Enterprise Printing for Chromebooks

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For years now, Chromebooks have been the go-to computing choice for the education sector. In their prime, Chromebooks experienced a 180 percent increase in total shipments, which surpassed the shipment totals of other top OS competitors. Known for cloud-based email, built-in security, and storage, Chromebooks quickly became the answer for enterprise organizations trying to speed up the transition to a remote-friendly workplace.

However, despite their upsides, printing has long been a sore spot for IT teams wanting to deliver streamlined Chromebook printing to their end users. 

 

Struggling to Find Answers to Chromebook Printing? You’re Not Alone.

With Chromebook adoption comes Chromebook printing. For what it was, Google Cloud Print didn’t provide reliable print capabilities to Chromebook users. Full compatibility was often limited to printer models and apps deemed Google Cloud Print capable, and admins accustomed to enterprise-grade print management may have found backend features lacking. 

In enterprise print environments, setting up new users can be a complex process, and installing new printers generally requires IT intervention, too, which can offset the otherwise minimal support requirements of Chromebooks. The strings attached to Chromebooks have therefore led to some hesitancy in the enterprise. This is especially true in healthcare environments, where the appeal of Chromebooks’ low cost and ultra-portability is often outweighed by a lack of Chromebook printing support with essential EMR/EHR printing solutions.

To facilitate the adoption of Chromebooks across all industries, what’s needed is a mobile printing solution that offers seamless, feature-rich Chromebook printing, enterprise-grade print management, and print security without the need for Chromebook printing workarounds.

 

Get Power, Simplicity, and Security for Chromebook Printing

PrinterLogic’s next-generation print management solution features highly configurable, easy-to-manage, native mobile printing capabilities, making Chromebooks a much more viable option in the enterprise. With Mobile Printing from PrinterLogic, organizations experience four compelling advantages:

 

Print from any device

Any employee with a Chromebook—or any other mobile device with a browser—can print as needed. In Chrome OS, this is as simple as clicking the “Print” button and making sure the PrinterLogic printer is selected. The user can then visit the web-based release portal to send the job to any authorized network printer.

 

Print to any printer

Any network printer, including legacy devices, can be configured to work with PrinterLogic’s Chromebook printing solution. This means that IT doesn’t have to procure dedicated Chromebook-friendly printers or sacrifice printer functionality for end users to enjoy intuitive, full-featured printing from their Chromebooks.

 

No client or printer software

When printing from a Chromebook or any other mobile device, there’s no need for end users or admins to install any additional client or printer-based software. This saves employees from calling the helpdesk for printer support and enables IT staff to continue focusing on duties other than print management.

 

Add extra security to documents with pull printing

The release step, which transfers the print job from PrinterLogic’s virtual queue to the printer queue, helps to ensure that the job goes to the correct printer—and is released only when the user is ready. 

The effect of this step is actually two-fold. 

First, it cuts down on misdirected and unwanted print jobs, thereby reducing waste. And second, it decreases the likelihood of print jobs being abandoned in the output tray. That keeps sensitive documents concealed from prying eyes and internal theft. Admins can also enable the automatic deletion of unreleased print jobs with the same goals in mind.

 

Make Chromebook Printing Part of Your Print Solution

In addition to providing mobile and BYOD devices with platform- and printer-agnostic printing, PrinterLogic also features robust, enterprise-level print management. For organizations that have found replacement solutions for Google Cloud Print somewhat limiting, PrinterLogic offers a more powerful alternative. Active Directory integration, advanced printer deployment options, and easy configuration of defaults make it easy to control and direct printer access across the enterprise from a centralized management console.

The simplicity of Chromebook printing with PrinterLogic ultimately leads to reductions in time spent on print management—along with corresponding reductions in administrative costs. This combination of simplicity and print security makes PrinterLogic’s Mobile Printing feature ideal for enterprise-scale businesses, educational institutions (even beyond K-12), and dynamic healthcare environments employing a large roaming staff.

Large or distributed organizations may once have expressed reservations about Chromebooks in the enterprise, but PrinterLogic changes that narrative. Now admins can securely manage and control print activity—including mobile printing—across the entire organization from a single pane of glass.

To learn more about how PrinterLogic can help you accelerate and simplify Chromebook adoption in any enterprise environment, download our white paper on Chromebook printing. 

Or better yet, sign up for a free 30-day trial of PrinterLogic and see for yourself how easy Chromebook printing can be.

What to Do When GPO Printer Deployment is Not Working

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**Originally published on August 15, 2014**

There are many reasons deploying printers via Group Policy fails:

The truth is GPO printer deployments offer a lot of limitations and potential failure points, often resulting in calls to the helpdesk to resolve the issue. 

This article will cover some basic reasons for failed GPO deployments and provide alternative methods of printer deployment to help you out.

 

Reason #1: Point and Print Restrictions Not Configured

One common problem is due to the Point and Print Restrictions policy not being configured correctly. This will commonly result in users not being able to download drivers from print servers. 

This setting can be configured under Computer Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > Printers. This should be configured in one of two ways:

Disable the policy

This is the easiest and fastest method, but doesn’t allow for granular control over which print servers can be connected to.

Enable the policy

You will need to modify the following settings at a minimum:

Set “When installing drivers for a new connection” to “Do not show warning or elevation prompt”.

Set “When updating drivers for an existing connection” to “Do not show warning or elevation prompt”.

Unless you want to restrict these settings to a particular set of print servers, uncheck “Users can only point and print to these servers” and “Users can only point and print to machines in their forest”.

 

Reason #2: OU and Policy Type Don’t Match

Another reason printers might not be deployed properly is if the linked OU doesn’t match the policy type. If you are deploying a printer using User Group Policy Preferences, the linked OU should contain users that need to have the printer installed. If you are deploying a printer using Computer Group Policy Preferences, the linked OU should instead contain computers that need to have the printer installed. Linking a User GPP to an OU that only contains computers, or vice versa, will have no effect. 

When deploying a printer to an OS that is a different architecture than the print server (such as 32-bit Windows 7 connecting to a 64-bit Windows Server 2008 R2 print server), make sure the correct drivers are installed on the print server. Both the 32-bit and 64-bit drivers must have the exact same name for them to associate properly. Deploying a printer will fail if the appropriate driver for the printer can’t be found.

 

Reason #3: Typos

Remember your elementary school days when your teacher would make you double-check your work before you turned it in? 

The same principle applies to printer deployments. 

It’s important to make sure there are no typos. It’s a simple concept, but having even a single character off in the print server name, printer share name, etc., will cause the deployment to fail even if all of the settings are correct. 

 

Start Deploying Printers Without GPOs

If you want to bypass the problems of deploying printers via Group Policy entirely, a simple alternative is to eliminate your print servers and migrate to a centralized direct IP printing platform. Not only are deployments faster and easier, but printers can be delivered to end users with just a few clicks—no GPOs or scripts required. 

PrinterLogic’s next-gen serverless print management solution integrates seamlessly with Active Directory and features an intuitive web-based GUI. Set up automatic deployments based on user, computer, container, or IP addresses, use universal drivers instead of working with individual manufacturers, and eliminate frustrating driver problems and policy conflicts once and for all. 

Get a free 30-day trial of PrinterLogic to eliminate GPOs and scripts for good. 

Print Mapping: What It Is and How to Use It (Reliably)

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**Originally published on December 5, 2018**

Print mapping, as many folks in IT will be able to tell you, is the process by which a user or admin associates a client computer with a network printer to give that client printing capability. 

As a term, print (or printer) mapping tends to be used interchangeably with printer installation—although, if we’re being pedantic, mapping is only one common form of installation.

 

 

The Difficulties of Print Mapping

 

Print mapping is often a multi-step procedure that involves identifying the desired printer beforehand, diving into the correct category in the system settings, adding the printer from a list or manually entering its network information, and finally, selecting the correct print driver.

Despite the ubiquity of technology in every aspect of our lives and the long history of computer-based printing, the average end user is unlikely to know how to map a printer without a step-by-step guide or some hand-holding from technical support. 

Without education and guidance, end user mishaps result in more print-related tasks for IT to handle. 

If the end user misidentifies the printer or its driver, it can cause printing problems such as printing to the wrong printer or an inability to print altogether. Instead, the burden typically falls on IT to perform printer mapping, which means valuable time is wasted on routine print management.

 

Your Roadmap to Successful Printer Installations

 

At PrinterLogic, our philosophy is that the most effective solution is to empower the end user by making print mapping a simple and more intuitive process. If the end user can perform self-service installations without memorizing the detailed steps of mapping a printer, that removes IT from the equation and enables the end user to see quick and satisfying results—lowering print-related helpdesk tickets in the process.

We achieve this end user empowerment through a unique Self-Service Printer Installation Portal, which enables users of almost any technical skill level to identify and install nearby printers with a single click. Printer mapping becomes as simple as visiting a webpage and clicking on a printer icon.

 

Navigating the Self-Service Installation Portal

 

The PrinterLogic Self-Service Printer Installation Portal is easy for anyone—even brand-new employees—to access, navigate, and understand. 

On Windows, for example, the user begins by simply left-clicking on the PrinterLogic client icon in the system tray. This brings up an internal webpage (which is also accessible directly by URL) in the default web browser that shows a location tree in a left-hand pane as well as a floor plan map in the main window. 

In large organizations, the self-service portal can be configured to open automatically to a user’s exact location. Using the tree, the user can then quickly drill down to their specific floor to view a map of their actual floor with physical printers denoted by corresponding color or monochrome icons. Clicking on an icon will install both the printer and print driver. 

It’s about as close as you can get to GPS for print mapping.

print map

Figure 1: End users can see the layout of their location and easily install printers using a floor plan map or tree view via the PrinterLogic self-service portal.  

In addition to the straightforward icons, the portal also shows a list of available printers with descriptive names. The names of the printer drivers, if any, are indicated alongside the names of the printers. 

And if IT hasn’t uploaded or updated the custom floor plan maps for a particular location, that’s okay. The list of available printers will still appear, and users can click on these list items to install their desired printer and the associated print driver.

Later, if the user needs to carry out print mapping again for a new or different printer, they can access the self-service portal again using any of the methods described above. This is especially useful for mobile employees who hop from location to location and need instant access to printers wherever they go. It also benefits the helpdesk, as they no longer have to field urgent printer installation requests.

 

 

Reliable Print Mapping and Tracking

 

This convenient and consistent printer-mapping experience is managed through PrinterLogic’s centralized Administrative Console, where admins can manage profiles and oversee print tracking across the organization. There, they can upload or change floor plan maps, specify which printers can print in color, associate printers with the correct print drivers for automatic installs, and customize incidental but important portal settings like branding with the company logo.

As with PrinterLogic’s print management solution, a little setup goes a long way. 

Uploading current floor plan maps, indicating color printers through the respective icons, and pairing printers with the right default printer drivers from the administrative backend all but eliminates the potential for the kinds of time-consuming, hard-to-troubleshoot mistakes that end users invariably make when print mapping in traditional print environments. When the complicated process of mapping a printer is simplified to a single click, IT and end users benefit.

 

Conclusion

 

PrinterLogic’s self-service portal streamlines the printer-mapping experience for everyone in the organization. The proven result is a time- and cost-saving reduction in calls to the helpdesk, as organizations like Georgia System Operations Corporation and New Pig Corporation discovered. Those small but cumulative boosts to productivity are what help make PrinterLogic such a cost-effective print management solution.

Sign up for a free 30-day demo today to test PrinterLogic’s streamlined printer-mapping experience and powerful print-tracking features in your organization. How to map a printer will no longer be a question that causes your end users and helpdesk staff to want to throw in the towel.