The Advantages of PrinterLogic’s New Control Panel Platform

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This week PrinterLogic is releasing the first in a series of all-new Control Panel Applications, or CPAs. These apps install on a printer and provide identity authentication for secure-release printing. The new Gen 2 Canon CPA—compatible with PrinterLogic’s on-prem and cloud solutions—supports Canon’s imageRUNNER ADVANCE printers. To learn more about that rollout, read this post.

But there’s another important story underneath the development of our Gen 2 CPAs. This post will discuss PrinterLogic’s new Control Panel Platform, and why it’s important for our customers.

Our current generation of CPAs
PrinterLogic’s CPAs have been a trusted option for secure release printing for several years. They allow a user to securely release sensitive print jobs while standing at the printer. This ensures that print jobs are not forgotten or left unattended in the output tray, helping to preserve the confidentiality of sensitive data.

But as with any first-gen products, there’s room for improvement. For starters, we developed each of CPA individually, for one printer manufacturer at a time, using each manufacturer’s software tools (SDK). This led to some differences in the user interface, as well as variances between printer brands in terms of console responsiveness and print performance.

Another factor, which became more and more important over time, was compatibility with our cloud solution, PrinterLogic SaaS (formerly PrinterCloud). Earlier CPAs were designed primarily for PrinterLogic Web Stack (formerly Printer Installer), our on-prem solution, and they didn’t work well in a cloud environment.

As migration to the cloud became a driving force in the industry, we began working on a new CPA design that worked equally well for both environments. During that process, the advantages of building new CPAs on a common code base we designed from the ground up, and relying less on the printer manufacturers tools, became clear.

The new Control Panel Platform
That led to our new Control Panel Platform. The new platform leverages a unified code base for building CPAs across all printer hardware manufacturers. So, you say: “That may be great for your dev team, but how does it benefit me, your customer?”

The new platform offers compelling benefits for you as well:

  1. Users in large organizations often interact with several printer brands. As more Gen 2 CPAs are created, the user experience across those MFPs will be consistent. The screen presentation has been streamlined and is more intuitive.
  2. Gen 2 CPAs deliver print jobs quicker. App load speed, console responsiveness, and print throughput are significantly improved. For example, compared with some legacy CPA scenarios, the time it takes to receive a print job after authentication is five to 10 times faster. Users are less likely to get impatient and “re-badge,” which has been counterproductive in the past.
  3. IT admins will see a more automated installation procedure, as well as better error handling and troubleshooting tools.
  4. Finally, for printers with Single Sign-on (SSO) firmware support, Gen 2 CPAs function as SSO “provider” and SSO “listener.” The CPA can be the initial sign-on interface so that subsequent applications on the printer are auto-authenticated. Conversely, if the user signs in using another app on the printer console, our CPA will skip authentication, and users go directly to a presentation of available print jobs.

There’s another overarching benefit to PrinterLogic customers who are migrating to the cloud: The new Control Panel Platform helps bring feature parity between PrinterLogic’s on-prem and SaaS solutions. For example, the new Canon Gen 2 CPA delivers full and equivalent pull-printing functionality to both PrinterLogic Web Stack and PrinterLogic SaaS.

To summarize, the Control Panel Platform allows us to deliver a family of faster, easier Gen 2 CPAs to facilitate secure-release printing. Improvements such as SSO support, faster printing, and a uniform interface across printer brands translate to added convenience and productivity for users and IT administrators.

The new Gen 2 CPA is now available for the Canon imageRUNNER ADVANCE family of printers. Support for Sharp, Xerox, HP, Konica-Minolta, and Ricoh is expected by the end of 2019, followed by Lexmark and Toshiba by early 2020.

The New Canon Control Panel Application (CPA) from PrinterLogic

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PrinterLogic is excited to announce a new dedicated Control Panel Application (CPA) for Canon’s imageRUNNER ADVANCE series of MFPs. Once installed and launched, the app appears on a printer’s embedded touchscreen so you can manage and securely release print jobs held on a workstation for authentication.

Why is this something to get excited about? For starters, the Canon CPA is our first app based on an all-new Control Panel Platform, which employs a common code base that will facilitate rapid development of other cloud-compatible Gen 2 CPAs now underway. The new apps provide equivalent functionality on both our on-prem and SaaS platforms.

Benefits of the Gen 2 architecture include a more streamlined user experience, a faster, more responsive console, improved printing speed, better CPA management tools for IT admins, and a uniform user interface across a mix of printers. The new generation of CPAs will look and behave the same no matter what printer brand you’re using.

Our new Gen 2 CPA for Canon. View all your secure print jobs and easily select only those you want to print. Even delete jobs you no longer care about.

A first for the Canon partnership. A better solution for secure printing.
This is our first Control Panel Application for Canon, which ranks among the world’s leading printer manufacturers. The CPA is “Canon-certified,” which means it has undergone stringent testing in Canon’s labs and meets all functionality and compatibility standards for the imageRUNNER ADVANCE family of devices.

The new app provides a better secure-printing experience for end users and admins alike. It’s more responsive and has a cleaner, more intuitive interface. Users will enjoy faster print speeds—up to five to ten times faster than with our previous CPAs. And anything that speeds up printing is good news for everyone.

The new CPA also supports time-saving, hassle-free Single Sign-on (SSO) protocols. On printer models with native SSO functionality, you authenticate one time to access any printer app or function. Or, if you’ve already authenticated on the printer, our Gen 2 CPA has a “listener” mode to bypass the login step when it’s time to release a held document.

Maintaining the PrinterLogic advantage for secure printing.
What the new console software doesn’t change is an easy to use, secure pull-printing process that many PrinterLogic users are already familiar with.

PrinterLogic eliminates troublesome print servers, which are vulnerable to attack and put your confidential data at risk. Instead, we use a centrally managed direct IP infrastructure that’s efficient and secure. Here’s how it works:

First, you print from your workstation as usual. The print job (and your confidential data) is held securely on the workstation until it’s called for. Thanks to our serverless printing infrastructure, your docs don’t go anywhere until you are standing at the printer and swipe your badge.

At the printer, once your swipe your badge or login, all of your held print jobs instantly appear on the printer’s screen. You simply pick the job or jobs you want to print on the touchscreen panel, press print, and within seconds, your docs appear in the printer tray. You can even use the console to delete jobs you no longer care about.

All of which ensures that confidential documents get into the right hands, and aren’t left sitting on a printer tray to tempt prying eyes. What’s more, secure release printing does away with abandoned print jobs and reduces wasted, costly consumables.

What’s next?
Our new Control Panel Application debuts this week on PrinterLogic SaaS (formerly PrinterCloud). For more details, view the FAQ. Additional Gen 2 apps for more brands will be released over the remainder of 2019, starting with our new Sharp CPA later next month.

Three more cloud-compatible Gen 2 CPAs will be released this year, and the complete suite will be available by early 2020. At that point, PrinterLogic’s on-prem and SaaS customers can take advantage of secure release pull printing across eight major MFP manufacturers: HP, Canon, Xerox, Konica-Minolta, Ricoh, Sharp, Toshiba and Lexmark/Dell.

If you’re already a PrinterLogic SaaS customer, all you have to do is sit tight. You’ll get access to these new CPAs automatically. If you use PrinterLogic Web Stack (formerly Printer Installer), the new Canon CPA will be part of our 19.1 release, expected to be available within a few weeks.

If you’re not yet a customer but are interested in seeing firsthand how pull printing and secure release printing work in PrinterLogic, be sure to sign up today for a free 30-day demo of our on-premises software. Or test drive our SaaS solution, PrinterLogic SaaS, for the same amount of time.