• Overview
• Architecture
  • Network Diagram - High Level
  • Solution Overview
• Pre-Requisites Citrix
  • Agent Workstation
  • Hosted Virtual Desktop
  • Customer Virtualization Environment
• Pre-Requisites Omnissa
  • Agent Workstation
  • Hosted Virtual Desktop
  • Customer Virtualization Environment
• Optimizing Calls for VDI
  • How to make optimized calls?
  • How do we know the status of the direct audio channel?
  • How do we know when the direct audio channel is not working?
  • Fallback Mode
• Definitions

Overview

With the launch of Talkdesk VDI Connect, customers will now benefit from optimized media flows when using Talkdesk Conversations within a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) environment. 

This feature enables a direct audio channel between the hosted virtual desktop and your agents’ workstations to mitigate the risk of high latency, common with transmitting voice traffic over the VDI PCoIP protocol, resulting in reduced voice quality.

In this release, Talkdesk VDI Connect will be made available to customers currently utilizing a Citrix or Omnissa Virtual Desktop environment.

Please ensure that network enablement is also applied to both VDI servers and the network.

Architecture

Network Diagram - High Level

Solution Overview

Pre-Requisites Citrix

To utilize VDI Connect in Talkdesk Conversations, the following prerequisites should be met.

Agent Workstation

The Agent Workstation refers to the physical hardware that the agent interfaces with, whether remotely from home or at their place of work.

• The Agent Workstation can be any PC or Thin Client able to support Citrix.
• Workspace/Receiver versions as outlined here.
• Talkdesk VDI Connect is not currently supported on Tablet or Mobile form factors.

Hosted Virtual Desktop

The Hosted Virtual Desktop refers to an operating system running remotely in the customer's Virtualization environment and served up to the agent through the Citrix Workspace/Receiver application over the PCoIP protocol. 

• The Hosted Virtual Desktop must be running Microsoft Windows.
• The minimum specifications to run Talkdesk Workspace must be in place on the Hosted Virtual Desktop.
• Agents may run Talkdesk VDI Connect with the Talkdesk desktop application or through a supported browser.

Customer Virtualization Environment

The Customer Virtualization Environment refers to the centralized, Virtualized infrastructure which will serve up remote desktops to agents running the Citrix Workspace/Receiver.

• Citrix can be configured to deploy the Hosted Virtual Desktop in Persistent or Non-Persistent mode
• When running Windows Hosted Virtual Desktops they should be deployed with the following Registry Key Settings configured:
  • Key Path: HKLM\Software\WOW6432Node\Citrix\WebSocketService
  • Key Name: ProcessWhitelist
  • Key Type: MULTISZ
  • Key Value:
    • Talkdesk.exe
    • chrome.exe
    • msedge.exe
• Once the above registry is configured successfully, reboot the VDA or restart CtxHdxWebSocketService to finish the Whitelist setup.
• The existing setup of three different network segments (as mentioned in the Architecture / Network Diagram segment) that are reachable over the internet is good enough to leverage this feature.

Pre-Requisites Omnissa

To utilize VDI Connect in Talkdesk Conversations, the following prerequisites should be met.

Agent Workstation

The Agent Workstation refers to the physical hardware that the agent interfaces with, whether remotely from home or at their place of work.

• The Agent Workstation can be any Remote Client (eg., Windows Machine) able to support Omnissa.
• Workspace/Receiver versions as outlined here.
• Talkdesk VDI Connect is not currently supported on Tablet or Mobile form factors.

Hosted Virtual Desktop

The Hosted Virtual Desktop refers to an operating system running remotely in the customer's Virtualization environment and served up to the agent through the Omnissa Client application over the PCoIP protocol. 

• Operating System Compatibility
  • The Omnissa WebRTC Redirection SDK is supported only in end-to-end Windows environments.
  • The remote endpoint must also be a Windows machine.
• Direct Audio Support
  • Direct audio streaming to the remote endpoint is available only when the endpoint is connected via the Omnissa Horizon Client.
  • Direct audio is not supported when the endpoint connects via a web browser.

Customer Virtualization Environment

The Customer Virtualization Environment refers to the centralized, Virtualized infrastructure which will serve up remote desktops to agents running the Omnissa Client.

• Omnissa Agent Version
  • The Omnissa Agent running on the VDI must be version 2503 or later.
• Browser Extension
  • The Horizon HTML5 Redirection Extension must be installed in the Google Chrome browser used for accessing Talkdesk from within the VDI.
• Windows Registry Configuration
  • The following registry keys must be configured on the VDI to enable the WebRTC Redirection:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Omnissa\Horizon\WebRTCRedirSDKWebApp] 

   "enabled"=dword:00000001 

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Omnissa\Horizon\WebRTCRedirSDKWebApp\UrlAllowList]

   "<all_urls>"=""

Optimizing Calls for VDI

How to make optimized calls

Making or receiving calls within Talkdesk remains identical to the simple experience you have come to expect within the Talkdesk Suite. Agents should continue to use the Conversations application exactly as they do today.

How do we know the status of the direct audio channel?

Talkdesk VDI Connect status is represented by three discrete states:

Enabled and Connected: Successfully connected and with an active Direct audio channel

Disabled: During the startup of Talkdesk Workspace the application was unable to confirm the presence of VDI Infrastructure.

Disconnected: After having been connected to the direct audio channel the connectivity is lost.

How do we know when the direct audio channel is not working?

If, after successful connection, the Direct audio channel encounters a recoverable problem (e.g. poor network connectivity) this will be represented as Disconnected and the Talkdesk Conversations application will operate in Fallback mode. 

To get the application to re-attempt connectivity the user can refresh the browser window or close and reload the Talkdesk Workspace Application. Once connected again the agent will see the toolbar icon revert to Green status.

Fallback Mode

In the case of a failure to connect to the VDI environment at the startup of Talkdesk Workspace, Talkdesk VDI Connect will revert to a Fallback mode.

In Fallback mode the agent calls will be made (and received) without the direct audio channel and instead follow the standard media path. This state will be represented in the Toolbar by a Disconnected notification.

In this mode, calls will continue to be completed however the calls will follow the non-Direct audio path and as a result be subject to reduced call quality as a result of the additional induced latency from the audio running over the PCoIP channel.

Definitions