Stop-BrokerSession

Citrix Self-Service Session Reset Tool Process Flows

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***Updated for the release of v1.6.

There are eight (8) main process flows for the how the Citrix Self-Service Session Reset Tool works:

  1. User Opens Web Page Process Flow
  2. Get Sessions Process Flow
  3. Logoff Sessions Process Flow
  4. Disconnect Sessions Process Flow
  5. Restart Machines and Forcefully Restart Machines Process Flow
  6. Hide Sessions and Unhide Sessions Process Flow
  7. Get Processes Process Flow
  8. Terminate Processes Process Flow

Each flow is documented and visually represented below.

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Citrix Self-Service Session Reset Tool

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***Please refer to my article on Development Planning for the Citrix Self-Service Session Reset Tool to learn about what updates and new features are being worked on.

***If using a release less than v1.9, please refer to the release history below to understand the new features, enhancements and fixes now included.

This tool has been labelled as a game changer for any Citrix customer. It’s proven time and time again that it has a huge impact on reducing the burden on the Service Desk and Operations Teams by empowering users to get themselves back up and running in the shortest possible time.

No matter how stable your Citrix platform is, one of the biggest challenges for any Citrix customer is being able to reduce Service Desk calls and user downtime by empowering users with the ability to clear their own sessions, or recover them by terminating rogue processes. Several free scripts and a paid for tool are available, but none of them really achieve the best outcome. Some of them still require users to run a “Citrix session”, which they often can not do because the broker may be trying to reconnect them back to a stuck, hung, broken session or unhealthy host. When this happens they get into an endless loop of failure and get very frustrated. This can impact brand reputation and user satisfaction, leaving users with a poor felt experience. Some have even implemented a separate Citrix Environment to run these scripts from. In my opinion this is as waste of resources and an overhead for management. It still doesn’t always work due to Citrix Workspace (Receiver) reconnection issues and is often over complicating it for users.

My goals were to:

  • Create a tool that is easy to use, even for users that struggle with technology.
  • Create a tool that enables users to not only get themselves back up and running in the shortest possible time, but also reduces the reliance on Service Desk and even second level support teams.
  • Create a tool that does not rely on any ICA/HDX connectivity to a Citrix platform. This was extremely important!
  • Create a tool that would allow support for multiple Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (CVAD aka XenApp and XenDesktop) Sites.
  • Create a tool that works across trusted Domains.
  • Create a tool that works across the IT and OT landscape.
  • Create a tool that can easily be extended/expanded for other use cases.
  • Create a tool that’s modular so that other brokers such as VMware Horizon and Leostream can easily be added.
  • Create API’s with a Web front-end.
  • Create a tool that can be used to develop a microapp.
  • Create a tool that can easily be called by any scripting language such as PowerShell and Python.
  • Create a tool that can be enhanced, debugged and supported by others.
  • Create a tool for the community, because I love doing that!

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