How to set up a Free Copy button

Guest Access function

From PaperCut 17.0 onwards, supported devices may now have a “Guest Access” button displayed on the device screen along with the usual authentication options. This allows a user to log in to the device without providing authentication credentials, and can be used for purposes such as free copying for guests of your organisation.

At the device the user will see the the usual authentication prompts, such as Username/Password, ID or swipe card. In the bottom right corner of the device screen an additional button will appear, labeled by default “Guest Access”. The button text can be customized with any text you like.

How to enable/configure

This is a per device configuration. Using the Admin console, navigate to the Devices tab and select the device you wish to configure for “free copying”. Make sure that the device supports “Guest Access”!

The section under the Devices tab where the authentication methods are configured has been redesigned. It’s now labeled “Access Methods” to easily differentiate between PaperCut user authentication and the anonymous/guest access methods.

Select “Allow Guest Access”. A text field should appear allowing a user account to be selected. This will be the account that all actions taken by users pressing the button will be associated with.

Generally you would choose a user account that has account selection set to “automatically charge to personal account”, so that copy jobs will be allocated to their name.

Once you have selected “Allow Guest Access” and nominated a user account, the basic functionality is configured. To customize the button text, consult the manual for your device to discover the exact config key required. On Sharp OSA devices, for example, it is ext-device.sharp_osa.guest-acces.label.

That should be it. Any user pressing that button should now be taken directly the device functions screen, and any copying that they do will be tracked against the configured user account.

Which devices support Guest Access?

As of v17.0.5, Guest Access is supported on Sharp and Kyocera only. This will be expanded, keep a look out on our Release history MF page: https://www.papercut.com/products/mf/release-history/

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Categories: How-to Articles, Charging and Billing, Devices

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Keywords: guestaccess