Citrix Endpoint Management

Notifications

You can use notifications in Citrix Endpoint Management for the following purposes:

  • To communicate with select groups of users for several system-related functions. You can also target these notifications for certain users. For example, all users with iOS devices, users whose devices are out of compliance, users with employee-owned devices, and so on.
  • To enroll users and their devices
  • To automatically notify users (using automated actions) when certain conditions are met. For example:
    • When a user device is about to be blocked from the corporate domain because of a compliance issue
    • When a device has been jailbroken or rooted

For details about automated actions, see Automated Actions.

To send notifications with Citrix Endpoint Management, you must configure a gateway and a notification server. You can set up a notification server in Citrix Endpoint Management to configure SMTP servers. Those servers send email notifications to users. You can use notifications to send messages over SMTP.

  • SMTP is a connection-oriented, text-based protocol in which a mail sender communicates with a mail receiver. The mail sender issues command strings and supplies necessary data, typically over a TCP connection. SMTP sessions consist of commands originated by an SMTP client (the person sending the message) and corresponding responses from the SMTP server.

Prerequisites

  • Configure the SMTP notifications server to send messages to users. If the server is hosted on an internal server, contact your system administrator for configuration information. If the server is a hosted email service, locate the appropriate configuration information on the website of the service provider.
  • You can only use one active SMTP server. This communication channel allows only one active configuration.
  • Open port 25 from Citrix Endpoint Management in your network DMZ to point back to the SMTP server on your internal network. That enables Citrix Endpoint Management to send notifications successfully.

Configure an SMTP server

  1. In the Citrix Endpoint Management console, click the gear icon in the upper-right corner of the console. The Settings page appears.

  2. Under Notifications, click Notification Server. The Notification Server page appears.

  3. Click Add. A menu appears with options to configure an SMTP server.

    Add notification server

    • To add an SMTP server, click SMTP Server and then see Add an SMTP server for the steps to configure this setting.

Add an SMTP server

Add notification server for SMTP

  1. Configure these settings:

    • Name: Type the name associated with this SMTP server account.
    • Description: Optionally, enter a description of the server.
    • SMTP Server: Type the host name for the server. Specify either a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) or an IP address.
    • Secure channel protocol: Click SSL, TLS, or None in the drop-down list for the secure channel protocol used by the server (if the server is configured to use secure authentication). The default is None.
    • SMTP server port: Type the port used by the SMTP server. By default, the port is set to 25. If SMTP connections use the SSL secure channel protocol, set the port to 465.
    • Authentication: Select On or Off. The default is Off.
    • If you enable Authentication, configure these settings:
      • User name: Type the user name for authentication
      • Password: Type the authentication user’s password.
    • Microsoft Secure Password Authentication (SPA): If the SMTP server is using the SPA, click On. The default is Off.
    • From Name: Type the name displayed in the From box when a client receives a notification email from this server. For example, Corporate IT.
    • From email: Type the email address used if an email recipient replies to the notification sent by the SMTP server.
  2. Click Test Configuration to send a test email notification.

  3. Expand Advanced Settings and then configure these settings:

    • Number of SMTP retries: Type the number of times to retry a failed message sent from the SMTP server. The default is 5.
    • SMTP Timeout: Type the duration to wait (in seconds) when sending an SMTP request. Increase this value if message sending continuously fails because of timeouts. Use caution when decreasing this value, to avoid increasing the number of timed out and undelivered messages. The default is 30 seconds.
    • Maximum number of SMTP recipients: Type the maximum number of recipients per email message sent by the SMTP server. The default is 100.
  4. Click Add.

Create and update notification templates

You can create or update notification templates in Citrix Endpoint Management to be used in automated actions, enrollment, and standard notification messages sent to users. You configure the notification templates to send messages over two different channels: Citrix Secure Hub or SMTP.

Citrix Endpoint Management includes many predefined notification templates. The templates reflect the distinct types of events that Citrix Endpoint Management automatically responds to for every device in the system.

Note:

If you plan to use SMTP channels to send notifications to users, you must set up the channels before you can activate them. Citrix Endpoint Management prompts you to set up the channels when you add notification templates if they aren’t already set up.

  1. In the Citrix Endpoint Management console, click the gear icon in the upper-right corner of the console. The Settings page appears.

  2. Click Notification Templates. The Notification Templates page appears.

    Settings notification templates

Add a notification template

  1. Click Add. If no SMTP server is set up, a message about the use of SMTP notifications appears. You can choose to set up the SMTP servers now or set them up later.

    If you choose to set up SMTP server settings now, you’re redirected to the Notification Server page on the Settings page. After setting up the channels you want to use, you can return to the Notification Template page to continue adding or modifying notification templates.

    Important:

    If you choose to set up SMTP server settings later, you can’t activate those channels when you add or edit a notification template. As a result, those channels aren’t available for sending user notifications.

  2. Configure these settings:

    • Name: Type a descriptive name for the template.
    • Description: Type a description for the template.
    • Type: Click the notification type in the drop-down list. Only supported channels for the selected type appear. Only one APNS Cert Expiration template is allowed, which is a predefined template. You can’t add a template of this type.

    Note:

    For some template types, the phrase “Manual sending supported” appears below the type. Those template types are available in the Notifications list on the Dashboard and on the Devices page. From those locations you can manually send the notification to users. Manual sending isn’t available in any template that uses the following macros in the Subject or Message field on any channel:

    • ${outofcompliance.reason(whitelist_blacklist_apps_name)}
    • ${outofcompliance.reason(smg_block)}

      Note:

      The Citrix Endpoint Management console includes the terms “blacklist” and “whitelist”. We’re changing those terms in an upcoming version to “block list” and “allow list”.

  3. Under Channels, configure the information for each channel to be used with this notification. You can choose any or all channels. The channels you choose depends on how you want to send notifications:

    • If you choose Citrix Secure Hub, only iOS and Android devices receive the notifications, which appear in the device notification tray.
    • If you choose SMTP, users who enrolled with their email address receive the message.

    Citrix Secure Hub:

    • Activate: Click to enable the notification channel.
    • Message: Type the message to be sent to the user. This field is required if you’re using Citrix Secure Hub. For information about using macros in a message, see Macros.
    • Sound File: In the list, click the notification sound the user hears when the notification is received.

    SMTP:

    • Activate: Click to enable the notification channel.

      You can activate the SMTP notification only after you set up the SMTP server.

    • Sender: Type an optional sender for the notification, which can be a name, an email address, or both.
    • Recipient: This field has a pre-built macro for all but Ad Hoc notifications to make sure that notifications are sent to the correct SMTP recipient address. Citrix recommends that you do not modify macros in templates. You can add more recipients (such as a corporate administrator) by adding their addresses in this field. Use a semi-colon (;) to separate the macros and other addresses. To send Ad Hoc notifications, you can enter specific recipients, or you can select devices from the Manage > Devices page and send notifications from there. For details, see Devices.
    • Subject: Type a descriptive subject for the notification. This field is required.
    • Message: Type the message to be sent to the user. For information about using macros in a message, see Macros.
  4. Click Add. When all channels are correctly configured, they appear in this order on the Notification Templates page: SMTP and Citrix Secure Hub. Any channels not correctly configured appear after the correctly configured channels.

Edit a notification template

  1. Select a notification template. The edit page specific to that template appears. You can edit the template, except for the Type field, and activate or deactivate channels.

  2. Click Save.

Delete a notification template

You can delete only notification templates that you’ve added. You can’t delete predefined notification templates.

  1. Select an existing notification template.

  2. Click Delete. A confirmation dialog box appears.

  3. Click Delete to delete the notification template or click Cancel to cancel deleting the notification template.

Notifications