integrating & unifying the digital workspace & social...

Integrating & Unifying the Digital Workspace & Social Intranet

Cloud: Local: Legacy: Social

May 2018Peter von OvenEnd User Computing SME

Integrating & Unifying the Digital Workspace & Social IntranetCloud: Local: Legacy: Social

Table of contents

Executive summary 3

Introduction 4

How Liquit Enhances the MyEmbrace End User Experience 4

Unify Cloud Apps & Local Apps 5

Simplifying & Accelerating Cloud Migration & Onboarding 5

Launch, Connect, or Install Applications 5

Enhancing the O365 Experience 6

Keeping the Workspace Current with Setup and Patch Management 6

Summary 6

What’s Next? Test Drive the Liquit Workspace Today 7

About Liquit 7

About Embrace 7

Executive SummaryThe way in which end users access their applications and data today has, over the last few years, changed dramatically. In part this is down to the consumerization of IT, where the choice of devices, apps, and services available to end users has increased significantly, coupled with the fact that end users are now far more knowledgeable and IT-savvy than ever before, this allows them to make their own decisions on the way in which they want to work.

No longer are end users tied to a static desktop type device, already loaded with the applications that the IT team thinks you need, but instead end users have the freedom to make their own choices. They can not only choose the applications and the devices, but they can also choose from where they use these devices. When it comes to devices, it’s fair to say most end users will typically own more than one device, as well as potentially having a device provided to them by their place of work. In fact, it is estimated that within the next few years the average person will own around four connected devices. You only need to look at the numbers today to see this trend, with 70% of end users already accessing the Internet with more than one device. This proliferation of devices leaves us with some challenges in not only having to deliver a consistent end user experience across this broad spectrum of devices, but also in delivering it securely. Cloud-based services go some way in addressing these challenges, however, add to this the fact that there are still also many legacy applications and services that are still in use today, then the cloud isn’t always the answer to everything. What is required is a solution that can bridge the best of both worlds.

Focusing in on the end users, what does an end user require or expect from their IT systems? Typically, an end user will have a corporately owned laptop or desktop for business use when in the office, a personal laptop or tablet for home use, and then maybe both a corporately owned, and personally owned Smartphone type device when travelling. All of these will be used to access apps, data, and web-based services.

When it comes to delivering that end user experience, most users will be accustomed to using some form of online portal for accessing services and data. Whether that’s already something that has been deployed within end users working environment to access corporate data and applications, an online store, or even online banking. The other element to today’s online world is social media, and the various sites and tools available to interact and communicate with friends and colleagues alike.

Given the rise of social media sites, it’s fair to say that these sites have become a standard part of any end user’s digital lifestyle, and this is now starting to be adopted within corporate enterprises and other establishments, such as healthcare, education, and Government organizations. The reason being that it is a key enabler to collaboration, communication, and interaction with colleagues across an organization. But now the needle has moved again when it comes to end user requirements. The solution must now cater for cloud, legacy, and social media while delivering these under the one umbrella of the digital workspace.

© 2017 | Liquit B.V. Kastanjelaan 6, 2982 CM Ridderkerk, the Netherlands tel: +31 88 63 83 500 www.liquit.com



One obvious choice when it comes to delivering this type of solution is to deploy a mobile device management solution, or MDM, used to manage both the device and the apps. But this is not without pitfalls. The pace in which new devices come to market means these solutions find it hard to keep pace, and secondly, if you were using your own personal device, would you really want somebody else managing how you use it? �

Enterprise Mobility Management solutions go some way in resolving these issues by incorporating an element of MDM, as well as Mobile Application Management (MAM), and even Mobile Information Management (MIM). However, they do not deliver a complete or comprehensive solution, and for end users they don’t provide that ‘single pane of glass’ approach from where end users can access everything they need. What is required is a comprehensive, and integrated solution that can truly deliver the end user experience on any device, and more importantly making it simple for end users and IT alike. The answer is Liquit and Embrace.

The integration between the Liquit Digital Workspace and Embrace Digital Workspace delivers such a solution, bringing together an end users digital world, delivering and managing cloud, legacy, local, and social in one digital workspace.

IntroductionWith Embrace, an end user’s digital online world is presented in a simple to use central portal. Everything they need for work, such as: tasks, calendars, notifications, apps, company news, groups, and teams, are all shown within a single, web-based user interface.

Embrace, as well as bringing together an end users online collaboration tools, such as document management and knowledge sharing, end users also have easy access to their Microsoft Office 365 applications, all from within the same user portal.

However, all these applications are online, cloud-based applications, or Software as a Service (SaaS) applications, and most organizations will have a hybrid style environment that will comprise of both cloud-based, client-server, and locally installed applications.

The question is how to deploy a modern digital workspace portal that caters for both, allowing all applications to be made available from a single workspace, embracing legacy and the cloud.

How Liquit Enhances the MyEmbrace End User ExperienceThe Liquit Digital Workspace integrates seamlessly with Synigo Pulse by means of a widget, extending and enhancing the end user portal to include both online and offline local applications, delivering the complete end user experience.

For an IT administrator it allows them to not only deliver local applications, or Citrix published applications, delivered to the end users based on the context of device and location, but to also be able to keep those locally installed applications patched and updated, ensuring users always have the latest versions available to them. With the Liquit Digital Workspace coupled with Synigo Pulse, you can deliver a single point of entry for all users, whether they are IT administrators managing the environment, or end users undertaking their daily work tasks.

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Unify Cloud Apps & Local AppsWith the Embrace Digital Workspace, you can deliver online applications, data, and collaborative services to your end users. The Liquit Digital Workspace takes care of delivering everything else. Everything else in this scenario refers to the management of local applications and those applications delivered using a virtualization solution such as Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop.

Why is this important?Organizations today are looking more to the cloud to deliver IT services, with the goal of helping them to reduce operating costs while at the same time delivering flexibility and agility when it comes to embracing new and enabling technologies, with the goal of remaining one step ahead of their competition. Part of this drive is to also improve the productivity of the workforce, by delivering new working initiatives such as flexible and mobile working, or simply to make IT easier to consume.

Simplifying & Accelerating Cloud Migration & OnboardingOrganizations looking to take advantage of the latest new technology solutions, especially those solutions that are delivered from the cloud as a service, are often held back by their existing environments. These environments are typically referred to as legacy and consist of old hardware and applications. However, the word legacy when used in the context of IT is used to describe applications or hardware that has been superseded but, this is not always the case and these systems, particularly the applications are still very much in use today. The reason being is that there isn’t a newer version available.

As these applications are older, they are not cloud ready, and must be installed locally on a device, as a client server application, or as some form of virtualized or published application. This means as an IT administrator moving to a cloud-based solution you now need to manage different ways of delivering apps to end users. One for the cloud services, and another for the local apps. As an end user you will have apps in different places, potentially leading to a poor user experience and affecting productivity. It defeats the objective of moving to the cloud in the first place.

By deploying the Liquit Digital Workspace and integrating with the Embrace Digital Workspace allows both your new cloud-based services to be delivered side-by-side with your local and published applications. Both local and published apps can be delivered to the end users via the Liquit Workspace Packages feature that creates pre-built sets of applications that can easily be delivered to the end users based on policy, device, and even location therefore greatly speeding up deployment and onboarding times.

This enables you to embrace and accelerate your move to cloud and online applications and service far more quickly than you would normally, removing the problem of how to deliver existing environments and applications at the same time, and without separate environments for each one.

Launch, Connect, or Install ApplicationsWith Embrace delivering the online apps and services, integrating the Liquit Digital Workspace allows end users to simply launch all their other applications, both local and published, by simply double clicking on the appropriate icon in the Liquit Workspace launcher.

End users also have the ability to choose their own applications from the Liquit application catalog, delivering the familiar app store approach that they will be used to already using in their consumer-based environments.

This makes the combination of Liquit and Embrace a powerful solution enabling you to launch and manage the wide and varied number of applications and services available to end users today, with the big advantage of consolidating these into a single web-based user interface.


Enhancing the O365 ExperienceWith the introduction of Office 365, Microsoft introduced a new way of purchasing the Office suite of products. This new subscription-based model was primarily designed to fit in with the way an organization would pay for other cloud-based services and solutions, via an upfront annual cost, or more usually a monthly based fee. If your subscription remains active then you will have access to all the latest Microsoft Office tools.

With the Office 365 subscription-based model, as part of this license, you will also be entitled to Office 2016 to download and install locally. Office 2016 is still available to use for an upfront cost but limits you on the number of devices you are entitled to run it on.

While you can access Office online, and edit and work on documents within then browser, often you will need the “full” version to access some of the more advanced features. This is where the Liquit Digital Workspace and its management tools add advanced features and benefits. With Liquit you can not only automate the installation of the local versions of the Office software, but you can also ensure they are fully kept up to date and patched, just as you would with using the online versions.

End users no longer need worry about what is the best way to access their Microsoft Office applications as Liquit features full contextual awareness, meaning the applications are delivered in the best, and most suitable way for the end user. Maybe this is device dependent, location dependent, or whether the applications are delivered using a published application solution such as Citrix, or a full VDI-based desktop that has the applications pre-installed already. Either way, Liquit becomes the decision maker on how the applications are delivered, removing complexity, and allowing end users to focus on being productive.

Keeping the Workspace Current with Setup and Patch ManagementNow that the digital workspace is in production, and users are logging in and using their digital workspace, cloud-based applications and services are automatically updated by the respective service providers, what about ensuring that the other applications are current and running the latest patches and updates?

The Liquit Setup & Patch Management feature can easily manage the task of ensuring and keeping applications up to date. It does by allowing you to choose from over 2000+ applications from the Setup Store that automatically update existing Liquit application packages, as well as manage entitlements and configuring any additional settings.

SummaryThe Liquit Digital Workspace enables:• Delivery of the Workspace of the future. Full integration with Embrace allows end users to launch their applications from a single web-based portal, delivering Office365 apps, and existing applications and services giving end users the same user experience regardless of the end-point device they are connecting from.



• Accelerated & Simplified onboarding. Organizations can speed up their migration to cloud-based applications and services knowing that they can also integrate their current systems into a single delivery solution. Pre-defined application sets can be simply delivered to end users based on policy.

• Automating Application Delivery. Workspace delivery becomes an automated process, allowing delivery at scale, and based on user policies to deliver the appropriate applications.

• Setup and Patch Management of Applications. Automatic update of existing Workspace delivered applications.

What’s Next? Test Drive the Liquit Workspace TodayAs the saying goes, “the proof of the pudding is in the eating”! If you are an end user customer looking to simplify end user experience, a value-added partner offering EUC services, or a blogger/industry expert looking to gain an insight into the future of the workspace, and want to see for yourself the value in deploying the Liquit Workspace, then contact the sales team today. We can provide you with instant access to a Liquit Workspace hosted demo, evaluation licenses, or NFR licenses by simply clicking here and joining the Liquit Workspace Jump Start.

About LiquitFounded in 2015 in the Netherlands, Liquit is a software vendor that delivers Enterprise-ready Workspace Management and Enterprise Service Catalog solutions. Liquit bridges the gap between the IT department and the end-users. Liquit Workspace has made accessing corporate IT resources for end-users easier than ever before. We provide IT departments with the tools that enables them to immediately respond to business requirements, enhancing user productivity, and giving an organization a competitive advantage.

Liquit is an industry leading Workspace Management solution that delivers comprehensive lifecycle management capabilities to the IT department and serves as a one-stop shop for the end-users.

For the IT department it will be the central service point to offer its services to end-users. Liquit Workspace is a must-have product for every IT department, since it reduces employee onboarding time, consolidates and simplifies access to corporate resources and drastically reduces helpdesk calls.

Contacting the Liquit TeamSales: +31 88 63 83 500Email: [email protected]

About EmbraceEmbrace Social Business Software is a product of Embrace based in Groningen, The Netherlands. The Embrace social intranet is used by more than 200 organizations worldwide. Our enthusiastic teams work hard on a versatile and user-friendly product. This versatility can be found in functionalities, organizations, and quality. Embrace is therefore more than a social intranet, it is a digital workplace.



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