Print Manager software

[laserblazer]

We are almost at the stage where Winsuite will be a thing of the past and all users will be in OUs. So I am hoping that this will also allow us to analyse who is printing to where with a view to billing departments for printing.

 

Can anyone recommend a fairly simple and inexpensive package that will do this?

[Pumaedition]

oh, if only we could be in the same situation

 

As for inexpensive solution, it depends what you class as inexpensive. We are looking at Papercut NG to replace PrintManager Plus, and they do a free 40-day trial so you can see it working.

 

I also believe they let you have a logging system for free, though I am not too sure on that one

[elsiegee40]

We are using Print Manager Plus and it's giving us now problems. Hapy to answer specific questions.

[WithoutMotive]

We're quite happy with Print Manager Plus at the moment.

No complaints.

 

EDIT: I'm glad this thread came along. I've just realised our maintenance for Print Manager Plus has run out. LOL

Edited November 19, 2008 by WithoutMotive

[Jamman960]

One thing I would recommend is making use of the free trial's and making sure that it works with all of your printers before going ahead and purchasing especially if you have picky printers such as Konica Minolta's or in some cases Brother's

 

In the past I've found that Print Manager Plus works very well with the occasional exception of Brother printers(solved by using a generic brother driver), PCounter has many useful features but didn't like our Konica's at all.

 

We are currently coming to the end of our 40 day Papercut trial and I expect to be placing an order very soon, it lacks some of the more advanced features but if all you want is print quota's then it fits the bill nicely.

[RichLHS]

we're using Papercut also. I think it does a damn fine job for us, and now the kids actually think before they print to save them a walk asking for more credit.

Also stops staff using (caning!) our printers instead of using reprographics. nice.

[laserblazer]

we're using Papercut also. I think it does a damn fine job for us, and now the kids actually think before they print to save them a walk asking for more credit.

Also stops staff using (caning!) our printers instead of using reprographics. nice.

 

Exactly what I'm looking for then. Can I ask how you allocate credits?

[elsiegee40]

In Print Manager Plus - we allocate a price for a page on a printer. We then give each person a print allocation (an amount that can be spent on printing) - it's pointed out clearly that this is an allocation and not a budget. Printing at 100% of allocation would bankrupt the school!

 

It really didn't make much difference until we changed the page prices to more realistic numbers. Colour pages charged at 35p a page and mono at 10p a page. It was weird; we scaled the allocations up in line with the price rises (so kids still had 2 pages a day), but the amount of printing plummeted.

 

Staff allowances vary. SMT & Office staff (all 5 of them) have unlimited allocations; some teachers have higher allowances than others depending on their needs (Early Years staff generally need more)

 

I also like PMP's window that pops up, spelling out that you've printed x pages to printer y and it's going to cost you z pence... Click [OK] if you want to do this or [Delete] to cancel the job. It seems to make people consider whether they actually meant to print in the first place!

 

We also block print jobs based on name, so Windows Print Wizard's Full Page Fax and Photo prints are blocked, printing directly from the internet is blocked (they have to copy and paste) and printing from unsaved word documents is blocked.

 

Finally we block children from printing off more than 1 copy of a document at a time and from repeating the print job within 60 seconds. Staff can't print off more than 5 copies at a time - they've been told to use the photocopier.

 

Our toner bills have halved since we got nasty with the Print Manager rules and the recycling box has far fewer 'unwanted' pages in it

 

EDIT

 

Should have added that you can use AD OUs or Security Groups to group people together... I've actually used the Security Group option and create a couple of extra ones for the Teachers so that they can be members of PMP-High-Weekly group and automatically get the right allocation

Edited November 19, 2008 by elsiegee40

[Disaster]

Exactly what I'm looking for then. Can I ask how you allocate credits?

 

I import users by groups from active directory eg. teching staff, year 7, 8 etc... so they appear in those groups in papercut.

You can then give them as much credit (daily/weekly... whatever,) as you want depending which group they are in.

 

the trial is a full version, so might as well give it a bash.