277 - Tips for running the Paperless Client in a Microsoft RDS or Citrix Environment

277 - Tips for running the Paperless Client in a Microsoft RDS or Citrix Environment

Installing and Publishing the Client

When running the Paperless Client in a Microsoft RDS or Citrix Environment, the client installation is no different than installing on a workstation. Install the client like any other application.

When publishing the client as a Remote App or Published App, you should publish pvault.exe as opposed to pvaultupdater.exe. In an RDS/Citrix Environment, users typically do not have rights to update  programs on a server. So if pvaultupdater.exe is published, an error message will likely generate upon launching the client. 

Updating the Client

Publishing pVault.exe means that you should add a step to your Paperless Update checklist. Deploy the latest version of Paperless on your Paperless server like you normally would. Once the Paperless server update is complete, update the client on your RDS/Citrix Server. To do so, log in to the server as an administrator and launch pvaultupdater.exe. This will allow the client to update itself. Make sure no users are logged into the Paperless client on the server. If a user has the client running on the server, you will encounter errors regarding files being in use and files unable to be copied.

Other Helpful Info

RDP does not support Drag and Drop from the user's local desktop into a published application. The local machine and the published app are not aware the other exists.

      Example - To drag and drop  from Outlook to Paperless, users need to be able to launch Outlook and Paperless in the same RDS/Citrix session. 

Some customers publish Windows Explorer in their RDS/Citrix Environments to allow Drag and Drop, and to allow users to access or save local files. When pVault and Windows Explorer are open in the same RDS/Citrix session, you can Drag and Drop between them. This typically works well and is fairly intuitive with mapped drives. Local files are slightly less intuitive.  For example, if a user wants to upload or save from Paperless on their local desktop, they would have to browse the published Windows Explorer and drill down to a path similar to C$ on Client:UsersPCName\Users\Username\Desktop. S ome customers make a dedicated folder on the user's local C: Drive, then add a Desktop Shortcut to that folder. This keeps the user from having to drill down as far when uploading or saving.

To email files directly from the Paperless client, users must run Outlook and Paperless via the same RDS/Citrix Session. Users need to launch and log in to Outlook at least once via RDS/Citrix to create an Outlook Profile in their user profile. Once complete, emailing documents from the Paperless client generally works well. The users will not see their Outlook "most recently used" list carry over from their desktop, as this Outlook Profile is separate from their desktop profile.

You may need to look at setting policies that don't allow users to accidentally save to the RDS/Citrix Server's C: Drive or the My Documents and Desktop of the server.