by Mathew Varghese, Citrix

Writing on a blog post for a heavily used product with a simple and straightforward feature set is not easy. Citrix Insight Services (CIS), formerly known as TaaS, has evolved over the years into a robust and helpful platform. We support over 90,000 customers from over 150 countries. CIS can process and analyze diagnostic data from over 30+ products and components. What’s more, we are constantly looking to make it easier to use.

In this blog, I’m going to show you how to self-diagnose your problems. CIS hosts troubleshooting tools created by our support and engineering teams. Given that this is my first blog post on this forum, I’ve decided to compile a list of useful CIS materials to help you get started.

Step 1: Collect Diagnostic Data

To diagnose your problems, you first need to log on to CIS (http://cis.citrix.com/) and upload diagnostic data. CIS hosts a slew of tools to analyze your data and generate reports. These tools are updated by our support and engineering teams.

Note: Citrix does not collect any Personally Identifiable Data.

Here’s a list of KB articles on collecting and uploading diagnostic data to CIS:

XenApp/XenDeskop: http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX130147

XenServer: http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX125372

NetScaler: http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127900

PVS: http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX136079

XenMobile: http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX141350

Branch Repeater: http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX135546

CPBM: http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX200176

Cloud Platform: http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX200381

Step 2: Study the Results and Take Action

The CIS engine takes just a few minutes to analyze data and generate a report. These reports are quite comprehensive and contain useful information, including links to KB articles. Here are two short videos on how you can self-diagnose your XenDesktop and NetScaler problems using CIS. We are working on more of them.

Self-diagnose Your XenDesktop Problems

Self-diagnose Your NetScaler Problems

Step 3: Send Us Your Feedback

Every diagnostic report allows users to provide granular feedback. Watch out for thumbs-up and thumbs-down icons on your report and tell us if the fix worked or not.

We are always looking for ways to make it easier for you to self-diagnose and fix your Citrix issues. Here are three alternatives to sending us feedback about the site and your overall experience:

Feedback link: https://taas.citrix.com/feedback/

Twitter: Follow @CitrixInsights

Email: citrixinsightservices@citrix.com

Conclusion

I meant this first post to be a short summary for CIS users. I’ll share more in-depth stories in future posts. If there are specific stories you are looking for, please let me know. Ping me on Twitter @thirsty_crow if you want a quick response.

PS: My CTP buddies wanted API access to CIS reports. I’m working on it. 🙂