R R -

Legal R R R R R R R - Finance R R R R R R R -

Citrix Committee R R R RWA R R R -

Approval request N N N Y N N N

Here is a reminder of item/action codes in CtxUniverse:

INC: Incident Maintenance REGR: Regression test RelTest: Release testing phases

SRQ: Security Officer request LGNC: Logon Control vDiskRefresh: vDisk refresh

PRJC: Project TOPO: Topology/Images Admin: Admin panel CtxUniverse

BUSC: Business Case Release: Release Rme: Release Meeting

CHGR: Change Request PBR: Problem VDKR: vDisk Request

Legend

R Read

W Write

A Approve

- Deny

Approval request: Y=there is an approval process somewhere. N=no approval required.

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Here are the codes associated for each role:

Code Role name Code Role name

ADM Web App Admin DBA DBA

STK Stakeholder UTT UT technical

PML PM Lead UTF UT functional

PMC PM Coordinator UTP UT performance

CIO CIO UTQA UT QA

SOFF Security Officer UTEU UT end-user

TEAML Team Lead BU Business Unit

APPLM Application Manager RELMAN Release Manager

BA Business Analyst LEGAL Legal

DEV Developer FINANCE Finance

SA System Admin CCC Citrix Committee

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12-Post-installation:

12.1 -Filling customized information:

Before importing your own data information, we highly advise you to fill in all the customizable fields

in CtxUniverse. Because if you are migrating from another CMDB tool, you will probably export your

data to a CSV file and then import your CSV file into CtxUniverse. But before doing that, you will

need to create your own entries, categories, all the information that would come from your actual

CMDB. Simple example, the OS categories, how you have named them in your CMDB? If Windows

2012 R2 has been named Win2012r2 in your actual system, then you need to name it the same in

CtxUniverse so that during the import, all the excel file entries are already created in CtxUniverse.

Because our import feature doesn’t create the entries for you, that’s why you must create them

manually in CtxUniverse.

Basically, to import Applications, Machines and Printers data properly, you will need to fill in all the

customizable fields in the admin panel with your own values.

Applications:

Machines:

Printers:

Other values must be entered in your Excel file before importing to CtxUniverse. In the next chapter,

we explain how to do that, and how you may use our download mapping feature.

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12.2 -Importing your existing information into CtxUniverse CMDB:

When you are setting up CtxUniverse you will certainly want to import your own information in the

CMDB as quickly as possible. We have prepared import file templates to help you out importing your

data. Click on the admin panel and then on Data import button.

All imports and exports are using CSV format. The separator is ",". First row in the CSV file is

considered as a header, and it will be ignored during the import process. Imports are made only after

CVS validation. Number and order of columns must be the same as described in each import example

file. Each column marked as "required" must contain data in all rows.

On Machines import you can see all the fields that will need to be filled in. Detailed information is

provided for each category, with possible values when it’s not in the CMDB already (mappings).

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There are 3 different ways to find the required values:

1- For example here, for the server name, it will be your own decision and own values. So basically,

you will fill-in the excel file under the “Name” column with a different server name for each row. If

you already have an existing CMDB tool you will probably do an export so the Server Name field will

be filled in from your csv file.

2- We give possible values when you only have 2 possible choices, such as Yes/No or True/False…

3- Another option when available is the Download mappings feature, it allows you to download an

excel file with actual values in CtxUniverse CMDB. (that’s why we asked to first enter all the possible

information in CtxUniverse before doing your import). Here you will have recorded/filled-in all the

possible values for OS, so you can download the mappings to build your final Excel file to be imported.

We provide a template that you may use to do your final Excel file. The one that you will be using to

import all your data in CtxUniverse.

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There are 3 data import part: Machines / Applications and Printers. Those are the 3 main items in a

classic CMDB inventory module.

Once you are done with building your Excel files, it’s time to import them.

Click on Choose to browse the path to your file, once done click Upload to import into CtxUniverse

CMDB. If one row is not filled or if there is an error, the import will stop and a log file will give you

some information about where the process has been stopped and what happened.

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13-Faq:

-How do I check if an image has been previously merged?

To quickly get that information, go to the menu Configuration/Images, click on the chosen image and

check the History tab. If it has been refreshed before, this will be mentioned.