Active Directory Print Management

Many organizations rely on Active Directory to authenticate and authorize users. At PrinterLogic, in keeping with our philosophy of seamlessly integrating with other common technologies and leveraging their strengths, we’ve built on this existing foundation to make Active Directory print management easier than ever across your entire organization.

Our print management solution allows you to deploy printers to end users according to Active Directory (AD) criteria such as:

  • Active Directory user
  • Active Directory computer
  • Active Directory group
  • Active Directory organizational unit (OU)
  • Active Directory container

It’s simple and straightforward. All you have to do is add any of those above objects to the “Deploy” tab of a printer object, and the desired printer will automatically be deployed according to those parameters.

Through PrinterLogic’s Active Directory print management software, you can even set the printer that is being deployed as the default printer according to Active Directory object association. For even greater flexibility, that default printer setting can be assigned only during the initial printer installation (“once”), each time the client logs in or refreshes (“always”), or omitted completely (“never”). If the user or workstation is a member of multiple deployment assignments, the printer will only deploy according to the most specific (i.e., lowest-level) object.

One of the most talked-about advantages of PrinterLogic is its convenient self-service portal, which allows users to perform routine printer installs themselves with just a single click. Active Directory print management comes into play here, too, for added security combined with added simplicity. When a user accesses PrinterLogic’s self-service portal, that user can view all the available printers but not install any printer for which he or she has not been assigned corresponding rights. PrinterLogic is about clarity, of course, so in the case of unauthorized install attempts the user isn’t left in the dark or given a cryptic error message. They will receive a prompt stating that they need to be granted permission to access the printer.

PrinterLogic makes use of role-based access control for granting permissions, meaning that you can delegate printer management roles and permissions with Active Directory integration. You can add any Active Directory user or group objects to PrinterLogic’s administrative users list, allowing users who are members of that user or group object to access admin settings just by using their Active Directory username and password. That distributes some of the administrative responsibility to more localized managers or department heads.

Yet, just as importantly, you don’t sacrifice oversight when using PrinterLogic as your Active Directory print management solution. PrinterLogic provides complete administrative auditing of changes made by administrators, so you can keep tabs on which users or workstations are being granted which rights.

Want a straightforward step-by-step guide on Active Directory print management using PrinterLogic? This handy how-to page has more on using and managing Active Directory user accounts.

Location Based Printing Solutions

Posted by Devin Anderson

If your organization makes use of Citrix or VMware environments, then any enterprise print management solution you consider should also be a full-featured location-based printing solution.

Location-based printing solutions—sometimes referred to as location-aware printing solutions (or proximity printing in Citrix environments)—simplify the frustrating complexity of administering printers in virtual environments. For example, PrinterLogic enables you to deploy and install printers based on location, regardless of whether that has to do with the user’s network address or physical address. In other words, when a user initiates a virtual session, the nearest printer is installed automatically according to a variety of customizable device or directory criteria that can easily be associated with a specific site. That includes:

  • IP address (such as any that fall within a given range)
  • Computer name
  • Active Directory (AD) user or group
  • AD Organizational Unit (OU) membership

Location-based printing is particularly useful for mobile users who log into virtual sessions in changing physical locations, such as different departments or branches, as well as for users who roam to different floors or offices within a session. Because the criteria allow for so much customization, you can configure location-aware printing according to specific needs of your organization or even smaller departments within it, and the end user will always see and be able to print to the nearest printer effortlessly. For roaming users, PrinterLogic will reliably and automatically remove and install the right printers for the right users on the fly.

That means: No driver incompatibilities. No installation guesswork and incorrectly installed “lingering” printers that are impossible to remove. No frantic calls to the service desk for troubleshooting assistance. Want to deploy a printer to every VMware user in a particular subnet? Or implement a location-aware printing group policy? PrinterLogic’s powerful location-based printing capability and renowned seamless integration with Citrix and VMware environments lets you do so with ease.

PrinterLogic can also go one step further in the case of VMware Horizon View location-based printing. By dynamically provisioning printers in this popular virtual environment, it takes the need for constant oversight off the shoulders of IT and the pressure off the end user. That avoids the all-too-common problems that crop up with managing endpoint device printer drivers or configuring dedicated printer profiles.

And if the demand for greater mobility hasn’t yet hit your organization, trust me, it’s only a matter of time before it does. Location-aware printing solutions are soon going to be more important to your print environment than ever, and only PrinterLogic complements these virtual solutions so smoothly you’ll think it was their native printing functionality—just, you know, much better.

For more information on how PrinterLogic simplifies and augments your virtual environments through location-based printing, check out this blog post.

Server 2012 Print Management Problems—Additional Drivers Greyed Out

Did you spin up a brand new 2012/R2 server in hopes of being up to date and getting the latest features and compatibility? Now, when you go to add the additional drivers, the button is greyed out! How do you manage your 32-bit and 64-bit drivers for all your operating systems? There are two problems here that people run into.

First, the button can be greyed out when trying to use different driver versions and names between 32-bit and 64-bit (manufacturer specific). This issue started in Windows Server 2008 R2, when you went to add 32-bit and 64-bit drivers, they had to be the exact same driver version and name. Most people found this by trial and error. Fast forward to Server 2012 and Server 2012 R2 and the problem still exists.

The second reason for seeing this greyed out button is due to the driver class (Microsoft’s driver class). Starting with Windows 8 (could be back-installed to Windows 7) and Server 2012, Microsoft provided a class 4 driver for printing. These driver classes have been unchanged for 12 years (since v3 was released in Server 2000). There are some benefits of using this new class of driver, but that does also mean you still have class driver conflict now and you must set up all your printers from scratch to use this new benefit.

Class 4 drivers are provided from Microsoft, and can only be used and applied through Windows 8 or Server 2012/R2 machines. They control the updates, bug fixes, etc. This causes the problem that if you want an update, you must run Windows updates. What if you need a fix today, not on your scheduled maintenance window in three more weeks? Another issue here is operating systems that don’t support these drivers, or you call the printer manufacturer with an issue and they say to grab their latest version for the fix? Well, that is a class 3 driver, so now you need to change that driver on the server.

PrinterLogic provides the resolution for all of these issues. PrinterLogic gives you full centralized printer management for the entire company without the need of any print servers. This means none of the driver names, version, class or OS version conflicts apply. You can have a different driver for every operating system dating back to Windows XP 32-bit, all the way up to Windows 10 64-bit. The driver names can be the same or different. The version can be the same or different.

PrinterLogic will also provide you a solution to manage all of your Mac workstations and any Debian flavor of Linux. Say goodbye to driver issues and hello to the new way to centrally manage printing, with no print servers, no driver conflicts and no down time. Contact us today see a demonstration of the software and a free proof of concept to see it in action live in your environment.

PrinterLogic Print Management Solution is “Amazing” According to Large Enterprise Healthcare Company

Posted by Andrew Miller

A large-enterprise healthcare company offered one of the most candid and enthusiastic testimonials for PrinterLogic that we’ve heard so far: “Actually, [PrinterLogic is] just as simple as AMAZING. We were an absolute mess before PrinterLogic. Now we are right where we should be.”

That quote comes from a recent survey (TVID:
F45-958-E6A) conducted by TechValidate, an independent research firm that has been speaking with a whole range of PrinterLogic customers about their honest firsthand experience with our print management solution. And the findings are turning out to be remarkably consistent across industries and company-specific environments.

For example, it took this large-enterprise healthcare company just one day to install PrinterLogic. That was in an enterprise print environment with more than 1,000 networked printers, over 26 print servers, and more than 100 physical locations. Since then, the company has witnessed compound benefits such as:

  • Time spent on print management and print-related service desk calls each dropped by 15%.
  • Remote server infrastructure shrank by 70%.
  • Printer downtime was cut by 30%.

Those percentages can be rewritten as dollar amounts. The “payback period” in which PrinterLogic’s ROI covered all the costs related to its installation was 12 months. That’s just one year to reach the break-even point in terms of cost alone. What’s more, the total ROI of implementing PrinterLogic so far has exceeded 200%.

Of course, as important as ROI is, PrinterLogic delivers far more than that. By installing PrinterLogic, this large-enterprise health case company is now able to deploy printers quickly and efficiently without requiring scripts or group policy objects (GPOs). It can manage software drivers, print queues and networked printers with ease but without sacrificing full administrative control. It’s reduced print-related WAN traffic through PrinterLogic’s direct printing and compression features. Plus the company has succeeded in consolidating its server infrastructure, thereby slimming its hardware footprint and the resources that are continually allocated to maintaining that infrastructure.

When it came time to rate PrinterLogic on a qualitative scale, the company said that the ease of use, speed or deployment and ease of deployment were “amazing.” Printing security was described as “excellent,” and printer driver management earned a “great.”

So whether you put it in numbers or adjectives, this large-enterprise health care company’s migration to PrinterLogic points to just one thing: an undeniable and ongoing success.


TechValidate Case Study: Large Enterprise Health Care Company