Custom Mobile Apps on XenApp

While unmodified Windows applications can be delivered to mobile devices via Citrix XenApp, XenApp also provides an excellent platform for delivering custom mobile applications. Citrix is seeing interest in this area from a number of it's ISV partners. The concept is to build the application using tools normally used to build full Windows applications, but simply design the user interface with the smaller screen size and resolutions of mobile devices as a design consideration. The concept is to reskin the UI of larger applications with a smaller form factor UI. As long as the custom mobile application can be published on Citrix XenApp, it can be delivered to mobile devices with the Citrix Receiver installed. Also see " Build Once - Deliver Anywhere "

The below section of this page provides additional information on this concept as well as some example code to get started.

Resources

Citrix Receiver for iPhone

Citrix Receiver for Windows Mobile Devices

Multimedia

Doc Finder

Citrix App Viewer

Custom Mobile Apps Tips & Tricks

Cross Platform Advantages

By developing mobile applications for use with Citrix XenApp, the application is compatible with any mobile device with a Citrix Receiver installed on it. No need to develop a custom application for each targeted mobile device platform, the same application can be delivered to Windows Mobile, iPhones and Symbian S60 devices. This flexibility allows you to expand you mobility practices with a lower cost of entry, being a single application crosses a number of different mobile platforms.

Simplify Mobile Deployment and Maintenance.

Leveraging the same existing Citrix XenApp infrastructure you currently use desktops and laptops helps simplify mobile deployments that in a lot of cases requires new mobile centric infrastructure the require addition setup and maintenance. You can increase the ROI of your existing Citrix XenApp infrastructure by opening it up to use with mobile devices with both the applications you currently deliver and skinlet applications. Tools and Examples

Windows Applications

Citrix Doc Finder is an example of a windows application developed using Visual Studio. Is is a Windows 32 application written with UI sizing design constraints of the iPhone (320x480) designed to make it easier for users to find documents inside the data center and access them when using their mobile device. While initially written with the iPhone in mind, it works just as well on Windows Moible and Symbian S60 devices.
Extentrix Mobile Console for Citrix XenApp is another example of a windows application optimized for this deployment scenario. This application allows users to view XenApp configurations, farm status and perform some operations from mobile devices. For example a XenApp administrator can quickly reset a user session without having to open his or her computer.

You can find more information and download the application from Extentrix web site.

Citrix App Viewer

Web based custom mobile apps would need a web browser to host the contents. Internet Explorer is an option. But the desktop version of Internet Explorer is not well suited for such mobile apps. For example, Internet Explorer has title bars, address bars etc that take up valuable spaces.

FireFox browser is another choice. But in our testing, we found some multi-user compatibility issues in XenApp environment.

Here comes Citrix App Viewer. App Viewer is a specialized web browser optimized for publishing on XenApp to mobile devices. It wraps the Microsoft Internet Explorer engine in a more mobile friendly way.

You can download this free tool and see additional information at Citrix App Viewer page.

Business Objects Xcelsius

Xcelsius is a compelling tool for the easy building of "skinlets" to be published on XenApp. The CitrixCloud demo center has a number of example skinlets that were created using Xcelsius. Xcelsius allows you to mine data from a number of different back end data sources from a simple spreadsheet to SAP enterprise data. The design tool creates simple UI generation capabilities to display the data using a multitude of different UI objects. Xcelsius dashboards created for use on larger screens can simply be reformated to use a smaller resolution more compatible with mobile devices. For more information on Business Objects Xcelsius, refer to the Business Objects Xcelsius website

Xcelsius Dashboard on iPhone (320x480)

Xcelsius Dashboard on Windows Mobile (480x800)

In the above example, two skinlets were created, one for the iPhone and one for the Windows Mobile device. Tools like Xcelsius make the process of creating a skinlet for a particular device simple, in this case less that one hour.

Siebel CRM

Using the standard Siebel CRM development tool, a simplified UI can be created that makes it quicker and easier for sales team to get to their most important information on the road.

Here is an example.