Print Management

[MatthewL]

We are looking to implement a managed print environment over the next few months and more and more different names of software have popped up into conversation, we have been pointed in the direction of Equitrac seems to be one but I was just wondering what you nice people out there use?

 

I am just after a list of product names, rough idea of number of users, printers and the type place it is used in (guess most would be education), also do you use the rules, groups etc to restrict printing etc.

 

We are on an invest to save project, our budget has been overspent by 100% for consumables due to having no control so we want to monitor what is going through our printers, we are after an easy management solution, poll printing sounds to be our best solution as we want any user to be able to swipe there card (or what ever) at a machine and retrieve all their jobs.

 

Just after your suggestions really.

[EduTech]

Hi Matthew,

 

I would advise you have a look at papercut: Software for print quota and print control management. Your print accounting and monitoring solution - PaperCut

 

We have it in place here and works very well for print managment, if you pay the small fee for the full version it is a very powerful tool - prices are: PaperCut NG - Pricing & Licensing

 

Alot of members do use it on here, if you do a quick search within edugeek it will bring back some results from older discussions some ofwhich are pretty recent ( later end of last yr)

 

Hope that helps,

 

James.

[witch]

There are quite a few threads about this sort of thing - I'd have a look around if I were you.

We use print manager but I cant tell you how good it is, as after 2 weeks of operation, my boss told me to take all the restrictions off!! I use it to stop people printing straight off websites and also to stop duplicate printing but that is about all

[broc]

Pcounter for Windows, 900 users(staff & students), 40 printers managed, Secondary School environment. Print quotas used to control both monochrome & colour laser print. Students denied print when quota reached, staff are billed for what they print.

[alan-d]

We've spent the last 7 years educating staff and students about printing costs which is paying off. Despite increasing the number of printers our consumable expenditure has not risen above the level it was 7 years ago so we must be doing something right. Emphasising email to communicate and print preview helps a lot

 

We do use the free version of papercut to track down the odd occurrence of exuberant printing, and we try and install more cost effective laser printers wherever possible.

 

Yesterday I had a salesman visit to look over our printing requirements and suggest some monitoring software, printer leasing etc. By the end of the conversation he could not think of anything he could sell us that would improve our system I almost felt sorry for him

[nadeem]

Equitrac Express (this is the educational version) - its much more powerfull than PCounter (from the demos we've had recently).

 

I can suggest a good company we're working with at the moment if you'd like - just pm me your details and I'll pass them over.

 

We're doing exactly what you're talking about - swipe card to pick up and montitor peoples printing

[elsiegee40]

We use Print Manager Plus and we have rules and they've recently been clamped down on further.

 

This type of software will only work with 100% commitment from your SMT. You must have their backing, otherwise staff restrictions are lifted or eased and they may as well not be there... and it is almost a total waste of time setting it up (ask witch)

Edited February 3, 2010 by elsiegee40

[Messa]

pcounter

[maniac]

We run Papercut for our print management. We issue credits on a termly basis and I've spent a long time setting up all the rules to take advantage of its features.

 

Students get 100 credits

Staff get 200 credits for personal use

Departments get 1000 credits, apart from enterprise who get 2000 as they are a heavy IT based subject.

 

Printing costs the following:

 

A4 mono page = 1 credit

A4 colour page = 2 credits

A3 colour page = 5 credits

 

When a staff member prints they can chose whether to charge their department budget or personal budget.

 

Admin and senior teachers aren't credited, although their printing is still logged.

 

We have a restriction of 3 copies per document, any more than that and we expect staff to use the photocpying facilities. We also have a restriction of printing the same document within 60 seconds, mainly put in pace to stop people bypassing the 3 copies rule, although seriously some teachers will sit there and religeously print the same document 3 times every 60 seconds until they've got the number of copies they want - it would have been quicker to have walked to the photocopier. Needless to say when these teachers ask for more credit, we make it clear that we can see they've been bypassing the rules and they only get a small amount extra.

 

Anything called Document* is rejected to encourage students to save their work before printing.

 

As an additional rule, student printing has to be approved by a member of staff to most printers. When they print their documents, it goes into a queue and won't print until a member of staff clicks allow in the print management interface. We introduced this after the first few weeks when students were using up their credits within a few days printing rubbish out to the printers, so we had to give staff more control over what was being printed. Some staff like this, others see it as an inconvenience, but it works quite well overall.

 

Papercut is, in my opinion, the best value and possibly one of the most reliable print management products out there.

 

Mike.