Xerox printer installation challenges

[Ditto]

Unfortunately, once again my company has embarked on a path where the implementer's of a solution are lacking the right mix if skills and experience. On top of which, our outsourced IT provider are once again showing they are really a MS support/admin group, not the 'Your IT department' as sold to us!

Anyhoo - we recently purchased 2 new printers, a Xerox Versalink C7120 and Versalink C415. The initial install of the C415 by our outsourced IT chap seemed not to go as well as hoped and was got up and running by a colleague with limited IT background, but by taking the approach of reading the installation instructions and contacting Xerox support, who appear to be very accessible and helpful. I don't currently have all the details, but I believe we have the scheme where toner usage is monitored and auto-ordered.

The larger C7120 also appears to now be running, but I don't yet know by who or what steps were taken.

However, it is being reported that the C7120 is not connected to 'page plan'. I presume it means the C415 is?! Additionally, it is being reported that the C7120 is not printing colour correctly - a lot of money was spent in the last year on rebranding and understandably printing corporate colours realistically is really important to some staff.

Xerox support have proposed installing XDA to help resolve the issue. The message I have been given by the 'implementer' mentioned above said Xerox proposed 'Installing the same on both printers. I'm assuming XDA is a Windows installation, not a Printer installation - am I correct?

The proposal to resolve the colour problem, is to install printer driver PCL6. I presume this would be rolled out to all our devices (laptops). When I view printer options now, I can see I can select either C7120 Color MFP V4 PS or C7120 Color MFP PCL6. So far, no advice to end users has been circulated to this will confuse many.

 

I would also point out we are a serverless head office - but our outsourced IT chap is suggesting a laptop that resides in our Boardroom for presentations (and that has it's own issues) could be used for the XDA installation as a host. I'm against that, but I'm not aware that Xerox provide a cloud based solution. I rather have an AWS of GCP install that the IT provider exclusively runs - I would expect a very small device is all that is needed.

 

I'd value your thoughts, observations or suggestions on the matter in hand. Apologies for the vagueness of some details, feel free to ask if you have any questions and I'll try to get them answered.

[Ditto]

- just in case anyone out there has input.

 

Our outsourced IT support say the printers are local TCP/IP port installed. They say there is no dependency on the laptop 'beyond function for consumable' - I don't really get that. The IT support indicate they agree with my reservations about using a boardroom laptop for XDA - of which further info to follow.

 

The implementer colleague mentioned before is feeling the heat. Staff and SLT are expressing frustration, both for the colour issue and the fact old printers are stilling showing up. Besides, the implementer had to barter hard to get SLT to invest a chunk of cash to install these devices.

 

Implementer has ask outsourced IT support to confirm XDA has been installed and saying 'so the second printer is now communicating to Xerox for replacement cartridges'. ?I've checked, XDA is for installation on a Windows device. The colour problem solution of installing of installing PCL6 hasn't had an impact, but personally I don't know if end users are selecting that option. Other issues are being reported. Implementing one medium sized MFD and one small Xerox printer - well, I wouldn't expected it to be so troublesome.

[Chris_Cook]

At the risk of saying unkind things - the last Xerox printer we brought got returned as we couldn't even get it to print.

 

Would something like Papercut help with the cloud printing?

[Ditto]

At the risk of saying unkind things - the last Xerox printer we brought got returned as we couldn't even get it to print.

 

Would something like Papercut help with the cloud printing?

For our scenario, which isn't school, it's a charity, we probably have up to 40 staff in head office that would need to print, I don't think we'd need to complicate our life with more software.

 

I'm sure there are solutions for our issues but it's not current clear where they will come from. A bit worrying though that you couldn't get a Xerox printer to print

[PotNoodleTech]

Hmm the problem with printers is always controlling and auditing them and that is where papercut comes in - once you've set it up it just works - I think I've had it for 10 years here still working perfectly.

 

We set up what printers do what for who

Set who has access to what and when

Click go and eveything just works

 

Might be worth thinking more about as trying to run vanilla MFD's just using windows and 4 digit department codes on it's own is pretty darn clunky.

[snagrat]

I would look at Printix.

 

Only needs the client installed and no additional software.

[GaryPad]

Whilst Printix would provide good cloud print connectivity, you still have a to select a print driver, and this is where you appear to have a problem.

"Our outsourced IT support say the printers are local TCP/IP port installed." - ouch! So you have up to 40 staff all doing direct printing? Not nice to manage! Your first problem to resolve is the choice of print driver. I suggest you install 2 print queues on 1 PC for that C7120; one printer using the PCL6 driver, and the other using the PostScript driver. Both can use the same output TCP/IP port. Then print the same test document to both. If they output identically then you can rule out the driver as the reason for the colour difference. You can then get your outsource IT (who will probably call on Xerox) to come in and tweak the colour matching on that device as it won't have been done on installation. As to which driver to use going forward I would suggest that if you do lots of printing of Office documents then PCL6 is fine. If you do lots of PDF printing or high quality image output, then PostScript gives you more flexibility on colour profiles (I'm guessing PCL will be perfectly fine).

How are you deploying these new devices? A print server would be the solution, and this doesn't have to be an actual server, just any PC which is invariably on can host shared print queues so rather than users connecting direct, they print instead to the server which mean your configuration for drivers etc. is all in one place. Plus users don't need additional rights to install local printers on their PCs. I don't know anything about XDA I'm afraid. Looking it up, this is Xerox Device Agent and yes, it's Windows software. It appears to do meter readings and I guess replacement toner ordering, and both your models are supported. This boardroom laptop appears to have been suggested as the place to install XDA but again any always on PC would do the trick.

The reason "old printers are still showing up." is because every user has their own direct connection to printers, which is a nightmare to manage, so any old devices will unfortunately need to be deleted manually, as indeed any new devices also need to be installed manually. This is where something like Printix would make deployment much easier, but as you say, it's more software and more cost.

[Ditto]

Whilst Printix would provide good cloud print connectivity, you still have a to select a print driver, and this is where you appear to have a problem.

"Our outsourced IT support say the printers are local TCP/IP port installed." - ouch! So you have up to 40 staff all doing direct printing? Not nice to manage! Your first problem to resolve is the choice of print driver. I suggest you install 2 print queues on 1 PC for that C7120; one printer using the PCL6 driver, and the other using the PostScript driver. Both can use the same output TCP/IP port. Then print the same test document to both. If they output identically then you can rule out the driver as the reason for the colour difference. You can then get your outsource IT (who will probably call on Xerox) to come in and tweak the colour matching on that device as it won't have been done on installation. As to which driver to use going forward I would suggest that if you do lots of printing of Office documents then PCL6 is fine. If you do lots of PDF printing or high quality image output, then PostScript gives you more flexibility on colour profiles (I'm guessing PCL will be perfectly fine).

How are you deploying these new devices? A print server would be the solution, and this doesn't have to be an actual server, just any PC which is invariably on can host shared print queues so rather than users connecting direct, they print instead to the server which mean your configuration for drivers etc. is all in one place. Plus users don't need additional rights to install local printers on their PCs. I don't know anything about XDA I'm afraid. Looking it up, this is Xerox Device Agent and yes, it's Windows software. It appears to do meter readings and I guess replacement toner ordering, and both your models are supported. This boardroom laptop appears to have been suggested as the place to install XDA but again any always on PC would do the trick.

The reason "old printers are still showing up." is because every user has their own direct connection to printers, which is a nightmare to manage, so any old devices will unfortunately need to be deleted manually, as indeed any new devices also need to be installed manually. This is where something like Printix would make deployment much easier, but as you say, it's more software and more cost.

Thanks for all the advice. I will raise the concept of using Papercut or Printix - they real big issue will be SLT won't want to pay for any more license fees. Whilst the SLT have to be super cautious, because we a a charity where as much as possible funding needs to go to front line work, they do constantly fail to see expenditure as an investment and seem to forget a whole host of inefficiencies waste people's time and that's a cost. I think I have partially administered Papercut in the past, but I don't have an IT role, but seem to be constantly challenging the IT provider based on my Edu-experience.

 

Some time ago, the charity moved from traditional office server approach to 100% cloud (M365). Overall I think that's a good thing as they have never local IT expertise. So whilst we have a internet supply, Sonicwall TZ270, routers, switches, APs and WiFi, we have no local server. One of the issues with our IT provider is the contract supports 4 site visits per year, so it doesn't work well for this sort of issue, or proves costly to call them out. Ultimately I think they are going to come out and be asked to work with Xerox to get things up and running properly. In terms of XDA, there is still a lack of clarity in terms of what is in place currently. I still believe the implementer (I'll be upfront, the line manager) hasn't understood it being on a Windows device. As all staff have laptops, even the boardroom device is a laptop, so I'm not in favour of any of these being used. My suggestion is we have a virtual device. Our IT provider will prefer to use Azure Cloud services, which I have no problem with, but once again SLT won't like the expense. In truth, a cloud based server might be of wider use - I think our accounts team might still have local databases for accounts software (Sage I believe - although that might be changing - not really my area)!

 

To answer the question "How are you deploying these new devices?". Well I guess the answer is badly! Classic case of people without the right skills trying to do it as cheap as possible and an IT provider who sold themselves as 'Your IT department' but not really filling that role - and anything out side of remote MS related work leads to massively high quotes for additional work. when I step back and review the request, we basically have 2 or 3 printers at our head office. Two wanted replacing and auto-ordering to be implemented. Weeks later, it's still not the case and colleagues are understandably venting their frustrations - fortunately not in my direction. The only other thing I will add, is I presume print drivers are being pushed to all managed laptops - I'd guess via Intune. Certainly the new printers show up for me (remote worker) and I didn't install them.

 

I'll update as things progress. The issue has been escalated to the customer service manager, but in truth the charity has brought many of the issues on itself.

[Ditto]

The saga runs! I never knew installing a couple of printers would be take so long! It would appear by having our outsourced IT chap onsite and talking directly to Xerox support, some progress has been made - the printer is printing A4 from the draw without manual intervention. There's been some talk about print drivers, but not yet confirmed colour issues have been resolved. Talk of a Xerox engineer joining IT engineer onsite to resolve is ongoing. It is now accepted that installing some software (XDA) on a laptop in the boardroom isn't a good idea. Remote IT support hasn't been possible on occasions as the device is 'down' at times and requires someone to interact with said laptop to provide access. Apparently board meetings have been interrupted. So far, I'm refraining from saying 'I told you so'. It has been accepted a virtual server should be investigated, possibly with something like Printix.

 

So, most likely the IT provider will want to go Azure virtual device. Is anyone able to give an indication of monthly costs - this would be supporting barely half a dozen printer or MFD devices, with at max 60ish users, of which only a dozen or so use regularly, so I'm assuming a fairly low spec will suffice.

[Ditto]

IT technician and Xerox technician onsite together last week. I believe some issues are now resolved. A3 printing - need to buy another tray. Printer seller did not advise that! Colours still poor. Xerox engineer advised us to go back to the branding team suggesting they have a pantone that maybe won't match to CMYK options. There's no way we'd redo our brand colours. All in all, very unsatisfactory!

[dapaulio]

And this is where I feel serverless breaks down and is not quite ready for some organisation types. whilst ms have solutions to serverless not all accompanying services are best fit approach eg printing under certain circumstances.

 

I see two technical problems here one is finding the correct driver suited for the customer (you) needs and then how your ict support provider and the printer installers are then to deploy them.

 

The other problem is the comms between the installer and the ict company which tend to have boundaries depending on your contract with both. This boundaries tends to have caverns of grey areas where no one accepts responsibility. These boundaries are normally aired in a pre install meeting and should never be assumed who is doing what.

 

I would have your installer and your ict support in on all meetings so that these boundaries can be defined as installers have a tendency to blindly say and assume your ict department will sort it without knowing your contractual term with them.

 

Intune (I assume) your using will find and use windows universal drivers to print which less complex print outs would be suffice. However for the more complex needs vendor specific drivers are needed

 

Can’t speak for xerox but I know Ricoh have there own universal driver which still works fine for 80% of general printing works find but for the remaining 20% specific colour intensive printing the universal driver is not sufficient. This in schools affects mainly the art and media departments. For these the PS driver tends to be better. But unless you have some solution that your ict will stand behind and support, it is a manual install of the PS driver on those needing it.

Include your ict provider on all meetings.

 

Personally this is where I echo the reviews of paper cut, their mobiity print deploy solution is far superior than window print deployment thru intune as you can give specific drivers to deploy. It’s not flawless as many other factors can attribute to failure to deploy but we find these to be few and far between in a school setting that is intune. I doubt the charity has No where near the demand of a school would have so it may be your best option to request a demo from a paper cut reseller.

 

How many printers do you have ??? Paper cut could be outside a charity budget for a whole fleet and this is where finding the right provider is key, as if you have 5-10 printer across all users you may be able to save having 1 or 2 bigger mfd with paper cut cloud solution installed.

 

Another idea on printing quality is Xerox if memory serves has a group of gestesner drivers that also better imo than the xerox driver, have you tried this??? Try the gest postscript drivers see if that’s any better???

 

Without knowing the circumstances and contractual relations between yourself, your ict provider and your print installers it’s difficult to comment on that part, I can kind of understand with boundaries but not necessarily agree with their lack of input. Personally I would be asking questions and arranging a three meet with all parties to iron out these boundaries.

[Ditto]

And the saga continues to roll! Today the IT technician was in. I don't have full details but will seek them to see if I can clarify in more details. However, today's activity included the statement, "I can't change the default paper size from 'Letter' to 'A4'.". There then seemed to be talk of working around this by trying to get everyone to work with legal as a setting. I advised against this - we have A4 paper that is surprise, surprise A4 size. There was also talk of a piece of paper being stuck to the printer to advised people what to do in terms of selecting a tray if printing doesn't work first time. There seems to be different experience from different staff and printing from different products (Adobe, Word, Publisher (dunno why that's still being used!). On the correct colour printing, I believe IT technician and Xerox engineer did come to site a while back but were unsuccessful. The official office line is now "If the precise corporate colours are important to you, go to a professional print shop". There was further talk of Printix, but for our needs it's looking excessively expenses. All that is being asked is for staff to be able to print from their laptops whilst in the office and not to have to go to the print to select source, tray or anything else - just to print! If A3 is selected, just print from that tray. No restrictions, no departmental pricing, literally just print when asked to. I believe the XDA software has now been moved from a boardroom laptop (a massive confidentiality risk was found on the use of that device (common account!) so it's been removed. Same software now on the receptionists device. Oh, and then I learn neither printer is supporting scanning, specifically scan to email I believe. The technician was trying to setup that as I finished for the day. I don't think I've seen any projects that had such simple requirements be such a complete disaster. But the original MFD was purchased by someone with little knowledge and no implementation experience and definitely not the level of knowledge to know what questions to ask. Then when the MSP provider are called upon to get the very basics to work, they appear to just not have the skills. If I get clearer details I will post, and maybe the expertise within Edugeek will help me with pointing some people in the right direction!

[PotNoodleTech]

Holy cow if they can't even get A4/Letter to print properly you are in a whole world of hurt.

 

Funny because when other schools say to me "why did you go with Ricoh it was mor expensive on our quote" I say because the support is worth every penny having and engineer in who knows their stuff in same day/next day. Funny thing is those other schools cheaped out and went with Xerox or Konica or whatever - and now they're paying the price like you are

 

ALL OF THE ABOVE should have been done sorted and fixed on the day of install!!!!

 

Outright cost is not (shouldnt be) the main issue on a tender!

[Ditto]

I agree. What makes life really difficult for us, is we don't have internal IT support and perhaps more importantly expertise. But our IT service provider isn't guiding the organisation appropriately. As a charity, we are very cost sensitive, but when advised convincingly, it will spend/invest in a solution that is not on paper the cheapest. In this instance, I do believe the charity did go out and select a printer, but due to advice from the customer service chap, not an IT technical chap! But, I do feel Xerox support on the face of it has been attentive, but I don't get the feeling the IT consultant has much experience with printer installation and setup. Of a list of 13 tasks, 1 got done, 1 partially and the remainder not tackled. So far we estimate we have charged time to get the printer working great than the cost of the printer! And to top it, we were advised that the remote messaging to report toner usage and support automatic supply replenishment was fixed. We received an email this morning saying could we send current readings manually.

 

Some issues do sound challenging, like the member of staff who found in the morning they could print fine, but then in the afternoon not. However, I saw no evidence of logs being investigated, which I would have thought been an avenue of enquiry. It's causing a lot of tension between my LM and the IT provider, but let's see how the next week or so goes - we have asked for a report on the tasklist and what steps were taken to try to find what things are leading to failure.

[Synkrox]

I wonder if as a non-profit you get Microsoft universal print licences cooked in too? this could be one nice simple option, quite a few models can now connect directly to universal print.

 

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/universal-print/fundamentals/universal-print-printer-list

[Ditto]

I wonder if as a non-profit you get Microsoft universal print licences cooked in too? this could be one nice simple option, quite a few models can now connect directly to universal print.

 

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/universal-print/fundamentals/universal-print-printer-list

 

Looked interesting, but neither of our printers were listed. Any idea how often they are updated.

[Ditto]

I've recently heard the technician is due to come in again in early March. I learnt that several hours were spent onsite trying to get scanning to email working, but that was unsuccessful. A colleague reported that it was like he'd google then try something. I believe we are being charged approaching a grand a day for this. It does look like there is a competency issue here. My LM is suggesting he will provide the customer relationship manager with the total cost the charity has been charged for recent rounds of onsite work to make a point. I feel a more pro-active approach is needed. I do feel the MSP should put their hands up and say "Sorry, we haven't delivered as expected so we will sort this out at no further cost".

[TwistedHelixis]

At the risk of saying unkind things - the last Xerox printer we brought got returned as we couldn't even get it to print.

 

I have installed many different types of printers and in all my years the Xerox I was asked to install last year was a total nightmare. The entire deployment was so different from the norm. Got there in the end but they will never be on my recommended list.

[Ditto]

I have installed many different types of printers and in all my years the Xerox I was asked to install last year was a total nightmare. The entire deployment was so different from the norm. Got there in the end but they will never be on my recommended list.

What were the main issues? Any tips where to look for the solutions? We don't have a print server and are not using a cloud print manager, but one might be an option at a later date.

[Ditto]

There coming in next week to have another go! I think this will be the third day and at approaching £1k a day, we could have bought a replacement Ricoh! Updates in due course!

[PotNoodleTech]

1k a day I would be expecting an absoloute expert who can smash through all the niggles in 1 day.

 

Also I wouldnt be paying 1k a day as it surely should have been set up properly as part of the original install???

[Ditto]

Can't disagree.

 

As for the initial install, well that's where it went wrong to start with. My LM (who admits to virtually no IT knowledge, declined having our MSP install the 2 printers as a project as they charge the earth for that! So on the relationships manager recommendation, he went to Printerland and got the 2 Xerox. The plan was for the tech consultant, who visits one day per quarter, just to do set up during one of those visits. He made a hash of that and didn't read the instructions. LM then tried to get them working by reading the instructions, which left them working a little bit, but far from correctly set up for all. Since then, endless hours by TC on the next visit, using Google and getting not very far! Watching this disaster is quite uncomfortable. To cap it all, the LM has just set up a cheap alternative to a boardroom AVI system using a EPS Huddly GO system with webcam, 2 mics and 1 speaker. Plus a 6 page users guide and a suggestion to come to him with any problems, before he hands it over to our MSP support. I suspect they will say no-way! Cosultation with me as the undisputed most knowledgeable IT person in the company (I have the benefit of Edugeek!), well zero!

 

I'm going to guess I'll be starting another thread on that in due course! So, tomorrow a new technical consultant joining us to work through the list of work that wasn't done last time, and on Wednesday the old TC is in to finish off the printer. Wednesday PM is an all staff meeting, so the board room AVI solution will be put to the test. Updates on this sorry saga are likely come Thursday!

[PotNoodleTech]

Sounds like you need to get your LM promited upwards ASAP - army style so they can do less damage

[Ditto]

As promised - an update.

 

Well the tech consultant and a new one (the current one is moving on) turned up on Tuesday. We had been advised they we arriving separately, one on Tuesday and one on Wednesday. We thought that was daft, so they must have realised but didn't tell us! So, today I was advised the printer is fully operational. An updated printer driver is being push installed to all. Indeed several staff managed to print and didn't need to go to the printer to jog it along. Personally I don't find this a reason for celebration, it shouldn't take 3 visits! And I here scanning to email works. So things are much better than they were and the new tech consultant appears to be far more capable and in tune with what good service looks like. And allegedly the auto-cartridge ordering system is now working and doesn't need software on the receptionists laptop. On the downside, I just seen a support ticket reporting a page is being printed every time they print, saying "Unknown @port 9100".

 

As for 'AVI' solution, well appeared to work, but I have since learnt the speakers didn't, even in spite of prior testing. Possible cause, someone kicking a cable leading to the socket - but I have my doubts. It's better than no AVI, and at £1k rather than £8k we were quoted, a lot cheaper. Is it value for money - I have my reservations!