We are proud to introduce our latest release of Juriba App Readiness, formerly known as AppM, as it reinforces the exciting new direction we have taken with our application management solution. This solution is laser-focused on producing high-quality packages at scale, automating the end-to-end packaging, testing, and publishing process for as many applications as possible.
So, without further ado, let's jump right into what's new in this release.
Application packaging teams often face challenges like limited resources and tight SLAs. Juriba understands that automation is critical to overcoming these difficulties, enabling teams to do more with less. App Readiness aims to automate every application that can be automated, allowing packaging teams to focus their time and effort on only those that require manual attention.
Researching and testing command lines can consume about 35% of packaging time. Having ready-to-use command lines saves time and enables automation, regardless of whether the deployment uses the vendor’s setup and command line directly or is used to perform repackaging.
With this in mind, we have invested heavily in differentiated improvements. In addition to programmatically determining what silent installation command lines are most likely to work, we have introduced a massive knowledge base of application details alongside Generative AI insights that save valuable time and effort.
Combined with our integrated smoke testing capabilities, various combinations can be attempted quickly to realize the ideal package that meets your needs.
Juriba KB: The Juriba Knowledge Base (KB) is an intelligent, self-learning repository of application data that continuously evolves, collecting and suggesting command lines for various applications. As more applications are processed, the Juriba KB becomes more accurate by learning from smoke test results. In a future update, we will provide success rates for smoke tests performed alongside these command line suggestions to guide you to the best command lines even faster.
Juriba AI: Besides KB suggestions, Juriba AI provides recommended alternative command-line options powered by Artificial Intelligence, speeding up preparation and automation and exposing you to optional customization options.
Check out the detailed click-through demonstration of these new capabilities below.
Wrapping has long been a cornerstone of the packaging world, providing an efficient way to bundle installers, command lines, and customizations into a consistent package. In the past, this was typically done using VBScript or batch scripting, which required considerable effort and expertise to write functions and deployment scripts.
Now, with the PowerShell App Deployment Toolkit (PSADT), wrapping packages has become much simpler and more powerful. PSADT offers a valuable set of pre-built functions, a template script, and customization options, including branding, making it the preferred wrapping method of many enterprises.
App Readiness fully integrates with PSADT, enabling you to create PSADT packages seamlessly. In this release, PSADT has been added to the extensive list of packaging formats already supported by App Readiness.
As with other formats, you can smoke-test it directly in App Readiness, ensuring its quality, and publish it to Microsoft Intune for deployment. With App Readiness, the entire workflow—from creating to testing and publishing PSADT packages—is streamlined, giving you a faster, more efficient way to prepare deployment-ready PSADT packages.
Check out the detailed click-through demonstration of these new capabilities below.
With such powerful and intelligent automation, App Readiness extends its value by supporting non-technical users. Anyone should feel comfortable initiating automation, so we have focused additional effort on simplifying the user experience for everyone.
The menus for users of various roles have been updated, and we have done a lot to simplify the experience of adding new applications. This release introduces a new Application Owner role that allows non-technical personnel to initiate automation based on specified admin defaults.
We are even making App Readiness easier to install and maintain. We have recently introduced a next-generation desktop gateway that runs on Windows, so there is no longer a dependency on Linux.
While simplification has been a consistent focus across our recent releases, in this release, we've introduced two significant enhancements:
Application Owner role: Designed for non-technical users, this new role allows individuals, like application owners or junior packagers, to initiate automation using predefined default settings. This reduces the workload on the packaging team by enabling users with an application owner role to handle most packages themselves using our intelligent automation.
Default settings: Admins can configure default packaging workflow options, which speed up the process and provide automatic answers for users with the Application Owner role, further simplifying the experience.
We have added several new features to ensure the highest-quality output and improve packaging and smoke testing. These include the ability to specify command-line switches you would like to append, better handling of reboots and user profile paths, an expanded ignore list for irrelevant event logs, and enhanced exit code and uninstallation handling. These improvements give you greater confidence in the packages you send for broader deployment.
We are currently working on some impactful enhancements around automating the maintenance of virtual machines. These enhancements will allow you to schedule regular updates to Windows and third-party applications to keep the groups of virtual machines targeted for repackaging and testing up-to-date with clean snapshots.
The command line suggestion will show smoke test success rates. We’ll introduce support for bulk application uploading, and you’ll see several improvements around publishing packages to Intune and handling MSIX package automation.
App Readiness 5.0 represents a significant leap forward in automating and simplifying the packaging process, allowing teams to deliver higher-quality packages at scale. App Readiness enables organizations to automate their packaging workflows to minimize manual effort. With these new features, your team can focus on what truly matters: delivering reliable, ready-to-deploy applications efficiently and effectively.
Please refer to the App Readiness v5.0 Release Notes for the complete new features and enhancements list.