Print Manager plus - Need some help with a problem i have

[martin88]

Hi guys

 

We have Print Manager Plus standard setup and working, with colour

restrictions in place for our staff members. (Via username, not printer) We have a certain colour

laserjet printer which we want only certain staff to have unlimited

printing on, without restrictions, but still need to restrict them on

other printers around the college.

 

Is there an easy way to set this up?

 

Thanks in advance

Martin

[Michael]

To my knowledge this cannot be done. It's easy enough to specify credit at group level, then modify some individual users to either a higher credit allowance or unlimited.

 

Can you not deny these users from using the other printers at all with NTFS permissions?

Edited March 6, 2008 by Michael

[martin88]

Thanks for the quick reply.

 

The staff don't have credits assigned to them, just all colour priniting is denied.

 

I phoned the help desk, but they wern't that helpful to be honest. Was going to have bit play around with the software in the morning.

 

Martin

[Michael]

So maybe I'm asking a stupid question, if you denied staff from printing in colour, (to any printer) what further restrictions do you wish to implement?

[martin88]

sorry,

 

I don't want to restrict them any further, what i want to do is remove the restrictions for say Printer A for 3 members of staff, but when they go to Printer B I need it so that they have the colour restrictions applied again.

 

Printer A is in the science department (They Pay for ink themselves, so don't want any restrictions on amount/type etc they can print off)

 

Printer B is in an ICT room (We pay for the ink and need to keep an eye on them, deny colour printing)

 

 

Martin

[localzuk]

How about having the printer shared on a seperate print server? One that PMP isn't on? Then restrict it via NTFS permissions only.

[martin88]

Sounds like an idea, will give it a try in the morning.

[Michael]

Working with localzuk's idea, let's say you have Printer A1 using Port 192.168.1.10

 

Create another printer, (using the same port and driver) called Printer A2. Share and restrict this printer using NTFS, so only those three users can print to it.

[localzuk]

Working with localzuk's idea, let's say you have Printer A1 using Port 192.168.1.10

 

Create another printer, (using the same port and driver) called Printer A2. Share and restrict this printer using NTFS, so only those three users can print to it.

 

If that was on the same server as the other then the printing restrictions would be in place too. It has to be on another machine to not be restricted.

[Michael]

Yes I agree localzuk. If the restrictions were done on a per printer basis, then it wouldn't be a problem. Because restrictions are implemented on a user level (controlled by PMP) you'd be forced to install the second printer, using the same port/driver but on another print server without PMP installed.

 

Apologies if I wasn't clear first time

[elsiegee40]

The way to get PMP to play is to create some custom Security Groups in AD just for PMP.

 

In PMP:

> set restrictions that you want to apply to everyone on the printer (e.g. Document to get rid of unsaved Word) - these are the least restrictive

> set restrictions you want to apply to users on their groups - this would be their print spend allocation, and perhaps resrictions on whether or not they can print colour.

 

If you have some users requiring special print allowances, create a special security group called say "PMP unrestricted" and make the special few members of that security group.

 

In PMP, set up the restrictions that apply to that group, e.g. unrestricted by allowance and when it says 'apply to all users now?' reply yes... the chosen few will be unrestricted.

 

Be careful, if you subsequently modify the allowances for a another group that the user is also a member of, you will find that they are switched to that group! You'll need to save the unrestricted group again to override it.

 

Sorry if this isn't terribly clearly written, but I don't have PMP in front of me. I'll be happy to expand further tomorrow if necessary.

[martin88]

Just to let you know this is now working.

 

Last week i set it up so that the printer port was going directly to the IP address and not through the server on which the printers are shared.

 

The user was just clicking on the wrong link, thats all. He was going through the server, not the IP Address setup.

 

Thanks for the ideas anyway.

 

Martin