With the release of Citrix Workspace app 2012 for Mac, Citrix now supports Citrix Optimization for Microsoft Teams on MacOS.

Microsoft Teams is the fastest growing business app in Microsoft history, and Citrix was the first partner in the world to optimize the Microsoft Teams experience in a virtualized environment for Windows and Linux. Citrix is excited to announce that we are bringing their full optimization to Mac with the release of Citrix Workspace app 2012 for Mac! Together, Citrix with Microsoft Teams accelerates team collaboration and personal productivity across all business activity.

With this Citrix Workspace app release, your teams now get a native Microsoft Teams app experience on their virtual apps and desktops for audio calls, video calls, and screensharing. Among several immediate benefits, both admins and users will be able to enjoy:

• Crystal clear voice and video up to 720p
• Enhanced server scalability that is accomplished by offloading CPU/RAM/GPU/IO onto the user’s device rather than the Virtual Delivery Agent (VDA). That means more users per server and lower operating costs.
• The ability to leverage existing Citrix security policies within virtual instances of Microsoft Teams

Please note, this optimization is supported on Microsoft Teams on macOS version 10.15 (Catalina) and above.

What’s New with Microsoft Teams on MacOS and Citrix?

With Citrix ´s continuous innovation, they focus on improving both user and admin experience. This chart compares the optimizations they have made for you today with the capabilities they previously had in place.

Before	With Microsoft Teams on MacOS Optimization
For Skype for Business optimization, a separate installer (RTME) installed in the client machine as .dmg file (~15MB)	All the Teams optimization code is embedded by default into Citrix Workspace app, so you do not need to manage a separate plugin
Teams rendered via legacy HDX technology natively on the VDA. Authentication, signaling, data collaboration happens natively between VDA and Microsoft Cloud	With the new API from Citrix to Microsoft, Teams application in VDA can interact with VDA side services. The services in turn open a control virtual channel (CTXMTOP*) to the new Citrix Workspace app-side media engine for Teams based on WebRTC. Reverse seamless snaps-in the local Citrix Workspace app window back into the hosted Microsoft Teams app.
No auto configuration based on encoding and supported resolution	Performance estimator assesses optimization based on end point capabilities in terms of encoding and maximum resolution supported and limits itself.

Please note, CTXMTOP is a command-and-control virtual channel. That means media is not exchanged between the Citrix Workspace app and the VDA.

There are a few known limitations with Microsoft Teams running on VDI on Mac compared to the native Microsoft Teams application. This includes the absence of the gallery view. While Skype for Business can coexist with Microsoft Teams, they cannot run at the same time.  Microsoft has an extensive deployment guide for this. Additionally, to preserve VDA resources on the workspace app, Citrix have disabled background effects on Microsoft Teams. Check out their documentation for more information.

The Citrix optimization for Microsoft Teams on MacOS,contains VDA-side HDX services and API to interface with the Microsoft Teams hosted app to receive commands. These components open a control virtual channel (CTXMTOP) to the Citrix Workspace app-side media engine. The endpoint decodes and renders the multimedia locally. Reverse seamless snaps-in the local Citrix Workspace app window back into the hosted Microsoft Teams app.

Minimum version – Citrix Workspace app 2012 for Mac:

Supported operating systems

• macOS Catalina (10.15)
• macOS Big Sur Beta 8 in test environments only. Do not use in production environments.

Features supported:

• Audio
• Video
• Screen sharing optimization (incoming and outgoing)

Mirosoft Teams on MacOS optimization works by default if the user has Citrix Workspace app 2012 or later and macOS 10.15.

If you want to disable Microsoft Teams on MacOS optimization, run this command in terminal and restart Workspace app:

defaults write com.citrix.receiver.nomas mtopEnabled -bool NO

Learn more here about Microsoft Teams on MacOS optimization by Citrix.