Build a custom application integration
Integrations extend Citrix Workspace and their microapps provide users with a cutting-edge experience and user interface. Deliver relevant, actionable notifications, combined with intuitive microapp workflows, to make the most important use-cases of business systems and applications directly accessible from a user’s Workspace.
Save users time by reducing context switching and eliminating the need to learn how to use various applications for one-off interactions. This improves the user experience because they can focus on their primary responsibilities.
Use the low-code editor to make working with microapps an easy process:
- Plan the integration by selecting a business app, identifying use-cases, and determining which APIs need to be used.
- Create the integration by adding the base URL, setting up authentication, and configuring the integration.
- Create a microapp and add notifications and pages to it.
Note:
If you need a test instance of Citrix Workspace to get started, visit the Citrix Workspace developer portal.
Now let’s dig into some details of the journey.
Plan the integration. Select a target business application for integration, identify integration use-cases, and identify APIs.
There are countless applications that can be integrated into Citrix Workspace. Select a target application that holds information of interest to Citrix Workspace users. Of particular interest are applications that are regularly used for quick tasks and are not intuitively accessible to users. Actionable applications enabling users to directly interact from within Citrix Workspace have much more value than applications that simply enable notification of users. For example, approving, creating, adding.
When you’re done you have the target application’s Base URL, the consistent part of your web address that you use for this integration. For example:
https://app.{yoursaasapp}.com/api/1.0/workspaces/{YOUR_WORKSPACE_ID}
Next, identify key use-cases for the selected target business application that we want to integrate into Citrix Workspace. For example:
- Approve PTO
- Create PTO
- Find pending approvals
- Mark task complete
- Notify user of created or changed assigned tasks
Once use-cases are known, the next step is to identify the APIs that will allow us to extract relevant information from the target system or inject back into it. This step might well involve back-and-forth iterations to the use-case identification because the target system might not provide suitable APIs to implement a use-case. For example:
- API endpoint to approve PTO: PUT
https://my.api.example/pending_pto_approvals/{id} - API endpoint to book PTO: POST
https://my.api.example/pto/ - API endpoint to get pending approvals: GET
https://my.api.example/pending_pto_approvals/ - API endpoint to mark task complete: GET
https://app.asana.com/workspaces/{your.workspace.id}/projects
Create the integration. Add the base URL, set up authentication, and configure the integration.
You use the target application’s Base URL you collected in the planning phase.
Select a service authentication type. HTTP integration supports Basic, NTLM, Bearer, and OAuth 2.0 authentication methods.
Now configure your integration. Use the endpoint data you collect in the planning phase. This endpoint data along with service action configuration forms the basis for creating actionable microapps.
Create a microapp. Add notifications and pages.
Build your own microapps to deliver the best end-user experience that meets your needs and streamlines daily workflows. Add a blank microapp to an application integration and then create pages or event notifications or both.
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Notifications are event-driven microapps that automatically notify users when something requires their attention, for example as a card in the Workspace activity feed. For example New Expense Report for Approval and New Course Available for Registration.
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Pages are user-initiated microapps that are available as actions in Workspace and make it easy to do initiate actions. For example, Request PTO, Submit a Help Desk Ticket, and Search the Directory.
That’s it. Now let’s get started.
Where to go next
Review the next steps in building a custom application integration: