Student / Faculty / Staff Experience

Feature

Benefit

Asynchronous Collaboration

Asynchronous Collaboration enables students to share their virtual desktops with faculty or classmates even when the student is not logged in. This is particularly useful when an assignment involves configuring the desktop (e.g. cyber security, system administration, and networking courses, etc.).  When the assignment is complete, students can send faculty a link to their desktop or drop a link in the LMS. 

This builds upon the existing Screen Sharing feature, but does not require both users to be online at the same time.  In this case, one user (e.g. student) sends a link (valid for 1-day or 1-week).  When the recipient (e.g. faculty) clicks on the link, they are prompted to authenticate in order to access the desktop.

To access this feature, click on the screen sharing button in the top menu bar of the desktop and choose “Collaborate offline”.  (“Collaborate now” is for synchronous screen sharing.)

This feature can be enabled / disabled via the Group Feature Settings screen in the Administrative Portal. Collaboration events are logged in the Audit Trail.

USB Streaming

In the Settings menu, users select from available USB devices.

After selecting the relevant USB device, the user is able to mount it.

Initial applications include memory sticks and printing.  VR, Arduino boards, and WACOM tablets are not yet supported, but are on our radar.

This feature is available on Windows OS only.  Low latency connections are recommended.  Please contact [email protected] if you would like to enable this feature for your instance.  

Multi-monitor Button

Video Compression Toggle

Enable Logging Option

In the rare case that a user encounters a performance issue that does not appear to be due to poor network conditions, latency, or infrastructure sizing or load, we have added the ability for users to “Enable Logging” via the Help menu.

Once enabled, logging will continue for the next five minutes.  The log file contains detailed information about frame sizes, decoding and rendering times.  It is saved to the user’s device and can be sent to [email protected] for our engineers to analyze.

Enhancements and bug fixes

• For added security, users will see a confirmation at logout – and active sessions will be closed when the user logs out.
  
  
• For privacy and improved user experience, only the primary monitor will be shared in the Classroom, Screen Sharing, and other modes of sharing.  If the user has a 2nd or 3rd monitor open, these will not be shared.
• Improved the UI style of the Intro wizard and all dialogs to provide a pop of color and more modern look.

Admin Experience

Feature

Benefit

Inactive users are users who have not logged into Apporto (locally, via SSO, or an LMS) within a defined number of months.

Deprovisioned users cannot access any applications in Apporto, but their profiles are persisted (for 30 days by default) until their accounts are deleted.

Users will receive emails prior to and at deprovisioning by default – but these emails can be disabled if desired.

This feature can be accessed on the Sessions screen.  Locate an active session, and click “View Session” under the Actions menu.

If the user grants permission, the session will be visible in a new browser tab.

When a user first logs in, they are prompted to enter either the computer name or IP address.  Administrators can view computer assignments (and unassign computers) in the Servers screen under a new tab called “On-prem Persistent VMs”.   

Please email [email protected] if you would like to enable this feature.

This can be done via the Setup -> Help Menu config.

• Added the ability to backup and restore a base image server.
• Added the ability to view the Apporto AD user name on the Users and Sessions screens. Contact [email protected] to enable this for your instance.
• Removed storage quota per user from the Applications form, since this feature was not used and we strive to keep the UI concise and Apporto easy to manage.