Konica Minolta PaperCut Hive App BREWING
Konica Minolta embedded App for PaperCut Hive
Pop on your lab coat and help us brew cloud tech.
Have you got Konica Minolta multifunctional printers/MFPs floating around? Want to keep up to date with progress on the Konica Minolta PaperCut Hive embedded app? Even interested in helping us build it? Read on to find out about this brew, the brewers, and where you fit in.
Geek Speak: Do you have the droids we’re looking for?
About this brew
As you’re reading this, we're well underway with developing the PaperCut Hive embedded app for Konica Minolta MFPs. The app is going to bring most of PaperCut Hive's cloud print management features right onto the Konica Minolta MFP's touch panel, including:
- card-based authentication
- user self-sign up
- secure print release and Find-Me printing
- copy, scan, and fax tracking
- setup and batch deployment
- ...plus more in Phase II, like one-click scanning
This percolator project is not just about "porting the functionality from PaperCut MF". It’s about making sure the app works best in a cloud world (that is, security first, performs well over high-latency connections, etc.).
Oh, and while we're at it, we're rethinking UX/UI to make it even better.
Why is this in Percolator now?
They say "many hands make light work". Here at PaperCut we also say "many printers find more bugs". We leverage our fantastic community of passionate customers, partners, and resellers to help us make robust and enterprise-ready software and get it out there – fast. Our percolator phase covers the development, the beta phase, and early stage production deployment.
This is how we get to tap into a wide diversity of model and MFD types, as well as the "I can break anything" mentality :-)
Are you a passionate person/customer/reseller who is keen to be involved?
Many of you will be happy just reading this page then following the timeline and progress. (I think the young kids call this "a lurker" :-) But maybe you're in the special group that loves brewing, who wants to get a little more hands-on and become part of the team?
So what makes a good brewer?
Someone who:
- is one part geek, two parts friendly and inquisitive, and three parts coffee
- likes to talk with engineers on video chats
- has a few Konica Minolta/KM printers floating around
- is happy to test and mix "constructive feedback" with some positive encouragement and fun
- is super keen to learn more about public cloud, hybrid cloud, and multitenant solutions
This Percolator project is open to customers and PaperCut resellers.
Customers: Maybe you're a PaperCut MF customer running on Konica Minolta devices and want to get a sneak peek into the future? Maybe you can temporarily run PaperCut Hive on a device for a period of time?
Resellers: Have you got a showroom full of Konica Minolta MFP devices? Well then not only do we find you super cool, but you can test on a bunch of models, which is even cooler!
So what's in it for you?
- First and foremost, if you're ever in Melbourne you have unlimited access to coffee in our office
- Geeky tech jokes on video calls
- Your ideas and feedback will likely make it into the final cut. (Sort of like signing your name on wet concrete!)
- And history has shown that many of our early adopters become great friends of the engineering teams, so you might even get a free PaperCut Hive SaaS subscription and an ear to your new ideas!
About the brewers (aka the Product Engineering Team)
The Konica Minolta app is developed by one of the best teams in PaperCut (we're writing this of course!) because it's right at the intersection of IoT, Cloud, Microservices, and Single-Page HTML apps. Cool huh?
Atiq (the beard) is the most serious. Julian (the blue jumper) makes sure meetings are on time. According to Joe (the white t-shirt) Karen (The KM C224e standing behind us), who he used to live with for 4 months, is the funniest. We all like coffee.
What we`ve been up to so far?
See the timeline below. We'll update this from time to time so you can follow our progress.
16 APRIL 2021
Log in with Access Code
Don`t have the contactless card on you? Use the Konica Minolta multifunctional printers touch panel to quickly and securely release prints.
18 APRIL 2021
In-touchscreen responsible reminders
Let us do the nudging for you. We'll keep an eye out for the obvious and help you save even more waste with customizable pop-up messages that encourage users to:
- Convert color to black & white
- Print 2-sided
20 APRIL 2021
Card Association
This thing's really working!
STAY TUNED
We're not done here
We'll be sharing more videos as we progress with brewing the PaperCut Hive app for Konica Minolta MFPs.
Best of all, you are more than welcome to try it out exclusively, while it's still in the oven, and spice it up with some ideas.
I`M GEEKY AND HAPPY TO HELPFAQs
You've probably got a couple of questions on your mind right about now. We've done our best to answer the most common ones right here.
Yes. But you need to ensure at least one of your Konica Minolta devices can be switched over to PaperCut Hive to help with testing. An MFD can't run PaperCut MF and PaperCut Hive at the same time. Maybe use the IT department's device?
You can still use PaperCut Hive but you might need to use your mobile phone for print release. However, you won’t be able to run the new Embedded software, so this percolating project may not be for you at the time. When you're considering a device upgrade, make sure your future Konica Minolta devices support OpenAPI, embedded software, and i-Option. Your reseller should be able to check compatibility with PaperCut Hive.
The PaperCut Hive embedded app for Konica Minolta is fully compatible with all major card technologies, such as contactless proximity cards (HID, MIFARE, AU-201, IC Card Reader, USB, etc.). It's the same as PaperCut MF in this regard.
PaperCut Hive is a cloud-native product, and a dedicated Windows print server is not required (you can run this as a true serverless printing environment, and your documents remain local for maximum privacy and security). For set-up and security-related operations such as unlocking an MFP, local access is required. This local access is facilitated using PaperCut Hive’s Edge Mesh technology.
Who is best to set it up is ideally discussed between you and your Konica Minolta printer provider. The process is relatively straightforward as long as the right options are enabled on the multifunctional printer.
No, Page Scope and Dispatcher Phoenix are not required. The PaperCut Hive embedded app provides all the functionality for secure print release, tracking of copy, fax, and scan, etc. In later stages this percolator project will add the same scanning functionality you see in PaperCut MF such as scan to One Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft Sharepoint, and Google Drive.
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