Deploying & Configuring Citrix Workspace in Google Admin Enterprise Console on CloudReady/ChromeOS

This (short) guide will cover the deployment of the Citrix Workspace (formerly known as Citrix Receiver) Chrome extension on Neverware CloudReady or Chrome OS devices running in a Google Enterprise Managed domain. All the configuration steps below are performed within your google-managed domain and must be done with a user account with these administrative rights. 

Pushing the Citrix Workspace application to your users:

1. Launch the google.admin.com console and goto Device Management

2. Define your target users*:
   Define who is your target organizational unit (OU) for deployment. In the case of this guide, we’ll be creating our own OU called ‘Citrix Lab OU’
   *Note the ‘users’ distinction, as applications can not be forced to a particular device in Chrome.

3. Add Citrix Workspace app to your domain:
   Now go to Device Management > Chrome Management > App Management & search for ‘Citrix Workspace’ and click on the application title.

4. Configuring User settings to force install the application:
   Once loaded, we’ll see a screen like below, with 3 categories of configurations; User settings, Public session settings, and Kiosk settings*. (For the context of this article we’ll be using User settings since we want users to receive the application within their logged on session.)
   *For further reading on distinguishing between Chrome Workspace behavior in the 3 different configurations, see the blog article written here.
5. Configure Citrix Workspace application settings:
   Find your OU and configure the settings to your needs, making sure to ‘Force Installation’ and override inheritance if & where necessary. Here’s how we’re configured for reference:

6. Automatic configuration of your storefront or access gateway on the clients:
   We can use the console to also configure a policy that contains a ton of settings on how the client will experience your Citrix environment, which we won’t cover now. There is a nifty Citrix Workspace app for Chrome & HTML5 configuration utility which will do all the legwork for you.
   1. Create your policy configuration: For reference, our configuration to simply just point the app to our storefront environment is below. Create a text file with the following details, substituting the URL and name for your actual environment.

      {
"settings": {
"Value": {
"settings_version": "1.0",
"store_settings": {
"name": "CloudReady Citrix Lab",
"rf_web": {
"url": "https://XYZ/Citrix/StoreWeb"
}
}
}
}


   2. Click ‘UPLOAD CONFIGURATION FILE’ and browse for your file:
      
7. BONUS Step: Deploying an Active Directory based internal certificate (or any certificate) to your ChromeOS devices
   In our lab instance of the environment, we’re using an windows-based and internally hosted CA to issue SSL certificates. If that certificate doesn’t exist on your CloudReady or Chrome OS endpoints, you will receive an error message when launching Citrix Workspace. Follow the steps to push your certificate:
   1. Goto Device Management > Network > Certificates
   2. Choose your OU
   3. Click ADD CERTIFICATE and upload your CA (in .pem/.cer format)
   4. Check the box for Use this certificate as an HTTPS certificate authority. to allow the browser to validate the full digital certificate chain of servers.
8. TEST!