Papercut Hive - The horror story you've been waiting for?

[TSheward_MM]

Hi all,

 

Seems to be a lot of people asking about hive but few responses so thought I would share our experience with hive.

 

We proof of concepted back in June/July and seemed to be very simple to get up and running (which it is); interface (embedded Sharp) seemed pretty sluggish, not enough to be unusable but functionally it worked fine. Supplier said the interface would be quicker the more nodes that were on site (from our experience this turns out not to be true, there is no difference in speed should you have 3 nodes connected or 250 nodes connected).

 

The rest of the system seemed as it is on the tin, a product born in the cloud in its infancy; super stripped down feature set that wouldn't be appropriate for 90% of schools. The only reason it would work here is because this is a very small, pretty laid back school in all honesty who didn't have any form of managed print/secure release previously.

 

Long story short, between PoC and when our photocopiers were replaced (complete with hive) some kind of bug was introduced with Sharp and Papercut and it takes over a minute from releasing your job to it being sent to the printer; you can photocopy 300 pages faster than you can get a few single page documents released.

 

Knowing what was liaised with papercut support, I'd say they knew about and were working on the issue for well over a week, more like two, before updating their known errors pages on their site (complete with a workaround that doesn't work). It's been another two weeks of being fed the line "it's with Papercut and Sharp Japan" with no indication of any progress or eta for a fix. Doesn't seem like they are able to roll back nodes or embedded apps to a version that actually works so a month in, it's more lines of staff and students at the photocopiers for the foreseeable future; how we don't have a mob with pitchforks at the door I don't know.

 

For those of you used to any form of functional print management, you know hive isn't fit for your school already. For those with light print requirements who think their school is only doing the bare minimum equivalent of a small business so maybe just maybe hive will be able to do the job... probs best to still stay clear.

Oh and the whole cloud only thing, you need at least 3 always available static IP machines on site for the whole thing to work; papercut say you can use a VM, supplier said they issued an update saying don't use a VM

 

Verdict; if you want papercut and want cloud, spin up a VM in Azure/AWS and stick MF on it.

[mavhc]

Very weird that it even requires the "edge mesh", didn't need that for Google's Cloud Print.

 

Surely all you need is a service that tells you which IP to send your print job to, or if you're not on that LAN, send it to Papercut's servers and have the photocopier poll that.

 

They're crazy to try to write software for a million crappy CPUs running a million crappy embedded OSes though, no wonder that part's not working. Photocopier people can barely get their own software to half work.

[DalekSec]

Not Edu (anymore)

 

Had a demo of it yesterday and looked good, hoping to have a PoC here. As currently we have 6 unmanaged MFPs and cloud only! Hive is the only system i found so far that says it can do what i want! Will let you know if we have similar issues.

[PaperCutterAl]

Hi there, papercutter here. Love your feedback and it’s doing the rounds of the product team all the way up to the big boss right this very minute!

 

For your technical challenges, I suggest a direct chat with tech support. I’ll DM you (if I can) to explain why and provide direct details, but for those watching along at home, I’m not prepared to talk about OEMs without their input or permission publicly. Sorry.

 

HOWEVER, I will say I personally think your advice is sound. I don’t think it’s ideal for complex school environments *checks calendar* today. I think you hit the nail on the head in this line: “... a product born in the cloud in its infancy”. Very true. After 20-something years working on the MF codebase until it's at the peak of its powers, we’ve built PaperCut Hive from scratch in the cloud. My personal view is we’re at early adopter stage, I don’t think there’s any getting away from that.

 

And that applies to education. While MF has years of innovation and refinement (and roadtesting) in literally thousands of schools, PaperCut Hive (and let’s face it, cloud print management in general) is in its infancy. PaperCut Hive is working extremely well in education facilities with limited technical needs that are looking for excellent cloud security and scalability. But for richer features, nothing in the cloud’s going to come close to PaperCut MF for features. Nothing. Yet.

[TSheward_MM]

Really appreciate the input, thoughts and DM; will throw some info back in chat.

 

We are an education facility with limited tech needs which is why the punt was taken on hive

This is a Sharp<>Papercut specific thing and schools running other hardware obviously haven't been burnt as such but I guess the elephant in the room is rollback strategy when a bug like this is introduced which will apply to all OEMs not just Sharp.

 

There's parts I really like and have been very impressed by, other bits not so much; maybe a stronger uservoice/community might be worth considering while hive is at early adopter stage as you say...

[allers61]

We’re trialling the use of Printix acting as a back-end to Papercut MF which so far is working really well. We were using Universal Print with MF previously (the less said about that the better)!

[snagrat]

We’re trialling the use of Printix acting as a back-end to Papercut MF which so far is working really well. We were using Universal Print with MF previously (the less said about that the better)!

 

Been doing this for a few years now. Works flawlessly.

 

We’ve started using it at sites where they is no Papercut and again just works and very quick to setup

[DalekSec]

Ideally want to go with Hive but i've just got hold of our printer contracts... which have 3 years left on them! So no change of swapping. Provider is pushing me towards Xerox cloud which i don't like the look of, very lacking in features.

 

Do you guys manage Printix or is it provided by your printer suppliers?

[snagrat]

Ideally want to go with Hive but i've just got hold of our printer contracts... which have 3 years left on them! So no change of swapping. Provider is pushing me towards Xerox cloud which i don't like the look of, very lacking in features.

 

Do you guys manage Printix or is it provided by your printer suppliers?

 

We manage it ourselves.

 

Just put an redirector on the Papercut server and deploy the agent to all machines.

 

You can then use Printix to set different print queue to groups but as it’s a queue we actually do all queue to all. Then let Papercut do the permissions stuff.

 

Only thing to be aware of is if you do account based stuff then you need to set the copier to accept account selecting at release, rather than at print - as there is no Papercut client to set it. Our Kyoceras needed a firmware upgrade to support this and some Papercut settings tweaked.

[jblackburnHWGA]

Canon Uniflow is very good the only downside is you have go with Canon directly

[IKWeb]

One of the original Trusts to sign up to Hive. 45 Schools all in Hive (well almost all)

 

The system for what it is has worked brilliantly.

 

From the feedback I have had from others, it really does matter which Print company you are using. For me, all our schools are with Konica and they have been epic in helping roll hive out to all schools.

 

I have others who are using other print companies and they are having a crap time getting the system set up.

 

For us tho, all in all, its gone great. We have a direct link to the chaps at PaperCut and they have also been great - even coming out to site a few times to work on issues we are having.

 

It will be nice to get extra functionality like stapling etc, but we knew when buying into the system that was on the road map and it will come - just wish it was a little sooner

 

But all in all - very very happy with the system. for our 45 schools its worked out great.

[MrEprise]

Canon Uniflow is very good the only downside is you have go with Canon directly

 

Uniflow is made by a company called NTWare who are not affiliated with Canon. Their software will work with a number of imaging providers, except Canon strongly recommends Uniflow over the competition which is where the confusion usually comes.

[Steve21]

One of the original Trusts to sign up to Hive. 45 Schools all in Hive (well almost all)

 

The system for what it is has worked brilliantly.

 

From the feedback I have had from others, it really does matter which Print company you are using. For me, all our schools are with Konica and they have been epic in helping roll hive out to all schools.

 

I have others who are using other print companies and they are having a crap time getting the system set up.

 

For us tho, all in all, its gone great. We have a direct link to the chaps at PaperCut and they have also been great - even coming out to site a few times to work on issues we are having.

 

It will be nice to get extra functionality like stapling etc, but we knew when buying into the system that was on the road map and it will come - just wish it was a little sooner ��

 

But all in all - very very happy with the system. for our 45 schools its worked out great.

 

Out of curiosity how are you setup across the schools

 

Can they all print to one another via hive? Or is that effectively 45 separate installs?

 

Just looking at future planning for printing trust wise, and comparing MF via Azure server to get full features like stapling etc etc to Hive for real serverless especially for primaries etc

 

Would be great to hear some more regarding it!

 

Thanks,

Steve

[IKWeb]

Out of curiosity how are you setup across the schools

 

Can they all print to one another via hive? Or is that effectively 45 separate installs?

 

Just looking at future planning for printing trust wise, and comparing MF via Azure server to get full features like stapling etc etc to Hive for real serverless especially for primaries etc

 

Would be great to hear some more regarding it!

 

Thanks,

Steve

 

So we have a server at each site - this becomes what PaperCut calls a super node and each users device is an edge node. But as all 45 schools are in the same tenancy - anyone can printer and go to any of the 100 or so printers at any of the schools, enter the user's code, or use the key card and it will show them the jobs they have waiting to be printed.

 

Hive is new so it is missing some of the functions like stapling etc - but there are ways around this until official support comes in. But for what it is, and how much we pay for it - its a great solution that allows staff and users to move around schools and to be able to print from anywhere.

[Propelling-Pencil]

IKWeb - how do you get around the problem of shared PCs in your IT suites? Hive didn't seem to work for our users on any given PC until they clicked on the link in their original welcome email. As they moved from PC to PC this caused problems, particularly when their email was lost.

[IKWeb]

IKWeb - how do you get around the problem of shared PCs in your IT suites? Hive didn't seem to work for our users on any given PC until they clicked on the link in their original welcome email. As they moved from PC to PC this caused problems, particularly when their email was lost.

 

This is something we haven't managed to get around.

 

Thankfully - our devices for staff are 121 - So staff don't move around devices much.

 

When they do move - yes they have to use the link in the email to re-link the Hive account to the profile on that new device. Which can be an arse.

 

If the email has been lost - Staff can use the "Send new Password" button on the printers so they get a fresh copy of the email.

 

Would be nice to remove this step - but I cant see any other way to do this - else the system won't know who they are when a job is submitted. But it is something I am looking at currently.

[garethEds]

Morning all,

 

Jumping onto this thread as I am researching (again) Hive. How are things now since this last post in November 2022? Have things improved? Have they added more functionality? What is missing compared to MF?

 

We ar having an issue where two suppliers will not work together. KM currently are the copier of choice but the LEA have taken a new contract with Kiocera. Apparently we cannot use one PaperCut server with two separate suppliers. Sounds stupid to me - but it's what I Have been told.

 

Gareth

[Edu-IT]

Morning all,

 

Jumping onto this thread as I am researching (again) Hive. How are things now since this last post in November 2022? Have things improved? Have they added more functionality? What is missing compared to MF?

 

We ar having an issue where two suppliers will not work together. KM currently are the copier of choice but the LEA have taken a new contract with Kiocera. Apparently we cannot use one PaperCut server with two separate suppliers. Sounds stupid to me - but it's what I Have been told.

 

Gareth

Sounds like its because you can only have one licence applied to PaperCut so the single licence file will need all the device licences in it.

 

Just ask the main supplier to supply the device licences for all brands and pay them?

 

Or source your PaperCut licences direct rather than via the copier company,

[Squelch]

Time to bump this one. Is anyone using PaperCut Hive in 2024? If so, what's your opinion?

[IKWeb]

For me - still the best cloud offering currently on the market - and now they have added print driver support it brings in all the options that MFD's can do, stapling, folding etc.

 

I guess the question back to you is - what do you want to get out of it? and what do you want to use it on?

[Mr.Ben]

I'm just about to trial it at 5 schools. I will review soon!.

 

Group management still isn't available, so policies have to be applied per user.

[Squelch]

Currenty using PaperCut MF with Hybrid joined. Would like to be Azure joined only and looking for alternatives.

Having to apply policies per user sounds bad.

[IKWeb]

Policies per user - this isn't like a GPO policy per user - I think what Mr Ben is ref to is print limitations you can't atm target a group and say for example - this group can only print 100 pages per month, or this group can only print black and white etc.

 

To deploy everything - you have one policy for devices, and one policy for users.

[PotNoodleTech]

"Move to the cloud they said, it'll be better they said."

 

*Looks at papercut server that's been working perfectly fine for the last 5+ years on Ricoh MFPs that have been working perfectly fine for the last 5+ years*

 

Nah your ok thanks.

[IKWeb]

Oh totally - if you are happy with on-prem systems - you wouldn't move.

 

But if you are a host of say primary schools and want to get rid of ur servers - this system is great.