Welcome to the Windows 365 Cloud Apps Interactive Demo
Select Start to continue.
Select Start to continue.
Windows 365 Cloud Apps (now in public preview) allows administrators to give employees secure access to individual apps hosted on a Frontline Cloud PC in shared mode, without requiring a dedicated Cloud PC for every user. Windows 365 Cloud Apps give IT teams more flexibility to efficiently support a range of user needs and scenarios while maintaining centralized control, including:
- Streamlining app delivery for frontline, seasonal, or remote workers.
- Providing information workers with the line-of-business apps they require.
- Simplifying management with Windows 365 and Microsoft Intune integration.
- Accelerate migration from on-premises VDI to the cloud.
In this demo you will provision and publish Windows 365 Cloud Apps for the Seattle Retail Floor team, then preview the employee experience when using Windows App to access and launch a Windows 365 Cloud App.
Select exercise 1 to begin.
Windows 365 Cloud Apps run on Windows 365 Frontline Cloud PCs in shared mode. As such, the process for provisioning Cloud Apps begins with the deployment of Frontline Shared Cloud PCs in the Microsoft Intune Admin Center.
Beginning in the Microsoft Intune admin center, signed in as admin@contoso.com, a global administrator for Contoso, select Devices in the left navigation.
On the Devices | Overview page, select Windows 365 under device onboarding in the left navigation.
On the Devices | Windows 365 page, select the Provisioning policies tab.
On the Provisioning policies tab, select Create policy.
Click in the Name field and then type or copy/paste Seattle Retail Cloud Apps and press Enter.
Next to Experience – select Access only apps which run on a Cloud PC (preview).
Opting to provision these Cloud PCs to run Cloud Apps will automatically default the license type to Frontline and Frontline type to Shared.
Click anywhere on the screen to scroll down and view the additional general settings.
We will be using the default join type (Microsoft Entra Join) and default network (Microsoft hosted network).
Click to expand the Geography menu and then select US West.
Leave Region set to West US 3 and select the checkbox to Use Microsoft Entra single sign-on.
Verify your settings and select Next.
When creating a provisioning policy you have the option of using a custom device image or selecting from the built-in gallery of images. The customer is free to pick whatever solution fits best for their needs. In this case, you will use the default gallery image - Windows 11 Enterprise + Microsoft 365 Apps 24H2.
While in preview, Cloud Apps only discover application executables in the device image’s start menu that aren't installed by Appx or MSIX packages.
Select View to review the apps available on the chosen gallery image.
The ‘Apps available on image’ panel displays the eligible applications discovered in the image’s start menu. To deploy custom/line-of-business apps as Cloud Apps during public preview, you will need to create and upload a custom image with the desired apps installed in the start menu.
In future releases you'll be able to discover and publish apps installed by Intune that are included in the Autopilot Device Preparation Policy associated with the Cloud App provisioning policy as well as discover/publish Appx and MSIX apps.
Click anywhere on the screen to scroll down and view the remaining apps.
After deployment of the Frontline Shared Cloud PCs associated with this provisioning policy, these applications will be accessible in the Microsoft Intune admin center in the ‘ready to publish’ state. You will need to take further steps to publish/assign specific applications – which we will review in the next exercise.
Click the X to close the panel and then select Next.
Windows 365 allows you to specify the default language and region settings for Cloud PCs created with this policy. Contoso will be leaving this set to the default value of English (United States) for this provisioning policy. You can also define a naming template for all Cloud PCs provisioned with this policy.
Note: unlike a standard Windows 365 Enterprise Cloud PC, Frontline Shared Cloud PCs do not allow for a username in the macro, as shared Cloud PCs are not associated with any specific user.
Select the checkbox next to Apply device name template and then click in the Enter a name template field to type, and type or copy/paste CPCAPP-%RAND:8% and press Enter.
Verify the name template is correct and then select Next.
You will not be configuring any scope tags for this policy – select Next.
Select Add groups on the assignments tab.
On the ‘Select groups to include’ panel, click on the Search field to type, then type or copy/paste Seattle Retail Floor Team and press Enter.
Choose the Seattle Retail Floor Team group and then click Select.
Note that you can only assign one group when creating a provisioning policy for Windows 365 Frontline Cloud PCs in shared mode.
After selecting a group, you will need to select the size of Cloud PC to provision for that group.
Click Select one under Cloud PC size.
On the ‘Select Cloud PC size’ panel, click to expand the Available Cloud PCs menu and then choose Cloud PC Frontline 2vCPU/8GB/128GB.
Next you will specify the number of Cloud PCs that you want to reserve for this group:
- Under Assignment, select the Assignment name field to type and then type or copy/paste Seattle Cloud Apps and press Enter.
- Now select the Number of Cloud PCs field to type and type or copy/paste 1 and press Enter.
Verify the assignment and then click Select.
Click the Next button at the bottom of the Assignments tab to continue.
Verify the configuration, then click the Create button.
Once the new policy is successfully added, select the All Cloud PCs tab.
Frontline Shared Cloud PCs are now being provisioned for the members of the Seattle Retail Floor Team group. In a short time, those Cloud PCs will be fully provisioned and ready to use.
Select the All Cloud Apps tab to view the associated Cloud Apps that are being provisioned.
All of the Cloud Apps are currently in the preparing state while the Frontline Shared Cloud PCs are being provisioned.
Click anywhere on the screen to continue to a point in time when provisioning has completed.
The Cloud Apps are now in the ‘Ready to publish’ state. Contoso wants to publish Microsoft Edge, Word and Outlook (classic). Select Microsoft Edge, then click anywhere on the screen to scroll down to view the remaining apps.
Click to select Word, then select Outlook (classic) and click Publish.
Review the text of the dialog informing you that publishing an app makes it available in Windows App to all users assigned to the provisioning policy and then select Publish.
You will see the apps progress from ‘Publishing’ to ‘Published.’
Microsoft Edge, Outlook (classic) and Word will now be available to members of the Seattle Retail Floor Team group within the Windows App.
Click anywhere on the screen to complete this exercise and continue to review the employee experience in Windows App.
Congratulations on completing exercise 1.
Select exercise 2 to continue.
Employees access published Windows 365 Cloud Apps through Windows App, the gateway to securely connect to Windows on any device across Windows 365, Azure Virtual Desktop, Remote PC, Remote Desktop Services, Microsoft Dev Box, and more. In the previous exercise – you published Microsoft Edge, Outlook and Word. In this exercise you will preview the user experience accessing Cloud Apps using Windows App from a PC on their Seattle retail floor.
Starting in the Windows App on a Contoso retail floor PC running Windows 11, select Sign in.
Sign in using Bianca Pisani’s credentials:
- Username: select Bianca’s account (biancap@contoso.com) to continue.
- Password: select the Password field to type and then type or copy/paste password and press Enter or click Sign in.
Bianca currently has access to two Windows 365 Frontline Cloud PCs, as you can see from the indicators on the device tiles. Bianca is a store manager, and has been given access to both a Frontline Cloud PC in dedicated mode for administrative work and a Frontline Cloud PC in shared mode for point-of-sale and other activities on the floor during the work day.
In the previous exercise, you assigned the provisioning policy associated with your Cloud Apps to the Seattle Retail Floor Team. Bianca is a member of that team and will also have access to the Cloud Apps you just published.
Select Apps in the left navigation of Windows App.
Bianca has access to Microsoft Edge, Outlook (classic) and Word from within Windows App.
From here they can launch any of their Cloud Apps. When a user launches any of the published Cloud Apps they have access to, they are connected to one of the provisioned Windows 365 Frontline Cloud PCs in shared mode, streaming only the relevant app(s) to their local device—without loading the full desktop environment.
Note that published apps can also open other apps that are on the Cloud PC. For example, Microsoft Outlook as a Cloud App can launch Microsoft Edge via embedded links in emails, even if Microsoft Edge isn't published as a Cloud App.
Select the Microsoft Word tile to launch Word as a Cloud App.
As the app is streaming from a Frontline Shared Cloud PC, employees may need to authenticate when launching the app (depending on the context and your organization’s configuration).
Select the Password field to type, then type or copy/paste
This is Bianca’s first time connecting to this Cloud PC - they will see the ‘Allow remote desktop connection’ dialog. Review the text and select Yes.
Word is now streaming to Bianca’s local machine as a Windows 365 Cloud App. When connecting from Windows App on Windows, cloud-delivered apps look just like local apps, seamlessly integrating with users' local desktops.
Click anywhere on the screen to complete this exercise.
Congratulations on completing exercise 2.
You can select any exercise to review or select Home to return to the beginning of the interactive demo.