Papercut, Biostore ID Points and Toshiba MFPs

[David44]

Hi,

 

We have embedded Papercut running on Toshiba MFPs. We also have Biostore ID Points/Fingerprint readers. We would like users to be able to use the ID Points to sign in to the MFPs

 

This is all set up to work as we previously ran a similar set up with Sharp MFPs for a number of years.

 

The ID Points just act as USB keyboards, when the user scans their finger, their details are looked up in the Biostore database and their primary Papercut Card/Identity Number followed by a carriage return is sent to the MFP as if it had been typed in (tested by connecting the ID Point to a PC with Notepad open) and they are signed in.

 

Great! However, it's not quite working. This is the screen that is shown on the copier. The above process only works if the ID number field has focus and despite being the only field, it doesn't start off with focus. Users need to tap this filed on the MFP and then scan their finger. We would like users to simply be able to scan their fingerprint and be signed in without having to touch the MFP screen.

 

 

I should mention that the Biostore ID Points have a plastic box half way along the USB cable that is labelled Sharp. The suggestion from our copier supplier is to purchase new ID Points (or cables and boxes at least) configured for use with Toshiba copiers from Biostore. These cost £50+ each and we have 7 MFPs so it's a cost that I'd like to avoid.

 

Does anyone use Papercut, Toshiba MFPs and Biostore? What are you doing differently to us? If you plug your ID Point in to a PC, what is the ID Point sending when someone signs in?

 

Thanks.

[MatthewL]

On the device setting in PaperCut you need to select swipe card rather than ID number. The Biostore reader is effectively a USB card reader.

[David44]

On the device setting in PaperCut you need to select swipe card rather than ID number. The Biostore reader is effectively a USB card reader.

 

Sorry, I should have said. We have already tried that too.

 

I suspect the box that is inline on the cable between the ID Point and the MFP changes what ends up at the MFP. As the boxes on ours are labelled Sharp, I suspect the boxes change the output from the ID Point in to something that Sharp devices expect (seemingly plain text and a carriage return) whereas if we paid Biostore for a cable with a box labelled Toshiba then it would convert it in to something that the Toshibas expects, which may well be something that the Toshiba device sees as a swipe card as you suggest.

 

I did open one of the boxes up, it just contains a couple of off the shelf hobby boards (a MAX232 and a StartUSB for PIC).

 

The other thought I had was that because the Papercut embedded frontend is just a web page with a form and a single text input field, if we could either edit that page so that the text field starts off with focus or we replace the Papercut page with another page that we created that has a form that submits back to Papercut then this would work. We did successfully do the later of those options, we created a basic HTML page with a text input that has focus as soon as the page is loaded, when it received the ID number and a carriage return from the ID Point, it submits that to Papercut and the user is signed in to the MFP. It worked quite well but unfortunately, Papecut kept overwriting the Homepage setting in the MFP with it's own.

 

That raises two new questions, does anyone know how to change the Papercut page, it's the one at http://print-sercver:9191/device-web/toshiba/32057/home or does anyone know how to point the Toshiba to a different page without Papercut overwriting it?

[MatthewL]

I haven't touched Biostore in ages but from the 2 or 3 installs I did I remember that they had to be configured using a USB and it created a config file, not sure if you had to put the IP of the copier in.

 

Have a look at these 2 articles might help. This and this.

 

Some of other other articles might help, like I say its ages since I've touched it but remember having to configure them. I've not got any notes anymore so can't remember what I exactly did.

[Fez]

Hi David,

 

Whilst some of the print cables emulate a keyboard with a correct id that the printer is expecting the Toshiba ones do not follow this method.

 

They get flashed differently with information specific to Toshiba printers.

 

 

Hi,

 

We have embedded Papercut running on Toshiba MFPs. We also have Biostore ID Points/Fingerprint readers. We would like users to be able to use the ID Points to sign in to the MFPs

 

This is all set up to work as we previously ran a similar set up with Sharp MFPs for a number of years.

 

The ID Points just act as USB keyboards, when the user scans their finger, their details are looked up in the Biostore database and their primary Papercut Card/Identity Number followed by a carriage return is sent to the MFP as if it had been typed in (tested by connecting the ID Point to a PC with Notepad open) and they are signed in.

 

Great! However, it's not quite working. This is the screen that is shown on the copier. The above process only works if the ID number field has focus and despite being the only field, it doesn't start off with focus. Users need to tap this filed on the MFP and then scan their finger. We would like users to simply be able to scan their fingerprint and be signed in without having to touch the MFP screen.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]67098[/ATTACH]

 

I should mention that the Biostore ID Points have a plastic box half way along the USB cable that is labelled Sharp. The suggestion from our copier supplier is to purchase new ID Points (or cables and boxes at least) configured for use with Toshiba copiers from Biostore. These cost £50+ each and we have 7 MFPs so it's a cost that I'd like to avoid.

 

Does anyone use Papercut, Toshiba MFPs and Biostore? What are you doing differently to us? If you plug your ID Point in to a PC, what is the ID Point sending when someone signs in?

 

Thanks.

[David44]

Hi David,

 

Whilst some of the print cables emulate a keyboard with a correct id that the printer is expecting the Toshiba ones do not follow this method.

 

They get flashed differently with information specific to Toshiba printers.

 

Yes, I'm sure it's possible to flash them but all I am getting from Iris Biostore is that they want to charge us £185 for each new cable, even though as you say it should just be a case of changing the software on the old ones. My ticket asking about this was passed on to their Sales department. I can understand they want to make a sale rather than let us reconfigure the existing hardware but that's just greedy.