Any tenured EUC professional can speak to the importance of automation. With the sprint toward AI-adoption, it’s more important than ever.
PowerShell has long been the scripting language of choice for IT professionals managing Windows environments. While we’ve had PowerShell modules since the launch of Cloudpager, which customers have used to automate the application lifecycle end-to-end, we’re taking the power of scripting to another level.
Introducing PowerShell Script Policies for Workpods.
Workpods: The Modern Way to Manage Applications
The vision for Workpods has always been making it easy to orchestrate application provisioning to any physical or virtual Windows desktop in a highly automated fashion. Most other application management tools are about installing an individual application with some settings. Of course, Cloudpager Workpods can do that. What they’re really about is configuring groups of applications to work together for specific jobs/tasks/duties.
Workpods are about helping organize how applications work with one another.
Take a Civil Engineering company as an example. Their Civil Engineers need AutoCAD (from AutoDesk) to do their work, as well as ProjectWise (from Bentley). These applications have integrations between them, enabling ProjectWise to automatically open a user’s relevant projects within AutoCAD.
This level of interoperability between applications is why Windows remains so prominent in enterprise IT today.
With PowerShell Script Policies, Workpods can handle application configurations in an even more intelligent and risk-averse fashion.
PowerShell Script Policies Bring Script Execution to the Workpod Level
PowerShell Script Policies allow administrators to embed PowerShell scripts that automatically execute during Workpod auto-deployment. These scripts run after containers have been provisioned to a given endpoint, giving IT precise control over how applications are configured and interact.
This opens the door to fully automated desktop configuration management, where applications are not just provisioned, but fully configured in the exact manner each person needs to begin working.
Benefits for IT Personnel
Workpods are about doing your work, not simply one-off deployments of vanilla application containers or install media. Just as Cloudpaging containers are reusable across all modern Windows OS, PowerShell Script Policies can be reused, bringing unprecedented control and flexibility to application lifecycle management.
- Less manual configuration: Applications arrive ready to use wherever employees reside, providing them with a seamless application experience focused on their work, not setup.
- Reusable configurations: Apply policies across Workpods to tailor applications to your company’s working environment.
- Flexible lifecycle management: Add or update PowerShell scripts to adjust application deployments without needing to repackage applications.
PowerShell Script Policy Use Cases
PowerShell Script Policies provide IT with multiple options for configuring applications in the way their users need to work. Let’s dive into what this means, starting with the AutoCAD/ProjectWise use case highlighted earlier.
Customizing CAD Application Configurations
Virtually all our engineering, construction, and aerospace customers leverage AutoDesk’s AutoCAD and Bentley’s ProjectWise. They’ll be the first to tell you that configurations across projects are a real pain.
Leveraging PowerShell Script Policies, they can automate post-deployment application configurations. For example, they can map the applications within a given Workpod to a specific SharePoint drive where all their work is located.
With all data and hardware connections pre-configured for them, engineers can get to work straight away!
Automating Visual Studio and GitLab Configurations
Consider a software development team using GitLab and Visual Studio. While Visual Studio supports Git workflows out of the box, it won’t automatically connect to your internal GitLab repositories. Using a PowerShell Script Policy, you automate the configuration of your applications, ensuring your developer desktop environments are already set up and ready to go as soon as they receive their applications.
Streamlining Browser Setups
Another example is custom browser configurations, as highlighted in the video above. Perhaps you would like to leverage Cloudpaging AI to stay on top of the weekly updates of Google Chrome, but you also want to ensure your employees get the browser extensions they require. You now have an easy and dynamic way to do so.
Simply create a PowerShell Script Policy to enable the browser extensions your employees require. You can assign different script policies, and thus different browser extensions, on a per-user basis. Supporting different browser configurations is easier than ever.
The Future of Application Management is Automated
Cloudpager provides you with everything you need to keep up with the speed of today’s IT operations.
AI Packaging transforms application packaging into a series of clicks while PowerShell Script Policies provide IT to take their vanilla application containers and rapidly build pre-configured Windows desktop application environments across their enterprise.
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