Citrix EUE Dashboard

The Citrix EUE Dashboard presents end user experience metrics for your Citrix environment on a single page. It is organized into six areas: Problem Areas, Users Exceeding Thresholds, the Top 25 Users panels, Users to Watch, Overall Performance, and the Trend graphs. Every count and group on the page is a starting point rather than an endpoint — from the counts and group rows an administrator can click through to the list of impacted users, and from there into an individual user’s sessions.

Figure 1: Citrix EUE Dashboard

Searching and Setting the Timeframe

The search bar at the top of the page controls what the entire dashboard displays. Enter one or more user names in the filter field, separated by commas (for example jsmith, sjohnson), and click APPLY to limit every panel on the page to those users. The refresh icon to the right of APPLY refreshes the data for the current selection.

Below the field, Showing session data for displays the timeframe currently in effect. By default the dashboard displays the last 1 hour of session data.

Figure 2: Filter field and current timeframe

Advanced Search Filters

Click ADVANCED to expand the Advanced Search Filters panel, where you can change the timeframe and filter on session attributes. Four timeframe options are available: Display sessions from Today, Display sessions from the last (a value and a unit, for example 24 hours), Date Range, and Display all session data.

Twelve attribute fields are available below the timeframe options: Session State, Session Type, Group / Farm, Client Name, XA Server Name, App Name, Virtual Machine Name, Broker Name, Session Host, Client IP, Connected Via, and Delivery Group. You can enter multiple values in any field by separating them with commas. Click APPLY to run the search, or CLEAR FILTERS to return to the defaults.

Figure 3: Advanced Search Filters

Note: When a non-default selection is applied, the timeframe indicator updates to match (for example, Last 24 hours) and a CLEAR FILTERS shortcut appears beside it, so you can always tell at a glance that the page is showing a filtered view.

Problem Areas — Users Exceeding Thresholds

The Problem Areas row is the fastest way to see where end user experience is degraded right now. Each card counts the users whose sessions exceeded the configured threshold for that metric during the selected timeframe: Logon, Connection Speed, Network Latency, ICA Latency, and ICA RTT.

Click any card to open the list of users behind the number.

Figure 4: Problem Areas — Users Exceeding Thresholds

Users Exceeding Thresholds by Group

The same threshold breaches are presented a second time, grouped so you can see whether a problem is isolated or shared. Use the toggle beside the section heading to switch between ALL, DELIVERY GROUP, IP RANGE, and AD OU; the heading and the first column change to match the view you select. ALL presents a single summary row for the whole environment.

Each row shows Total Users, Total Impacted Users, and the number of users breaching each of Connection Speed, Network Latency, ICA Latency, and ICA RTT. The group name in the first column is a link into the impacted users for that group.

Figure 5: Users Exceeding Thresholds by Delivery Group

Switching to IP RANGE groups the same users by client subnet, and AD OU groups them by the Active Directory organizational unit of the user account. These two views are useful for separating a location or network problem from a problem with a particular set of users.

Top 25 Users

Three panels rank the worst performers over the selected timeframe: Top 25 Users with Long Logons, Top 25 Users with High ICA Latency, and Top 25 Users with Low Connection Speed. Each panel lists the user, the average value of the metric, and the number of sessions counted for that user. The User, metric, and Sessions columns can each be sorted.

Figure 6: Top 25 Users panels

Users to Watch

Use Users to Watch to keep a standing list of users you want to follow, whether or not they are currently breaching a threshold. Type an account name or display name into the field and click ADD; the user is added to the table with their average session metrics over the selected timeframe.

The table shows Name, Location, IP Address, Avg Logon Time, Connection Speed, ICA Latency, ICA RTT, Network Latency, Endpoint, Sessions, and a Root Cause badge identifying the metric most responsible for that user’s experience. Use the trash icon in the Remove column to take a user off the list.

Figure 7: Users to Watch

Overall Performance

The Overall Performance cards give the size and shape of the environment for the selected timeframe: the number of App Servers, Active Sessions, Published App/Desktops Sessions, and VDI Sessions.

Figure 8: Overall Performance

Trend Graphs

Four graphs close the page and place the current numbers in context: Average Logon Time Trend (plotting average logon time alongside average reconnect time), Average Network Latency & RTT Trend, Average ICA Latency Trend, and Average Connection Speed Trend. Each graph covers the timeframe selected at the top of the page, so widening the timeframe in the Advanced Search Filters fills out the trend.

Hover over any point on a graph to display a tooltip with the timestamp and the plotted values for that interval.

Figure 9: Trend graphs

Finding the Users Behind a Number

Clicking a Problem Areas card opens the Impacted Users page for that metric — for example, clicking the Logon card opens Impacted Users - Logon. The page displays the total number of impacted users, a search field that matches on name, location, IP address, endpoint, root cause, or any metric, and a table of the users themselves with their Avg Logon Time, Connection Speed, ICA Latency, ICA RTT, Network Latency, Endpoint Name, and the Root Cause assigned to each.

Expand the Root Cause Analysis panel above the table for an explanation of what the selected root cause typically indicates, examples drawn from the users currently listed, and the metric correlations worth investigating next.

Figure 10: Impacted Users for the Logon problem area, with Root Cause Analysis expanded

Clicking a group name in the Users Exceeding Thresholds table opens the same page scoped to that group instead of that metric, with Root Cause Analysis written for the group.

Figure 11: Impacted Users for the Clinical Apps delivery group

Use ← Back to Summary to return to the dashboard.

Viewing a User’s Sessions

Clicking a user in the Impacted Users table opens User Sessions for that account. The page displays the user’s total session count and average session duration, followed by one row per session: XA Server/VDI, Session State, Client Name, Client Type, Client Address, Client Version, whether the session was a reconnect, Logon, ICA RTT, ICA RTT (Avg), App Name, Delivery Group, and Connected/Start Time. Metric values are colored against the configured thresholds, so a session that breached one is visible without reading the numbers.

Figure 12: User Sessions for a single user

Use ← Back to return to the impacted users list.

Toolbar Options

The toolbar menu above the session table provides four options: Print, Export to CSV, Configure Thresholds, and Configure Columns.

Figure 13: Toolbar menu options

Configuring Thresholds

Choosing Configure Thresholds opens the Specify Display Metrics Thresholds dialog. These are the values the dashboard uses to decide which users are counted in Problem Areas and in the Users Exceeding Thresholds table, and which session values are colored on the detail pages.

Each metric takes a Warning (orange) and a Critical (red) value. A value below Warning displays green, and a value at or above Critical displays red — reversed for Connection Speed, where a higher value is better. Select Show threshold lines on charts where applicable to draw the thresholds onto the graphs. Thresholds are set separately for App Servers, Published Apps & Desktops, and Virtual Desktops.

Figure 14: Specify Display Metrics Thresholds

The shipped defaults are listed below. Use RESET TO DEFAULTS at any time to return to them, and SAVE to apply your changes.

Note: Because the Problem Areas counts and the Users Exceeding Thresholds table are driven by these values, tuning them to your environment is the single most effective way to make the dashboard reflect what your users actually experience.