Workspot Media Extension

  • Updated on Oct 11, 2024
  • Published on Aug 26, 2024
  • 3 minute(s) read
  • Robert Plamondon

Introduction

The Workspot Media Extension (WME) allows online meetings to take place on your local device instead of your remote Workspot desktop for better performance. Cisco Webex, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom are currently supported.

In addition, starting with Control 18.7, arbitrary URLs can be redirected from the Workspot desktop or app to the Client device’s browser.

Note: The Workspot Media Extension is a different feature from Teams for VDI, the Teams Plugin, and the Zoom Plugin.

How it Works

A browser extension on your Workspot desktop notices meeting URLs and passes them to the Workspot Client on your local device instead of launching them locally. Depending on your local device’s configuration, this meeting URL will be launched in your local browser or your local meeting application.

A notification will appear in a new browser tab announcing that the meeting will appear on your local device:

  • If you click “OK,” the meeting will run locally in your browser. If you click “Cancel,” it will run in your Workspot desktop. If you do nothing, you will not join the meeting.

Note: Connections that bypass the browser, such as ones opened directly by the Teams or Zoom applications, cannot be redirected. Thus, running the browser-based version of these apps is best.

Links clicked in other apps, such as Outlook, may look like they open Teams, Zoom, etc. directly, but it is the system’s browser that decides whether to open the Web version or the local app.

Supported Configurations

Desktops

  • Chrome and Edge browsers on Workspot Windows desktops.

Clients

  • Crome and Edge browsers on Windows systems running the Workspot Windows Client.

  • Crome browser on Chromebooks running the Workspot Web Client.

Limitations

  • The meeting must be joined by clicking on a browser link, or from inside the browser version of the conferencing app, or in a non-conferencing app such as Outlook.

    • Meetings joined from the Zoom, Teams, etc. desktop apps will work normally (that is, locally) but may have the degraded audio/visual performance common to running on virtual desktops.

  • The browser may not install Workspot Media Extension immediately (“lazy installation”). The installation can be forced by restarting the browser.

Enabling the Workspot Media Extension

The Extension must be enabled in two places:

  1. In a “Media Redirection Policy.”

  2. On the “Add/Edit Pool” page of the desktop pool.

Media Redirection Policy

The Media Redirection Policy sets which services are redirected. It is attached to desktop pools individually, allowing different pools to use different policies.

Media Redirection Policy

Configuration

To configure media redirection:

  1. Go to “Policies > Add a New Policy.”

  2. Set the policy type to “Media Redirection".”

  3. Give the policy a name.

  4. Check the “Enable Workspot Media Redirection” box.

  5. The “Redirect without prompting” option will prevent users from declining redirection, which means that if for some reason it doesn’t work or their local system provides worse performance than their Workspot desktop, they can’t participate in meetings. Use with caution.

  6. Select “Redirected URLs” (do not use “All URLs except”).

  7. Enable all the predefined services in the list that (a) are used by your organization and (b) you wish to redirect.

  8. Click “Add Policy".”

Custom URL Redirection

You can also redirect the URLs of your choice to the end-users’ local devices, but only after you have saved the Media Redirection Policy.

Adding a custom URL to redirect

Click the “+” icon and then fill in the blank line with a name and URL, then select the “Enabled” checkbox and click “Save.”

URL Format

  • The leading “http://” and “https://” in the URL are ignored.

  • A leading “*” (possibly after "http://” or “https://) indicates a wildcard. This is the only wildcard used unless “regex” is specified.

  • If the URL starts with “regex:” the rest of the URL is treated as a regular expression, using the syntax rules in https://github.com/google/re2/wiki/Syntax.

    • For example “regex:ac[mn]e.com” matches both “acme.com” and “acne.com,” in both “https://” and “http://” permutations.

    • Control will perform rudimentary syntax checking, but as always with regular expressions, test your work carefully.

Adding a Media Redirection Policy to a Pool

Go to the desired pool’s “Add/Edit Pool” page to assign it to the pool.

Note: A bug causes “— Select —” to be displayed on this page when “None” is meant.

"Policies” section of the “Add/Edit Pool” page.