With the Session Collaboration feature, you can invite users to join a remote desktop session by sending collaboration invitations by email, in an instant message (Windows remote desktops only), or by copying a link to the clipboard and forwarding the link to users.

You can invite only users that belong to a domain that the server allows for authentication. You can invite up to five users by default. A Horizon administrator can change the maximum number of users that you can invite.

The Session Collaboration feature has the following limitations.

  • If you have multiple monitors, only the primary monitor is shown to session collaborators.
  • You must select the VMware Blast display protocol when you create a remote desktop session to share. The Session Collaboration feature does not support PCoIP or RDP sessions.
  • H.264 hardware encoding is not supported. If the session owner is using hardware encoding and a collaborator joins the session, both fall back to software encoding.
  • Anonymous collaboration is not supported. Session collaborators must be identifiable through Horizon-supported authentication mechanisms.
  • Session collaborators must have Horizon Client for Windows, Mac, or Linux installed, or they must use HTML Access.
  • If a session collaborator has an unsupported version of Horizon Client, an error message appears when the user clicks a collaboration link.
  • You cannot use the Session Collaboration feature to share published application sessions.

Prerequisites

  • A Horizon administrator must enable and configure the Session Collaboration feature.
  • To use the email invitation method, an email application must be installed.
  • To use the IM invitation method for a Windows remote desktop, Skype for Business must be installed and configured.

Procedure

  1. Connect to a remote desktop for which the Session Collaboration feature is enabled.
    You must use the VMware Blast display protocol.
  2. In the system tray in the remote desktop, click the VMware Horizon Collaboration icon, for example, collaboration icon.
    The collaboration icon might look different, depending on the operating system version.
  3. When the VMware Horizon Collaboration dialog box opens, enter the user name (for example, testuser or domain\testuser) or the email address of the user that you want to join the remote desktop session.
    The first time you enter the user name or email address of a particular user, you must click Look up "user", enter a comma (,), or press the Enter key to validate the user. For Windows remote desktops, the Session Collaboration feature remembers the user the next time you enter the user's user name or email address.
  4. Select an invitation method.
    Not all invitation methods might be available.
    Option Action
    Email Copies the collaboration invitation to the clipboard and opens a new email message in the default email application. An email application must be installed to use this invitation method.
    IM (Windows remote desktops only) Copies the collaboration invitation to the clipboard and opens a new window in Skype for Business. Press Ctrl+V to paste the link into the Skype for Business window. Skype for Business must be installed and configured to use this invitation method.
    Copy Link Copies the collaboration invitation to the clipboard. You must manually open another application, such as Notepad, and press Ctrl+V to paste the invitation.

Results

After you send an invitation, the VMware Horizon Collaboration icon also appears on the desktop and the Session Collaboration user interface turns into a dashboard that shows the current state of the collaboration session and enables you to take certain actions.

When a session collaborator accepts your invitation to join a Windows remote desktop session, the Session Collaboration feature notifies you and a red dot appears on the VMware Horizon Collaboration icon in the system tray. When a session collaborator accepts your invitation to join a Linux remote desktop session, a notification appears in the primary session desktop.

What to do next

Manage the remote desktop session in the VMware Horizon Collaboration dialog box. See Manage a Shared Remote Desktop Session.