What’s new

A goal of Citrix is to deliver new features and product updates to Session Recording service customers when they are available. New releases provide more value, so there’s no reason to delay updates. Updates are rolled out to the service release approximately every six weeks.

This process is transparent to you. Initial updates are applied to Citrix internal sites only, and are then applied to customer environments gradually. Delivering updates incrementally in waves helps ensure product quality and maximize availability.

April 2023

A daemon introduced for the cloud client

A daemon is introduced to keep the Session Recording cloud client running and to automatically repair it when it runs abnormally. The daemon is available in cloud client versions 7.38.10030.16 and later.

Activity feed

As a supplement to the Session Recording management dashboard, the Session Recording service introduces an activity feed to improve data visibility and data visualization.

The activity feed gives you information about the events and tasks that happened in the past.

For more information, see Activity feed.

Email notifications

To get notified about specific events and tasks through email, you can now subscribe to email notifications.

You can subscribe to be notified about:

• Resource usage alerts: When resource usage thresholds are exceeded
• Server status changes: When the status of a Session Recording server changes
• Storage maintenance results: A digest of the results of automated tasks for archiving and deleting recordings

For more information, see Email notifications.

Fixes

• Automated tasks for archiving and deleting recordings are terminated if target sessions are still live. [SRT-9832]
• If you edit more than one rule of a policy in the Session Recording service, your edits might not take effect and a “Policy adding failed” error is logged in your web browser console. [SRT-9754]
• Attempts to edit policy rules that have a Japanese name fail. [SRT-9675]

February 2023

Support for scheduling cloud client upgrades

Previously, the Session Recording cloud client was automatically upgraded each time a new release was issued. Starting with this release, you can upgrade the Session Recording cloud client immediately or schedule automatic upgrades. For more information, see Schedule cloud client upgrades.

Cloud client enhancement

We have enhanced the Session Recording cloud client in version 7.37.9010.3. This version of the cloud client handles REST API requests and file streaming requests directly, which brings the following benefits and changes:

• Previously, to ensure a Session Recording server would work properly in the cloud, you must install an SSL certificate on it and add a certificate binding in IIS. Versions 7.37.9010.3 and later of the cloud client don’t depend on the local certificates on Session Recording servers and don’t support the CUSTOMDOMAIN parameter.

  For more information, see Connect existing Session Recording servers to the cloud or Install Session Recording servers from within the cloud.

• Versions 7.37.9010.3 and later of the cloud client obliterate the need to configure the web streaming service hosted in IIS if you want to use the cloud player only.

• We have removed the web configuration file (Web.config) from <Session Recording server installation path>/WebSocketServer, and use the registry instead for setting the transport packet size. You can locate the registry key at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\SessionRecording\CloudClientService\BlockSizeMultiple. For more information, see Increase the transport packet size.

• The cloud client enhancement increases playback speed and creates a greater playback experience.

December 2022

Server installation from within the cloud

Previously, you could connect only existing Session Recording servers to the Session Recording service. For more information, see Connect existing Session Recording servers to the cloud.

Starting with this release, you can connect any machine to the Session Recording service and then install the Session Recording server component on it from within the cloud. After installation completes successfully, the machine becomes a Session Recording server that is connected to the Session Recording service. To do so:

1. Prepare a machine and install the Session Recording cloud client on it. The machine is automatically connected to the Session Recording service, appearing in the Unallocated servers list on the Server Management page.
2. Verify that the status of the machine is Ready to install, and then click the installation icon. The installation wizard appears.
3. Follow the wizard to install the Session Recording server component on the machine.

This new feature obliterates the need to download the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops installer or the SessionRecordingAdministrationx64.msi file. It also checks domain joining and certificate binding to prevent issues that might keep Session Recording servers from functioning after being connected.

For more information, see Install Session Recording servers from within the cloud.

Improved experience in server onboarding

To connect a Session Recording server to the cloud, you must install the cloud client on it. Previously, you had to manually enter a command to do that.

This release introduces a Generate command wizard where you can generate a command by providing necessary information. The wizard also provides important reminders such as for certificate binding. To open the wizard, click Generate command on the Server connection guide page or click Continue configuration on the Session Recording service Welcome page and then click Generate command.

For more information, see Connect existing Session Recording servers to the cloud and Install Session Recording servers from within the cloud.

Playback justification logging

This release introduces playback justification logging and creates a Playback Logging page to aggregate all playback logs. With playback justification logging enabled, each time a user plays a recording, a dialog box appears, asking the user to enter a justification for playback. For more information, see Playback logging.

November 2022

Session Recording management dashboard

The Session Recording service introduces a comprehensive management dashboard that helps you gain insights into your system. The dashboard lets you monitor various aspects of your system, including:

• Server status
• Storage consumption
• Session statistics
• Client device information

For more information, see Session Recording management dashboard.

Trace collection from cloud clients

Citrix collects traces from the cloud clients installed on on-premises Session Recording servers and uses the traces for troubleshooting.

September 2022

Support for automatically archiving and deleting recordings on a regular basis

In addition to archiving and deleting recordings manually, you can now schedule site-level tasks to automatically archive and delete recordings on a regular basis. For more information, see Manage recordings.

Recording access control

You can now restrict access to selected recordings from within the Session Recording service. In addition to playback permissions, this feature provides more granular access control.

Citrix Cloud administrators assigned any of the following access permissions are allowed to place access restrictions on recordings:

• Full access
• Cloud Administrator, All role
• Session Recording-FullAdmin, All role
• Session Recording-PrivilegedPlayerAdmin, All role
• Session Recording-ReadOnlyAdmin, All role

Restricted recordings are not accessible to Session Recording read-only administrators, that is, Citrix Cloud administrators assigned only the Session Recording-ReadOnlyAdmin, All role. Session Recording read-only administrators do not have permission to access the Restricted page or remove access restrictions on the page. For more information, see Place access restrictions on recordings.

July 2022

Support for 1912 LTSR

Previously, using the Session Recording service required a Session Recording 2203 or later deployment. Starting with this release, you can connect Session Recording servers in a 1912 LTSR deployment to the Session Recording service.

Support for archiving and deleting recordings

You can now archive and delete recordings using the Session Recording service. When archiving recordings, you can choose to move the recording files to a different location from the one where they were originally stored. When deleting recordings, you can choose to also delete the recording files along with the database records.

For information about the archiving and deletion operations, see Manage recordings.

June 2022

Session Recording service available in the Asia Pacific South (APS) region of Citrix Cloud

In addition to the US and EU regions, the Session Recording service is now also available for provisioning in the Asia Pacific South (APS) region of Citrix Cloud.

Load-balancing Session Recording servers across sites

You can now manage Session Recording servers by load-balancing them across multiple sites. You can also create or activate a policy for all Session Recording servers in a site at a time. For more information, see Connect existing Session Recording servers to the cloud, Configure Session Recording servers, and Configure session recording policies.

Custom domain name support for HTTPS requests

In addition to the default FQDN, a Session Recording server can now use, for HTTPS requests, a custom domain name with an SSL certificate binding. For more information, see Connect existing Session Recording servers to the cloud.

Support for configuring additional event response actions from the cloud

In addition to email alerts and dynamic screen recording, you can now configure, from the cloud, the following actions in response to logged events in recorded sessions:

• Lock session
• Log off session
• Disconnect session

This feature is available for Session Recording 2206 and later. For more information, see Configure event response policies.

April 2022

Session Recording service available in the EU region of Citrix Cloud

In addition to the US region, the Session Recording service is now also available for provisioning in the EU region of Citrix Cloud.

Administrator logging data available in the Session Recording service

The Session Recording service presents administrator logging data for Session Recording server 2204 and later. The data contains logs of administrator activities and of applicable policies triggering recordings. For more information, see Query administrator logging data.

Support for configuring playback permissions

By default, all Citrix Cloud administrators with the Session Recording role have permission to play all recordings. You can now limit playback permissions so that Session Recording read-only administrators can play only specific recordings on a target Session Recording server. For more information, see Configure playback permissions.