Print Queue Management

[simonw]

I've been asked to look at our printing and the cost savings that could be made. One major area we have is that teacher A will send jobs to print, go and get it only to find it not there. More often than not someone else has picked it up when they've collected their own job. Teacher A then re-sends the print job. Meanwhile the first output has been returned to the print room, having been picked up in error.

 

So we have double printing, or treble or more sometimes.

 

Does anyone know of a print management solution that includes the ability to hold jobs in the queue until the user enters a pin code (for example) at the printer, releasing the job and getting round the multiple jobs issue.

 

Many thanks

[fiza]

papercut Tour - Print Release Stations

[Guest MD5T]

What kind of printers do you use ? I'm sure most of them can do a pin code release in the settings ?

[MrFrostmaul]

How hard would it be to educate the employees not to take others printed materials and have maybe a storage area next to the printers where people could put the printed items that were not theirs for pick u by their owners later?

 

We tried this tray next to ours and even with PaperCut so only they can print their own jobs, we still have a lot just left everywhere, never picked up..

 

PaperCut has defiantly saved us a lot and done 250,000 pages since 1st Jan. Well worth and now put the printed by watermark on bottom of first page of job so we know who leaves their waste.

Edited March 19, 2017 by MrFrostmaul

[Achandler]

Just setup papercut to store a copy of the job for a week, thats what we do, soon catch them and no watermark needed!

 

Also useful when the student print out rude images that drew in paint because they were "bored"

[mthomas08]

I've been asked to look at our printing and the cost savings that could be made. One major area we have is that teacher A will send jobs to print, go and get it only to find it not there. More often than not someone else has picked it up when they've collected their own job. Teacher A then re-sends the print job. Meanwhile the first output has been returned to the print room, having been picked up in error.

 

So we have double printing, or treble or more sometimes.

 

Does anyone know of a print management solution that includes the ability to hold jobs in the queue until the user enters a pin code (for example) at the printer, releasing the job and getting round the multiple jobs issue.

 

Many thanks

 

We use PaperCut with Toshiba printers, you can use pin codes, bar codes or even biometrics (which we use so it ties to cashless catering). The biometrics though is the high cost solution which next time we refresh the equipment and need to replace them there's a chance we will revert to barcodes.

 

It all goes to a queue and what ever printer staff/students go to they can use a finger and voila all their jobs they've sent. There's also an email to print - useful for BYOD.

 

We're also looking at further costings which is why students are now limited to small amount of credit per 12 months e.g. £5 for Yr7/8, £10 for 9/10/11.

If they go over it now it gets charged to the department that wants them to print (staff have to request this). The idea is it gets everyone asking students "do you need to print that". Otherwise you run the risk of students doing what staff do - print what they want regardless to costs - mentality.

 

Once our oldest printer gets replaced we can also remove Personal Account Credit from staff and resort to Departmental Accounts. This forces the users to choose which department to bill for each job. As a result of budget cuts we've lost a lot of money next year and we are working hard to cut down printing.