PaperCut Blog / News

I am still fairly new to PaperCut, which means I’ve spent the first part of my time here reading. Previous blog posts, release notes, knowledge base articles, resolved tickets and troubleshooting steps have all become my bread and butter. One of the things that stood out was this excerpt from one of Jason’s posts:

“One thing that was always on my mind was the quality and timeliness of support available from software and hardware vendors. It was no good getting fast support that didn’t resolve my issue and nor was it useful having accurate support that took 5 working days to get back to me. Good quality support is important!”

Jason was an IT manager and a PaperCut customer in his former role. His firsthand experience on the receiving end of support has helped us to elevate the quality level of our support.

Since starting with PaperCut, one thing that has impressed me more than anything else has been that everyone here actually enjoys helping customers. To the developers and fellow techs, this is more than just a job that you clock in, muddle through a few calls, chats and emails, turn in your time card, and go home.

I chose quality support as the theme of my blog post because I want to make sure that everyone knows how to get the most out of this great resource. Here are a few tips:

First, which is the best method of contacting PaperCut technical support? It really depends what you need. For example, If you need general technical information, sales information, or are just curious about PaperCut’s capabilities, a phone call is probably best. However, if you’re looking for detailed technical information, then you would be better served by either using the Support Chat or emailing support@papercut.com. This way, when the tech you’re working with responds with the necessary technical information, it will be provided in a format that is easy to reference, complete with relevant knowledge base articles and technical instructions that would be difficult to retain if relayed over the phone. It also helps us techs get faster and better support from the developers.

When you contact PaperCut support, please include information regarding the systems related to the problem. Let us know the version of PaperCut, the OS on the server and workstations, which printers (make and model) are affected. If it was working previously, let us know about any changes made to the server/printer/workstation/etc. When we receive a support request from a user with that information, it usually cuts the resolution time significantly.

Lastly, PaperCut has a knowledge base, which is keyword searchable with a Google search tool! You will find it at the top of all PaperCut web pages. If you haven’t used our knowledge base, here are some articles that will help to get you started:

http://www.papercut.com/kb/Main/ReportingProblems

http://www.papercut.com/kb/Category/Troubleshooting

http://www.papercut.com/products/ng/manual/apdx-faq.html

Now entering my third month working with the people here at PaperCut, I’m amazed at how much I’ve learned and how much I still have to learn, but at least I’m beginning to pull my weight, and at least Chris hasn’t had a dart launcher placed on my desk for when I mess up… yet.

One of my roles at PaperCut is providing technical support by working directly with you to find the specific features required to resolve your print management problems. As each individual site deploys PaperCut to address their unique issues, I receive suggestions for new product features and enhancements. Many of the ideas that are sent to us have been developed into features and are available in PaperCut. In the past year over 100 new features and enhancements have been added in 14 version releases, and we have more on the way with version 10.5! The ever growing list of is chronicled in our Release History, news feeds, blogs and twitter.

It is difficult to predict which of the many features will become the most popular, but I would like to share with you my personal list of secret power features. These are feature that are off the beaten track, but are received with great enthusiasm when I explain them to customers. Many of the features are not new, but provide critical functionality for a site once they are discovered and implemented.

1. PaperCut can stay synchronized with the Office and Department fields in Active Directory or LDAP allowing you to create reports to compare printing within or between offices and departments such as the Department printing – job type summary report.
2. Administrators can receive automatic email alerts on printer error conditions that contain information including the error type (e.g paper jam, toner low), time that the error was first reported, location and number of jobs in the queue. Here is a link to the manual section that covers System Notifications.
3. Print Scripting was introduced earlier this year and has had many “Recipes” and “Snippets” added over the last few months. Scripts can be used to provide precise control of print job handling including configuring PaperCut to perform least-cost-routing, print job redirection, and environmental warnings based on Group, job size, time of day and many other criteria. Maybe you wish to remind people to print duplex/double-sided or even stop printing of emails. This level of print management (print policy control) is all possible! From the Admin Console select the Printer tab then select a test printer or the Template Printer. Select the Scripting tab then the “Import Recipe” or “Import Snippet…” button to get a list of pre-built script and segments. There is also a summery of pre-build recipes at the bottom of this page.
4. Web Print allows unauthenticated laptop computers that do not have drivers for your network printers to upload PDF and Microsoft Office documents to the PaperCut server where they can be printed and tracked to the user’s PaperCut account. This feature has extended the campus print infrastructure to include student laptops in dorms and other wireless access areas. You can even allow students to select the destination printer from a map, floor plan or site plan.
5. There is a version of PaperCut that is available from resellers and Authorized Solution Centers (approved resellers) that can track off the glass copy, fax and scan images using embedded software that connects the multi-function device to the PaperCut Admin Console for consolidated control and reporting with the network printers. In addition, PaperCut MF can use multi-function devices as Release Stations for network printing in a secure printing or find-me printing configuration. Other hardware devices such as Pay Stations can also be integrated with PaperCut MF.

Feel free to comment with any of your own favorite power features.

Image courtesy of schani on flickr

It’s quite common to see PaperCut running alongside and complementing other applications such as web based filtering and virus protection applications. These web filtering applications tend to integrate in with proxy servers in a similar way to that undertaken by PaperCut’s Internet Quota module. Mark from Temple Christian College has been kind enough to contribute a knowledge base article detailing how he has setup PaperCut alongside Microsoft ISA Server and a web filtering application called SurfControl. You can read Mark’s article on integrating PaperCut and Surf Control here:

http://kb.papercutsoftware.com/Main/SettingUpPaperCutWithSurfControl

I’d like to thank Mark for taking the time to write this up. I’m sure it other schools would find Mark’s configuration notes useful.

I few weeks back I said I’d write something about how to deploy the User Inquiry Tool using a “zero-install” methods. I have updated the knowledge base with some instructions on how to deploy the UIT.

I’ve just finished putting together a knowledge base article detailing various methods to manage and configure printers in a school or university (academic environment). In a business environment a user normally has a desktop PC dedicated to them located on their work desk. In an academic environment users will roam between different computer labs and locations. The printers listed under Start->Settings->Printers should change depending on what computer they are using. For example, it is not appropriate to list the science lab printer when the user is login in across campus in the library! In other words, the list of printers is a function of location rather than user identity.

I’ve taken a few techniques used by a number of network administrator running PaperCut and written it up in general terms. Thanks to all that took the time to write up how they approached printer connection/setup management. You can read the article at http://kb.papercutsoftware.com/Main/AddingPrintersInAnEducationEnvironment.