What is the best way to control printing with a Konica MFP

[pooley]

We have a pair of Konica Minolta MFP C458's

 

The head want's everyone's print jobs to stay in the device until they physically are at the machine to enter a code.

 

We don't have papercut or any other print management software, just server 2012 and whatever is built into the Konica devices.

 

What's my best option?

 

Si

[ADMaster]

Papercut is great, I'd look into it if you can. However I did have the accounting stuff configured before we got papercut.

 

Its been about 5 years so here is what I recall.

Get the admin software from konica's website this will allow you to configure the accounts and import / export settings. Makes it much nicer to configure.

Then the driver needs configured for secure print, its in the drop down under output method.

[Cache]

We've just implemented ID&Print on our two machines, a c654e and 654e, joined the copier to AD, configured it to use external auth, changed the settings to restrict unauth'd printing and then anything sent as a print job still goes through as ID&print.

 

Staff hate it since they now have to login to use the machine since we decided to try and get some indication of usage, but also get's them in the habit.

 

I think you might be able to restrict the print output so it will only accept Secure Print like ADMaster says, but we just decided to go the whole hog. Took me an afternoon to do with a lot of research, Konica guides and manuals that give relatively straightforward answers/instructions seem few and far between.

[johnpd]

I’m about to change a site of mine from Ricoh to Konica but they might not have the money or time to get papercut fully upgraded on site. I recall the engineer I worked with on our trust hq, who said secure print was an option but I’d like to know if there is a good guide which at least might work for my small sites (primary) ... how does the report look when doing charges and remissions for finance?

[pooley]

Went with user auth and ID&Print, we don't want it to control the amount of actual printing (yet) but it's more for stopping waste, teachers have a habit of not collecting printed stuff and leaving it in the copying room.

 

Already getting grumbles but not my decision, they can moan to the HT

[Cache]

I stopped listening to the moans after the 1st week, 3 weeks on some are still complaining in the background about it.

 

That was our main reasoning behind it as well, we set the job deletion time to 3 days so that if someone sent something to it while working remotely over the weekend then it would still be there on Monday morning for them to go and release.

[pooley]

I stopped listening to the moans after the 1st week, 3 weeks on some are still complaining in the background about it.

 

That was our main reasoning behind it as well, we set the job deletion time to 3 days so that if someone sent something to it while working remotely over the weekend then it would still be there on Monday morning for them to go and release.

 

That's a good idea, 3 days is plenty.

[PotNoodleTech]

Papercut is the best system on the market for schools. I've used a few others and would only recommend papercut.

[pooley]

It costs though, we are making teachers and other staff redundant, there is no extra money for things. So we use what we have and make it fit.

[johnpd]

Your right however since I last posted one of my sites is showing huge savings even after paying for the software quarter pricing. Still just in case it’s worth noting you can do it without papercut

[Baloo]

The best way would be with Konica own inepro DocuPRO software solution.

[PotNoodleTech]

It costs though, we are making teachers and other staff redundant, there is no extra money for things. So we use what we have and make it fit.

 

It's cost neutral. Depending on your print habits, you will more than likely save at least the cost of the software, in much less wasted paper and wasted toner. It also allows you to properly audit printing/copying in order to reduce costs even further (why are X department printing a million sheets?) and make it more fair for departments. Our departments now pay for exactly each page that they print rather than having to spend £hundreds on a set of HP laserjet toners only to have another department use their IT room and use up all their toner. Pupil printing is costed seperatly comes out of a different budget so no more pupils using departmental ink up.

 

Just worth thinking about how you can reduce usage across the board, and may find as a bonus that pays for your software and more!

Edited May 3, 2018 by PotNoodleTech

[Cache]

I suspect's it like us though at the moment, it may well end up being cost neutral but we haven't got the funds at present to stump up for the initial outlay which is the same for a lot of things currently.

 

When I spoke to our Konica Account Manager the other week, he advised leaving it until the renewal of our contract in a years time simply because copier rental prices had come down, cost per copy was down slightly therefore you should be able to get similar units, with papercut for the same rental price as we're currently paying.

 

Also the situation we're in now using ID&print, we've started the process and it's hasn't cost anything to date - if it works then that's a better business case to move across to papercut for the better features.

Edited May 3, 2018 by Cache