Everything you need to know about cloud printing
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Power Features![/caption]
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.
- 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 .
- 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 .
- 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 .
- 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 .
- 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
