Do you wish you could use microphone from your client device inside a remote Citrix session on Citrix Workspace app for HTML5? Last quarter, a team of engineers at Citrix sat down to address this challenging issue on multiple browsers to give customers a uniform experience. The goal was to enable users to make and receive audio calls seamlessly within a client session.

In previous releases, audio redirection was limited to audio-out, which only let you listen to audio being played inside the session. With more  browsers coming out with support for web audio APIs and WebAssembly, we wanted to be sure to offer the same experience.

We’re excited to share that the feature is now available in the Citrix Workspace app 2108 release! Users can seamlessly have audio calls and their microphones will be redirected inside their published sessions. This added capability, in addition to recently added external or internal webcam support, allows users to make smooth VoIP calls.

Recommendations for the Best Performance on Your Audio Calls

To get the best performance on your audio calls, we have some recommendations to ensure your audio comes through crystal clear:

  • Use headsets. Sometimes, when an internal device mic or speaker is used with redirection, it creates an echo. We recommend using headsets to avoid this.
  • Change the Citrix Policy Setting “Audio Quality” to ”Medium – Optimized For Speech” because the option “High – High Definition Audio” is not recommended due to bandwidth consumption. Additionally, for non-optimized voice chat or video chat applications such as softphones, it might introduce latency into the audio path that is not suitable for real-time communications.

  • Ensure the Citrix Policy Setting “Client audio redirection” is set to allowed (enabled by default).
  • Ensure the Citrix Policy Setting “Client microphone redirection” is set to allowed (enabled by default).

Audio-in feature is currently supported only on Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Edge (Chromium) browsers because they support web audio APIs.

Caveats to Keep in Mind

WebAudio APIs are only supported on websites running in secure context, so this feature is only supported on secure stores.

When a session is launched for the first time, the browser will ask for permission and remember it going forward for the particular store. At times, the published applications do not wait long enough for the microphone to be opened since the user has not given permission. This can cause an error to be shown saying the microphone couldn’t be opened. It is always best to disconnect and reconnect to the session, as the permission was granted earlier. The delay will no longer be there, and microphone will be redirected.

Few published applications use optimized virtual channels. For example, Microsoft Teams optimization, when enabled, will use that virtual channel for audio. Citrix recommends using optimized virtual channels whenever available.

Additionally, if you are looking to leverage this feature on Citrix Workspace app for Chrome OS, we have supported bidirectional audio for a while, it has also been redesigned now to use the web audio APIs.

Changing Your Microphone

Whenever the session needs access to microphone, the user is prompted to allow access to the microphone from among the list of microphones available. Once the user selects one, that is the microphone that is used. This selected preference is saved for the browser that is being used. If the user wishes to change the saved microphone, they will need to change the default microphone on the device OS settings. If the saved microphone is still not reset, the user can update the default microphone setting on the browser for the store URL.

Start making seamless audio calls on Citrix Workspace app for HTML5 today, and let us know what you think! We are consistently working on improving the user experience, so stay tuned for more great features coming soon!