Printing

[ron]

Currently we have 20 printers in our school and we are spending between £30,000 and £50,000 a year on printing. We own the printers and buy our toners but we are looking into a solution were we would either buy or lease printers/copiers from a company and pay per copy and all the toners come free. We have a company dealing with this for us so it is the following that I would require some helps with:

 

If you work in a school and you have a way of managing your printing please feel free to offer advice or tell me what you do to ease the cost of printing.

 

We are looking at perhaps providing staff and pupils with printer credits but if we do that it's knowing how to charge the right department for this. The school want the departments to pay out of their budget for their printing instead of it coming out of the IT fund. How could we manage this. If the English department get their pupils to print 1000 pages out on a Maths department printer we woudln't want to charge the Maths department for them 1000 pages just because they came out their printer so I would find it diffcult to say we just charge departments for the toners they use in their printers or if we were to have a print log of the amount of pages coming out of their printer as it would be unfair if they were paying for other departments printing.

 

Any ideas, Cheers!

[dhicks]

Currently we have 20 printers in our school and we are spending between £30,000 and £50,000 a year on printing. We own the printers and buy our toners but we are looking into a solution were we would either buy or lease printers/copiers from a company and pay per copy and all the toners come free. We have a company dealing with this for us

 

A company dealing with what? Figuring out which leasing company to use? I'd say go for a proper lease, where you pay for the rental of the machine and a cost per copy/print. Anywhere that advertises "free!" prints, "just pay for the toner!" has too many marketing people in it.

 

A decent leasing company will supply you with printer management software. PaperCut and PCounter are both good and used by many people here. Note that the leasing company might bundle the software in with their deal, but there's generally still a yearly maintainence fee to pay.

 

--

David Hicks

[elsiegee40]

Your printing bill is high... how many students/staff are you catering for?

 

You definitely need some print management software... Papercut and Print Manager Plus are 2. Search for them on here; there are plenty of threads on the pros and cons of using them.

 

To implement this software successfully, you must have the full backing of your SLT. Without this, you may as well not bother as limits will be lifted and everyone will carry on as usual. You'll also need to cultivate your thick skin as implementing doesn't put you on many people's list of favourites!

[oalcock]

I have never known of a company spending that much on printing, I would certainly recommend a lease contract. Try Midshire!

[WStore_Dan]

Hi ron

 

This thread may be of interest to you. We've helped out a couple of EduGeek members on the Ricoh Click scheme - please get in touch if you require further details. I'm sure one or two of the members on here would be happy to recomend this scheme also

 

Regards

[gibboap]

i have pm'd u. we have just delt with ricoh/infotec and leased 37 machines from them and some software called print audit 6 to manage them.

 

with that sw you can monitor and charge staff although to do the same with kids to depts would need to know what lesson they in etc. but that sw can do most of waht you ask plus its pretty easy to run. does need a sql database to run from but that about it.

 

let me know i can talk to you on the phone if you like PM me and we can put heads together

[ron]

A company dealing with what? Figuring out which leasing company to use? I'd say go for a proper lease, where you pay for the rental of the machine and a cost per copy/print. Anywhere that advertises "free!" prints, "just pay for the toner!" has too many marketing people in it.

 

A decent leasing company will supply you with printer management software. PaperCut and PCounter are both good and used by many people here. Note that the leasing company might bundle the software in with their deal, but there's generally still a yearly maintainence fee to pay.

 

--

David Hicks

 

@ David, We have a company getting us a quote on printers/copiers for lease or to buy that will charge per page as we currently spend around £75 to £150 per toner.

[ron]

Your printing bill is high... how many students/staff are you catering for?

 

You definitely need some print management software... Papercut and Print Manager Plus are 2. Search for them on here; there are plenty of threads on the pros and cons of using them.

 

To implement this software successfully, you must have the full backing of your SLT. Without this, you may as well not bother as limits will be lifted and everyone will carry on as usual. You'll also need to cultivate your thick skin as implementing doesn't put you on many people's list of favourites!

 

We have 750 pupils and 75 staff. How does the software you mentioned work? It's knowing how to charge the right departments for what they print, how can I prevent us charging a department for prints that they never printed.

[dhicks]

We have a company getting us a quote on printers/copiers for lease or to buy that will charge per page

 

Get a couple more quotes, ask the companies to throw in some print management software in the price.

 

--

David Hicks

[plexer]

Wow thirty to fifty thousand on printing? Is your toner made of gold flakes?

 

For the amount of staff you say you have that seems ridiculous.

 

Ben

[tmcd35]

We have 750 pupils and 75 staff. How does the software you mentioned work? It's knowing how to charge the right departments for what they print, how can I prevent us charging a department for prints that they never printed.

 

Wow! I've been complaining about spending around £8k per year on toner. A couple of things have helped here.

 

We use a local franchisee of Lasertech for compatible toner. They take away old carts and credit us for them. Also the compats are good quality and generally cheaper than original toner. On the rare occasion I get a faulty cart they replace it no questions!

 

The other thing that as helped loads, as has been mentioned by others, is Papercut NG. Fantastic software.

 

It pulls down your users from AD and monitors their prints. You can assign costs to print for each printer. And factor in diferences in colour printer or A3 printing, etc. I can now clearly see who is printing what and how much it is costing.

 

Because each department have their own printer and printers are assigned in AD according to department, I can also see which department prints the most (Maths ).

 

To get the most out of Papercut you need a good OU structure in AD to report off of and a good printer install policy - so you know defintively what machines can and cant print to each printer.

[localzuk]

We have 750 pupils and 75 staff. How does the software you mentioned work? It's knowing how to charge the right departments for what they print, how can I prevent us charging a department for prints that they never printed.

 

We use papercut here (well, PaperCut MFD, as it integrates with our 2 Ricoh copiers).

 

It works by either pre-assigning funds to users (or accounts, which can be shared between users), or by invoicing users for work they've done. This is logged against usernames, so you can only be invoiced for stuff you've printed.

 

We are a 600 pupil, 70 staff school, and we spend a maximum of £10k in printing charges for our copier and non-charge per page machines (ie. toners).

 

What printers do you currently use? Also, do people just print loads of colour documents?

[elsiegee40]

We have 750 pupils and 75 staff. How does the software you mentioned work? It's knowing how to charge the right departments for what they print, how can I prevent us charging a department for prints that they never printed.

 

 

We have Print Manager Plus (PMP), but PaperCut works in a pretty similar way.

 

Basically you impose a set of printing rules through the software saying who can print what and to which printer(s). The main software is on the server and client software on the PCs talks to the server end every time someone tries to print.

 

In PMP, I have used AD security groups to impose a print allowance on various groups within the school. This is a money amount and each page is charged according to the rate for the printer concerned. Our ICT Suite Colour Laser is charged at 35p per page and the Mono at 10p per page, for example. We are primary level with 150 users, so MUCH smaller than you.

 

None of this is 'real' money at our school, the allowance is simply used to put a limit on the printing. at many schools, the printing costs are passed on to departments, or the students.

 

Using PMP, I can restrict:

By keyword... e.g. banning things called document1 (i.e. unsaved word documents), banning http printing so students can't print straight from the internet, banning 'Full Page' which stops the Windows Print Manager from printing full page photos, etc

 

By number...students cannot print more than one copy of anything at a time, staff have a restriction of 3... this is to force staff to use the photocopier which is cheaper per page!

 

By Repetition... PMP can be set to prevent a job from being repeated within a certain time-scale... stops the teachers trying to get round the above number limit.

 

You could use the software to impose limits to and to track printing by department, printer or whatever you want.

[Sylv3r]

We use pcounter here for our print management - an option we don't use it rerouting the jobs to the our photocopiers for cheaper prints, something like this may be very useful in your instance.

 

Have you considered the use of compatible cartridges?

[ssiruuk2]

We use PMP also for our print management- couldn't live without it! We are a big secondary school 1500 students,150 staff and over 50 printers around the school, half of those are networked. We spend around 6k ish per year on toner and paper.

 

Thanks Elsiegee40, I have made some changes to our default restrictions for the students after reading your post..why didn't I think of those! Brilliant especially no printing from unsaved word docs and from the browser. I will mention to the staff they will be restricted by copy count also to force use of photocopiers rather than take the easy option and print off class sheets through the laserjets.

[elsiegee40]

We use PMP also for our print management- couldn't live without it! We are a big secondary school 1500 students,150 staff and over 50 printers around the school, half of those are networked. We spend around 6k ish per year on toner and paper.

 

Thanks Elsiegee40, I have made some changes to our default restrictions for the students after reading your post..why didn't I think of those! Brilliant especially no printing from unsaved word docs and from the browser. I will mention to the staff they will be restricted by copy count also to force use of photocopiers rather than take the easy option and print off class sheets through the laserjets.

 

No problem... I'll dig out my full list of restrictions for you Monday... I've stitched most of the wheezes!

[Ric_]

@ron: You do seem to be getting fleeced on toners at the moment. I use Xerox-branded compats for my LaserJets and have found them to be just as good quality and half the price of the originals - just switching to these cartridges brought the toenr per page cost down to about 0.5p!!!

 

As for your how to charge who... I use PyKota (open source) and we have a slightly different policy to other schools. Obviously departments get charged for their printing - once a month and it's scary how much they print! Then the little darlings... we give them £1.50 at the start of the year (good for nigh on 300 b&w prints) and once it's used they have to come and buy more credit.

 

I don't charge for paper costs as departments have to fetch that themselves from reprographics and it's chargd for separately.

[localzuk]

Then the little darlings... we give them £1.50 at the start of the year (good for nigh on 300 b&w prints) and once it's used they have to come and buy more credit.

 

How does this tie in with the government rules, namely:

 

Headteachers or governing bodies may ask parents for a voluntary contribution towards the cost of:

 

any activity that takes place during school hours

school equipment

school funds generally.

The contribution must be genuinely voluntary, though, and the pupils of parents who are unable or unwilling to contribute may not be discriminated against. Where there are not enough voluntary contributions to make the activity possible, and there is no way to make up the shortfall, then it must be cancelled.

 

From TeacherNet, A to Z of School Leadership - Charging for activities

 

and

 

School governing bodies and local authorities cannot charge for:

• education provided during school hours (including the supply of any materials, books, instruments or other equipment);

 

Taken from http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/docbank/index.cfm?id=8145

 

We have been told in no uncertain terms that charging for printing is not allowed.

Edited October 12, 2009 by localzuk

[Ric_]

@localzuk: I don't know... it's how it has always been. I suppose that you could argue that the pupils are provided with sufficient funds for their schoolwork and any additional contributions are for personal use.

[Ric_]

@localzuk: .... been having a bit more of a think about this.

 

1. If a pupil does not bring a pen to school, they cannot do their work. Should the school, therefore, provide pens to all their pupils? Where does this leave the running of a school staionery shop?

 

2. If we were to stop our current policy and allow the students to print willy-nilly, we would not be able to afford the printing bills. Does this mean that we should cancel the 'activity' (as stated above)?

 

3. Do the above guidelines realte to both high school and sixth form students alike?

[p858snake]

As long as you provide a reasonable amount of free credit that allows them to complete their work to a reasonable standard, i could see no issue with it.

 

And printing is not a required object to complete their work (eg: they can submit it via email/vle ect) so its not really discriminating against them either.

[elsiegee40]

@localzuk: .... been having a bit more of a think about this.

 

1. If a pupil does not bring a pen to school, they cannot do their work. Should the school, therefore, provide pens to all their pupils? Where does this leave the running of a school staionery shop?

 

2. If we were to stop our current policy and allow the students to print willy-nilly, we would not be able to afford the printing bills. Does this mean that we should cancel the 'activity' (as stated above)?

 

3. Do the above guidelines realte to both high school and sixth form students alike?

 

My daughter's school has a similar policy to yours Ric_ . They allow £3 per year and after that you have buy your own credits. With their OLE being available from home, she tends to print school work at home.

 

Son never seems to be able to print anything at his school and always ends up printing at home.

[ron]

Some good responses. We did try compatible toners but 80% of them were duds! I'm sure it was Lasertech as one person mentioned but when we last tried to contact them we were informed that they were no longer in business. The company that we bought 2 of our photocopiers from did a print audit for us and mentioned pcounter. We are seeing the rep soon and will find out more then. We have around 20 Dell laser printers.

[maniac]

We use papercut here to manage our printing system, introduced this year.

 

Students have a £5 allowance, with printing changed at 5p per B/W and 10p per colour printout. This is a termly allowance for years 10 and 11 who have a lot of coursework to print, and a bi-termly allowance for other year groups, and they can accumulate it.

 

Staff have a £10 personal allowance with the same printing charges, and also have a £50 department allowance (although we are looking at setting different limits for different departments next year based on what they have printed this year.) with papercut you can get a popup box to be displayed which summerises the print job, and the member of staff can them tell the program what account to charge depending on what they are printing. This extra step has really made staff think about what they are printing.

 

No one can print any more than 3 copies of a document, they're suppsoed to use photocopying for this.

 

Duplicate documents submitted within 5 minutes get disallowed to stop circumnavigating this rule

 

Student print jobs have to be authorised by a member of staff before they can print. I've set papercut to stick them in a holding queue, and given a basic print management login to staff members so they can login and release print jobs. Any print job not released gets deleted after 30mins. This caused confusion when first introduced, but has been very successful at stopping wastage.

 

Mike.

[penfold]

Student print jobs have to be authorised by a member of staff before they can print. I've set papercut to stick them in a holding queue, and given a basic print management login to staff members so they can login and release print jobs. Any print job not released gets deleted after 30mins. This caused confusion when first introduced, but has been very successful at stopping wastage.

 

Mike.

 

I've tried that in the past but was met with reluctance due to the teacher having to release print jobs. Not everyone saw it as a money saving idea, but rather an increase in workload idea(not their job - non teaching work). I ended up changing credits to be renewed daily so if I was every off, the pupils only had to wait 1 day if they had used up their credit. This was set up using PMP. A LOT of wasted prints was cut down in the first month while people were getting used to resticted printing, and we managed to get the messasge accross it was only to be used for school work. Wasted prints have also been reduced with the introduction of the VLE and submitting work online. In my opinion PMP is the best money the school ever spent and more than paid for itself after the first year.