Configure event response policies

Event response policies let you configure event-triggered actions so that you can:

• Send an email alert when a session start event is detected.
• Take any combination of the following actions when logged events are detected in recorded sessions:
  • Send email alerts
  • Start screen recording immediately (with or without lossy screen recording enabled)
  • Lock session
  • Log off session
  • Disconnect session

The only system-defined event response policy is Do not respond. You can create custom event response policies as needed. Only one event response policy can be active at a time. By default, there’s no active event response policy.

Note:

After you create or activate an event response policy, the policy applies to all Session Recording servers of the selected site. You can create and activate separate event response policies for different sites.

System-defined event response policy

Session Recording provides one system-defined event response policy:

• Do not respond. By default, no action is taken in response to logged events in your recordings.

Create a custom event response policy

1. Click Add policy.

2. On the Add event response policy page, name and describe your new policy and then click Add Rule.

   

3. Name and describe your new rule.

   

4. In the Event triggers section, click Configure to configure event-triggered actions so that you can:

   • Send an email alert when a session start event is detected.
   • Take any combination of the following actions when logged events are detected in recorded sessions:
     • Send email alert
     • Start screen recording immediately (with or without lossy screen recording enabled)
     • Lock session
     • Log off session
     • Disconnect session

   You can create event triggers from scratch by clicking Add event triggers or select existing event trigger templates to use directly or customize.

   

   When selecting event trigger templates, you can search by keyword, theme, and event category.

   

   You can select and add multiple event trigger templates at a time.

   After you select and add an event trigger template, you can customize it as needed. You can also click the Duplicate button next to the Delete button to make duplicates of an existing event trigger.

   

   Note:

   You must select the event types that the active event detection policy logs.

   You can define your event triggers on the Description row or leave the row empty. Your defined description of an event trigger is provided in the alert emails if you have Send email selected and events of the type are logged. If you have Start screen recording selected, set the relevant parameters as illustrated later in this article. After that, dynamic screen recording automatically starts when certain events occur during an event-only recording.

   For a complete list of supported event types, see the following table.

   Event type	Dimension	Option
   App Start
   	App name	Includes, Equals, Matches
   	Full command line	Includes, Equals, Matches
   App End
   	App name	Includes, Equals, Matches
   Top Most
   	App name	Includes, Equals, Matches
   	Windows title	Includes, Equals, Matches
   Web Browsing
   	URL	Includes, Equals, Matches
   	Tab title	Includes, Equals, Matches
   	Browser name	Includes, Equals, Matches
   File Create
   	Path	Includes, Equals, Matches
   	File size (MB)	Greater than, Between, Smaller than
   File Rename
   	Path	Includes, Equals, Matches
   	Name	Includes, Equals, Matches
   File Move
   	Source path	Includes, Equals, Matches
   	Destination path	Includes, Equals, Matches
   	File size (MB)	Greater than, Between, Smaller than
   File Delete
   	Path	Includes, Equals, Matches
   	File size (MB)	Greater than, Between, Smaller than
   CDM USB
   	Drive letter	Equals
   Generic USB
   	Device name	Includes, Equals, Matches
   Idle
   	idle duration (Hrs)	Greater than
   File Transfer
   	File source	Equals (“host” or “client”)
   	File size (MB)	Greater than
   	File name	Includes, Equals, Matches
   Registry Create
   	Key name	Includes, Equals, Matches
   Registry Delete
   	Key name	Includes, Equals, Matches
   Registry Set Value
   	Key name	Includes, Equals, Matches
   	Value name	Includes, Equals, Matches
   Registry Delete Value
   	Key name	Includes, Equals, Matches
   	Value name	Includes, Equals, Matches
   Registry Rename
   	Key name	Includes, Equals, Matches
   User Account Modification
   	User name	Includes, Equals, Matches
   Unexpected App Exit
   	App name	Includes, Equals, Matches
   App Not Responding
   	App name	Includes, Equals, Matches
   New App Installed
   	App name	Includes, Equals, Matches
   App Uninstalled
   	App name	Includes, Equals, Matches
   RDP Connection
   	IP address	Includes, Equals, Matches
   Popup Window
   	Process name	Includes, Matches
   	Window content	Includes, Equals, Matches
   Performance Data
   	CPU usage (%)	Greater than
   	Memory usage (%)	Greater than
   	Net send (MB)	Greater than
   	Net receive (MB)	Greater than
   	RTT (ms)	Greater than
   Clipboard Operation
   	Data type	Equals (Text, File, Bitmap)
   	Process name	Includes, Equals, Matches
   	Content	Includes, Equals, Matches

5. (Optional) To send email alerts in response to detected events, set email recipients and the email sender properties.

   For an example email alert, see the following screen capture:

   

   Tip:

   Clicking the playback URL opens the playback page of the recorded session in the on-premises web player. Clicking here opens the All recordings page in the on-premises web player.

   1. Type email addresses for the alert recipients in the Recipients section.

      Email settings are available after you choose Send email alert in your event triggers.

   2. Configure outgoing email settings in the Session Recording Server Properties.

      

      Note:

      If you select more than two options in the Email title section, a warning dialog appears, saying that the email subject might be too long. After you select Allow sending email notifications and click Apply, Session Recording sends an email to verify your email settings. If any setting is incorrect, for example, an incorrect password or port, Session Recording returns an error message with the error details.

      

      Your email settings need about five minutes to take effect. To have your email settings take effect immediately or fix the issue that emails aren’t sent according to the settings, restart the Storage Manager (CitrixSsRecStorageManager) service. Also, restart the Storage Manager service if you upgrade to the current release from Version 2006 and earlier.

   3. Edit registry for accessing the on-premises web player.

      To make the playback URLs in your alert emails work as expected, browse to the registry key at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\SmartAuditor\Server and do the following:

      • Set the value data of LinkHost to the URL of the domain that you use to access the on-premises web player. For example, to access an on-premises web player at https://example.com/webplayer/#/player/, set the value data of LinkHost to https://example.com.

      • Add a value called EmailThreshold, and set its value data to a number in the range of 1 through 100. The value data determines the maximum number of alert emails that an email sending account sends within a second. This setting helps slow down the number of emails that are being sent and thus reduces the CPU usage. If you leave the value data unspecified or set it to a number out of range, the value data falls back to 25.

      Note:

      • Your email server might treat an email sending account as a spam bot and thus prevent it from sending emails. Before an account is allowed to send emails, an email client such as Outlook might request you to verify that the account is used by a human user.

      • There’s a limit for sending emails within a given period. For example, when the daily limit is reached, you can’t send emails until the start of the next day. In this case, ensure that the limit is more than the number of sessions being recorded within the period.

6. (Optional) To start screen recording immediately when certain events occur during an event-only recording, set the the following options for dynamic screen recording in the Recording options section:

   • Screen recording time span after an event is detected (min): You can configure the time duration (minutes) that you want to record the screen after events are detected. If you leave the value unspecified, screen recording continues until the recorded sessions end.
   • Screen recording time span before an event is detected (sec): You can configure the time duration (seconds) of the screen recording you want to keep before events are detected. The value ranges from 1 to 120. Setting the value to any of 1 through 10 makes the value 10 effective. If you leave the value unspecified, the feature does not take effect. The actual length of the screen recording that Session Recording keeps might be a little longer than your configuration.
   • Enable lossy screen recording: You can specify whether to enable lossy screen recording when a session event is detected. Lossy screen recording lets you adjust compression options to reduce the size of recording files and to accelerate navigating recorded sessions during playback. This feature is available with Session Recording 2308 and later. For more information, see Enable or disable lossy screen recording.

7. (Optional) Specify delay before session operations begin (sec). If you specify any of the following actions in response to logged events in recorded sessions, you can notify users of the actions in advance:

   • Lock session
   • Log off session
   • Disconnect session

   For example:

   

   Note:

   If you set the value to 0, it means that users aren’t notified when you lock, log off, or disconnect them from their virtual sessions. To notify users, set an appropriate value.

   For an example notice, see the following screen capture:

   

8. Select and edit the rule scope.

   In a way similar to when you create a custom recording policy, you can choose at least one of the following items to create the rule scope:

   • Users and user groups. Creates a list of users and groups to which the responses of the rule apply. Both Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) and Active Directory identity types are supported. For more information, see the instructions in the Create a custom recording policy section.
   • Published applications and desktops. Creates a list of published applications and desktops to which the responses of the rule apply.
   • Delivery groups and VDA machines. Creates a list of delivery groups and VDA machines to which the responses of the rule apply.
   • IP addresses and IP address ranges. Creates a list of IP addresses and ranges of IP addresses to which the responses of the rule apply. The IP addresses mentioned here are the IP addresses of the Citrix Workspace apps.

   • Filter. Creates a list of smart access tags to which the rule applies. You can configure contextual access (smart access) using smart access policies on Citrix NetScaler, Citrix Device Posture service, and Adaptive access based on the user’s network location.

     

     Contextual access (smart access) is available with Session Recording 2402 and later. It lets you apply policies based on the user access context including:

     • The user’s location
     • IP address range
     • Delivery group
     • Device type
     • Installed applications

   Note:

   When a session or an event meets more than one rule in a single event response policy, the oldest rule takes effect.

9. Follow the wizard to complete the configuration.
10. Activate the new event response policy.

Video about configuring policies