Clearing your printing problems with PaperCut support

“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.

Power Features!

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

We have a rapidly growing KB and we hope this will help PaperCut users find answers they’re after. Please give it a test run and let us know if you have any comments/suggestions.

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’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.

This month I’ll talk about of the new features in Version 5.0. All existing PaperCut users would be aware of PaperCut’s automatic account creation rules. These helps streamline user management by automatically configurating new user accounts within PaperCut. There is still however a need to synchronize PaperCut’s user list with the users listed in Active Directory or the Domain. This is usually done manually via the “TuneUp” button. Version 5 now introduces a command-line script to automate this task. The script is located under:

C:/Program Files/PaperCut/Scripts/addnewusers.bat

Network administrators can now set this script to run automatically via the Windows Task Scheduler or out of other system maintenance scripts. Many large organizations use scripts to create user accounts. You can now incorporate this command into such scripts so PaperCut is instantly notified of the new users. This new feature brings PaperCut one-step closer to our “zero administration” goal.