Print Management

[Sheridan]

Any recommendations for a good print management suite that works on Server 2012 and also has a web interface for 'topping up' accounts?

 

We used to use print manager plus, but its not working on server 2012 and the web interface doesn't work on anything after server 2008. I don't want anything too expensive as we just to enforce quotas and printer restrictions.

[sparkeh]

PaperCut is awesome.

[fiza]

+1 for papercut - we are trailling it at the moment. The scripting bit is awesome. New version just released as mentioned by @sparkeh in another thread.

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/how-do-you-do/130560-email-print.html

[Sheridan]

£649 for papercut though - way too expensive for our current budget!

[fiza]

How about this Fitosoft – Print Management Software » Free Software

[Sheridan]

I guess free ones might be our next option - even they don't seem to be 2012 server compatible though.

[Dos_Box]

What size school are you?

[JJonas]

Can Papercut add the users username to every printed page?

[sparkeh]

Can Papercut add the users username to every printed page?

Yes!

Tour - Watermarking and Job Annotation - PaperCut

[fiza]

@sparkeh not related to the OP's question but do you use any scripts in papercut that may be useful to others? Do you know if papercut have a repository of scripts submitted by users for others to utilise?

[sparkeh]

@sparkeh not related to the OP's question but do you use any scripts in papercut that may be useful to others? Do you know if papercut have a repository of scripts submitted by users for others to utilise?

There is a repository in the app itself with lots of model scripts to import into your own environment. If you write a good script that isn't covered by anything that currently exists then you can submit it to PaperCut to be added. Also there are lots of code snippets to help you build up your own scripts.

 

So for example, currently, the only script I use is to make printing for the office staff free. So I found a model script for discounting printing for certain AD Security Groups, imported that, changed the AD Group to our 'Admin Staff' group and set the discount to 100%. Job done.

 

To be honest I would be surprised if there were any situations that hadn't already been thought of and added.

[fiza]

There is a repository in the app itself with lots of model scripts to import into your own environment. If you write a good script that isn't covered by anything that currently exists then you can submit it to PaperCut to be added. Also there are lots of code snippets to help you build up your own scripts.

 

So for example, currently, the only script I use is to make printing for the office staff free. So I found a model script for discounting printing for certain AD Security Groups, imported that, changed the AD Group to our 'Admin Staff' group and set the discount to 100%. Job done.

 

To be honest I would be surprised if there were any situations that hadn't already been thought of and added.

 

I have imported and amended a few scripts from there myself. I remember there was a competition here on Edugeek some time back for people to write scripts but don't not sure how many people entered.

[manc_techie]

+1 for PaperCut also, with chargable printing (after quota) it turned printing into a zero cost affair with 11 MFD's that was impressive.

[Big_Ted]

£649 for papercut though - way too expensive for our current budget!

Should see that back soon enough: Print Management Return on Investment (ROI) Calculator - PaperCut

Converting to duplex and B&W or simply denying duplicate print jobs will save plenty right away.

[Sheridan]

I've not doubt we could get the £649 back in 12-18 months - persuading smt to spend the money is the hard part. I always find it harder to get the money for software, must be because theres nothing tangible to see where you're money's gone!

[fiza]

Why not trial it for 40 days and show them how much they are spending on printing - may convince them to invest.

[mrforgetful]

We used to use Papercut and I really liked how it worked but had to move as it didn't support people having more than one account to debit which is what we needed.

 

We moved to Print Manager Plus but I'm still not a fan after years of it.

 

Any scripts in Papercut to enable us to allocate different funds to different printers? So say an engtineering student put £5 on to print in that department but had a recurring £2 topup for general ICT printers?

[daneil16]

PaperCut all the way!!!!

 

Can do everything you want. Synchronizes users with AD every day, set limits, quotas, cost of print per page for individual printers, can force them to print b+w, names each page the list is endless.

 

I promise you will recoup the £700 back in a year with saved paper and ink. Best investment we ever made behind Impero

[mrforgetful]

But how do I set it up so:

 

Pupils get £2 on General Printers

Pupils get £0 on Design Printers until they buy some.

 

When they print to Design Printers an amount per page is taken from that 'pot' of cash only - the amount they have to spend on the other printers in unaffected.

 

When I had Papercut in the past it wasn't possible. All funds added went to the same 'pot of cash' for that pupil and printing from any printer removed the credit from it.

[fiza]

Would multiple personal accounts help?

 

Chapter30.Multiple Personal Accounts

 

http://www.papercut.com/products/ng/manual/ch-multi-personal-accounts-examples.html#ch-multi-personal-accounts-examples-advanced

[mrforgetful]

This bit seems to cover it but it's very complicated compared to Print Manager Plus.

 

All you to in PMP is assign the Design Printer to the Design Printer Group and add funds to drop down box in the fund allocation property page of the user.

 

In Papercut you do this:

 

Example 2: Department/Faculty Quotas (Advanced)

 

A much more advanced configuration is required when different departments/faculties/areas want to each have their own quotas that are only available for use by their users on their printers. Department quotas are also often combined with user cash payments which can be used anywhere on site. For a description of this scenario see the section called “Independently Managed Work Areas”.

 

One prominent PaperCut customer, Cambridge University in the UK uses this configuration. At Cambridge each of the independent schools/colleges want to allocate quotas to their students at enrollment. These quotas may only be used on the printers owned by the school. Cambridge also offers user-paid printing, and where the cash can be used on any printer across the campus. The multiple personal account feature in PaperCut has been designed to meet the demanding requirements at The University of Cambridge and other leading colleges.

 

This configuration requires the use of many advanced PaperCut features. This section gives a brief outline of how this is configured.

 

 

• Enable multiple personal accounts and create the accounts for each of the work-areas or departments required. If users can also pay for printing, also create a cash account. The priority/order of the quota accounts is not important, as long as the "Cash" account appears last. The screenshot below shows a possible configuration.

 

 

 

 

Example of an advanced account setup

 

Figure 30.5. Example of an advanced account setup

 

 

 

Press the Set Up Accounts button to start applying the change.

 

 

• When the account setup is complete, select the "Cash" account as the account for user payments. To do this choose this account under the User payment accounts option. Then press the Apply button.

 

 

• At this point all the accounts are enabled and can be used on any printers. To restrict the accounts that can be used on different printers, the Advanced Printer Scripting feature can be used (see Chapter 18, Advanced Scripting (Print Scripting)). The advanced scripting provides a method (actions.job.changePersonalAccountChargePriority) that allows for changing both the accounts available and their order/priority. The method is documented in detail in the section called “Script Actions”.

 

For example, the following script snippet, shows how to limit the available accounts to only "Science Quotas" and "Cash" (in that order).

actions.job.changePersonalAccountChargePriority(["Science Quotas", "Cash"]);

 

 

 

 

 

• Departments can allocate initial quotas at enrollment or periodically throughout the year using the web-service APIs or server-command to adjust user balances. All the balances affecting APIs/commands have a parameter to specify which of the accounts to adjust/set. For example, to use server-command to set the balance of the "Science Quotas" account to $10.00 for all members of the "Science Students" group:

server-command set-user-account-balance-by-group "Science Students" 10.0 \

"Enrollment quota" "Science Quotas"

 

 

 

 

This technique can be integrated with existing student management systems to automate the allocation of free print quota at the time of enrollment.

 

For more information on web-service APIs or server-command see the section called “The XML Web Services API” and the section called “Server Commands (server-command)”.

 

 

 

 

With the power of Advanced Print Scripting and Multiple Personal Accounts much can be achieved. Large universities and colleges needing this level of flexibility also tend to have very competent IT staff. Take some time to bounce around some ideas. Here are a few:

 

 

• Use advanced print scripting to tune on/off access to accounts based on conditions such as group membership, time of day, device, etc.

 

 

• Automate account management tasks such as free quota assignment on course enrollment using scripts.

 

 

• Complex rules on which accounts are used and under which conditions, need to be clearly explained to users. Take some time to document this and communicate policy with staff/students/members.

[MatthewL]

The money you could potentially save would help your case to purchase PaperCut surely?

 

Noting the price above I guess you are wanting licensing for up to 2000 users, if you don't have that many users you could save more money there. If you want to have a look at PaperCut NG (which doesn't control copiers and looks to be what you have been quoted for based on price) have a look at the demo site here.

 

Invest to save and that is what you will do with PaperCut without a doubt.

[DJ3Dog]

I'm a PaperCut guy myself, but we did trial Pharos before going with papercut. It was decent, cheaper, support sucked...

[CSE_AllanE]

Of all the systems I've had to work with papercut by far my favourite in terms of features and reliability

[robjd]

I use print manager plus here. It does the job and support is quite good.