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Configure Scan to Email using an address book

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When scanning to email at the MFD, the end-user might want to search a directory (address book) of recipients.

This scenario suits users who want to scan documents and send them to an email address that is not their own.

You’ll need to create an address book that contains all possible email addresses you want the users to be able to send scans to.

Scan to email address book video: set up and demo

Printer brands that support rendering of variables from custom capture fields

Scan to email address book is not a feature in itself, it’s rather a scenario that can be created by using the rendering of variables from custom capture fields.

This is supported by all brands that support Integrated Scanning .

Import an address book to PaperCut Hive, then create a Quick Scan to email with a lookup field that points to the imported data

Create a data source

Prepare a CSV or TSV file with the columns that are relevant to your address book.

There’s no template to follow; just be sure to follow the “Data source file requirements” shown below.

Data example 1:

Person

Email

José da Silva

jose.da.silva@papercut.com

Juan Pérez

juan.perez@papercut.com

John Smith

john.smith@papercut.com

Francesco Rossi

francesco.rossi@papercut.com

Jean Dupont

jean.dupont@papercut.com

Art Vandelay

art.vandelay@papercut.com

Jan Jansen

jan.jansen@papercut.com

Fulano Sicrano

fulano.sicrano@papercut.com

Otto Normalverbraucher

otto.normalverbraucher@papercut.com

When using this data source in a Quick Scan, a custom variable will be created for each column. For example:

  • Person will have the variable ${fieldname_Person}
  • Email will have the variable ${fieldname_Email}

Where fieldname will be the name you’ll give to the scan capture field.

Variables are case sensitive.

Data source file requirements

Upload a Comma Separated (.CSV) or Tab Separated (.TSV) file.

Supported data format

  • The first row specifies the column names.
  • Maximum of 10 columns and 10,000 rows.
  • All rows have the same number of columns.
  • File must be saved with UTF-8 encoding.

Import a data source

  1. In the Admin console, go to Data Sources.
  2. Click Add Data Source. The Add Data Source page is displayed.
  3. In the Data source name field, type a name for your data source, for example, Address book. You’ll choose this data source name later when you create a Quick Scan with a lookup field..
  4. The Description field is optional.
  5. Either click Browse or drag and drop your CSV/TSV file inside the dotted line box.
  6. Wait for the upload to finish.
  7. Click Process. The data source will appear as a tile in the Data Sources list. You can click on the tile to see a preview of the imported data.

Update a data source

If you need to change the data at any time, you can’t edit the data via the PaperCut Hive admin console.

  1. Make data updates in the CSV/TSV file.
  2. Import the new version into PaperCut Hive to replace the previously imported version.
  3. Go to Data Sources, open the data source tile and click Replace and Update File. The data source in PaperCut Hive is updated.

Create a Quick Scan that points to the address book data source just created

  1. In the admin console, go to Easy Print & Scan > Integrated Scanning.

  2. Click Add Quick Scan and select Scan to Email.

  3. In the Scan tab, scroll down to Capture additional data from users and click Add Custom Field.

  4. Check User must complete.

  5. Complete the following fields:

    • Field Name: type a name like Recipients.
    • Display label: type an instructive label like Choose recipients
    • Field Type: choose Data Source Lookup. Nw fields appear in the layout.
    • Data source: choose the name you gave to your data source when you imported it into PaperCut Hive. In the example above, we named it Address book, so Address book would appear in the list of data sources.
  6. On the table that appears after selecting the data source, you can perform any of the following actions:

    • Use the drag handles ⠿ to drag and order the columns in the way you want them displayed on the MFD lookup search table
    • Display Label: Click on the pencil 🖊️ to edit the column header to choose how they’ll appear on the MFD lookup search table
    • Show: Choose up to 4 columns to be displayed on the MFD lookup search table
    • Metadata: All items are selected by default. If the Quick Scan will be delivering metadata files (you chose file types under the Deliver tab), choose which columns of your data source you want to include in the output metadata files. Otherwise, you can just ignore this Metadata column. Having the checkboxes ☑ ticked or not won’t make any difference. (Exception for Ricoh: If you want to use the auto generated variables from the fields, you must select the checkboxes in this column.)
  7. Scroll back up to the Scan to email section.

  8. In the To field, delete the default contents.

  9. Add the ${Recipients_Email} variable to it. This is the variable that was automatically created from your Address book data source Email column header.

  10. Under Input Settings > Original > Visible Options choose the paper sizes for your organization’s region.

  11. Click the Default dropdown and choose the default paper size.

  12. Click Save Changes.

  13. Test this Quick Scan on the MFD.

Workaround for multiple address book recipients

The workaround is to create a Quick Scan that points to the address book data source just created, with 1 lookup field per recipient

If you want to allow the user to choose more than 1 recipient from the address book, then each email address recipient must have its own lookup field.

These instructions explain how to create 1 mandatory address book lookup field, and then additional, optional address book lookup fields.

Create a mandatory lookup field for 1 recipient

  1. In the admin console go to Easy Print & Scan > Integrated Scanning.
  2. Click Add Quick Scan and select Email.
  3. In the Scan tab, scroll down to Capture additional data from users and click Add Custom Field.
  4. Check User must complete.
  5. Complete the following fields:
    • Field Name: type a name like Recipient 1.
    • Display label: type an instructive label like Choose recipient
    • Field Type: choose Data Source Lookup. New fields appear in the layout.
    • Data source: choose the name you gave to your data source when you imported it into PaperCut Hive. In the example above, we named it Address book, so Address book would appear in the list of data sources.
  6. On the table that appears after selecting the data source, you can perform any of the following actions:
    • Use the drag handles ⠿ to drag and order the columns in the way you want them displayed on the MFD lookup search table
    • Display Label: Click on the pencil 🖊️ to edit the column header to choose how they’ll appear on the MFD lookup search table
    • Show: Choose up to 4 columns to be displayed on the MFD lookup search table
    • Metadata: All items are selected by default. If the Quick Scan will be delivering metadata files (you chose file types under the Deliver tab), choose which columns of your data source you want to include in the output metadata files. Otherwise, you can just ignore this Metadata column. Having the checkboxes ☑ ticked or not won’t make any difference. (Exception for Ricoh: If you want to use the auto generated variables from the fields, you must select the checkboxes in this column.)

Create an optional lookup field for each additional recipient

  1. In the admin console go to Easy Print & Scan > Integrated Scanning.
  2. Click Add Quick Scan and select Scan to Email.
  3. In the Scan tab, scroll down to Capture additional data from users and click Add Custom Field.
  4. Do not check the User must complete.
  5. Complete the following fields:
    • Field Name: type a name like Recipient 2.
    • Display label: type an instructive label like Choose recipient
    • Field Type: choose Data Source Lookup. New fields appear in the layout.
    • Data source: choose the name you gave to your data source when you imported it into PaperCut Hive. In the example above, we named it Address book, so Address book would appear in the list of data sources.
  6. On the table that appears after selecting the data source, you can:
    • Use the drag handles ⠿ to drag and order the columns in the way you want them displayed on the MFD lookup search table
    • Display Label: Click on the pencil 🖊️ to edit the column header to choose how they’ll appear on the MFD lookup search table
    • Show: Choose up to 4 columns to be displayed on the MFD lookup search table
    • Metadata: All items are selected by default. If the Quick Scan will be delivering metadata files (you chose file types under the Deliver tab), choose which columns of your data source you want to include in the output metadata files. Otherwise, you can just ignore this Metadata column. Having the checkboxes ☑ ticked or not won’t make any difference. (Exception for Ricoh: If you want to use the auto generated variables from the fields, you must select the checkboxes in this column.)

Add all the variables from the address book lookup fields into the scan-to-email To field

For every recipient that the end-user selects at the MFD to receive the scan file in their email inbox, add all the variables from the recipient lookup fields you created into the To field.

  1. Scroll back up to the Scan to email section > To field. Populate the To field in one of the following ways:
    • Delete the default contents in the To field and add the variables from all address book lookup fields you created, separated by a comma. Variables are case sensitive.${Recipient 1_Email}, ${Recipient 2_Email}
    • Combine the custom variables from the lookup fields you created with the default ${user_email} variable, to also email the scan to the user doing the scan. ${Recipient 1_Email}, ${Recipient 2_Email}, ${user_email}
  2. Under Input Settings > Original > Visible Options choose the paper sizes for your organization’s region.
  3. Click the Default dropdown and choose the default paper size.
  4. Click Save Changes.
  5. Test this Quick Scan on the MFD.

Additional workaround tips for multiple email recipients: hardcode email addresses in a single data line

This workaround applies if you have a scenario where a repetitive set of email addresses need to receive specific scan jobs. For example, there might be a certain group of people in the Finance department who always need to receive scans of expense reports. You can hardcode these email addresses in the address book data you import.

Separate the email addresses in the same cell either by a comma or a semicolon.

Just remember that, in a CSV (comma-separated values) file, if you use a comma in the contents of the data, that value must be wrapped with double quotes. So in the example below, the value will be: " jose.da.silva@papercut.com , juan.perez@papercut.com , john.smith@papercut.com "

Data example 1:

Person

Email

José da Silva

jose.da.silva@papercut.com

Juan Pérez

juan.perez@papercut.com

John Smith

john.smith@papercut.com

Finance email group

jose.da.silva@papercut.com, juan.perez@papercut.com, john.smith@papercut.com


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