Posted by Andrew Miller

We’ve talked a lot about PrinterLogic’s capabilities when it comes to network printer management, and how it provides you with a centralized web-based admin portal that’s both feature-rich and incredibly easy to use.

But did you know that PrinterLogic also offers the same level of simplicity and efficiency when it comes to managing printer drivers?

Plenty of our customers already do, as indicated by a recent survey
from the independent research firm TechValidate. That survey found that 76% of the respondent organizations used PrinterLogic to simplify and streamline their printer driver management.

Those respondents weren’t a uniform group. They came from every sector: government, real estate, education, transportation, manufacturing, nonprofit, construction, banking, and healthcare—to name only a few. They also ranged in size from small businesses to large enterprises, including members of the Global 500, the Fortune 500 and the S&P; 500.

In each case, PrinterLogic enabled these organizations—regardless of their size, regardless of their expertise—to regain control not only of their network printer hardware but also the software required to interface with that hardware. Historically, drivers have been one of the most problematic aspects of keeping an enterprise print environment running smoothly. But PrinterLogic changes all that. Its streamlined printer driver management gives you centralized management of all your printer drivers in a single repository. From this console, you can push out driver updates to printers on end-user workstations with ease. You can choose to do so selectively, or you can even schedule mass updates to take place automatically outside of business hours.

PrinterLogic also avoids the classic issues of incompatibility. Its universal support means that it works with all printer drivers, from manufacturer-supplied to custom-coded. And because PrinterLogic isn’t partial to any one platform, managing printer drivers is an uncomplicated process in Windows, Mac, Linux or hybrid environments.

The same goes for virtualization solutions such as Citrix, VMware or VDI. PrinterLogic’s seamless printer driver management means that all drivers are automatically managed and updated on Citrix servers and VMware or VDI virtual machines you might have throughout your organization.

Maintaining and updating drivers is one thing. PrinterLogic, as all those satisfied customers can attest, actually goes one step further by giving you fine-grained, expert-level control over every aspect of your organization’s drivers. Use it to quickly access detailed profile configurations and adjust parameters like print resolution, duplexing, paper size, paper source—any setting that the printer supports, as a matter of fact. Then you can choose to apply these custom profile configurations during the initial printer install, each time a user logs on, or even after the completion of a print job.

Printer driver management isn’t the only way PrinterLogic improves day-to-day handling of drivers, either. It integrates with your current WAN caching technologies to conserve bandwidth by avoiding cross-WAN driver downloads. So it ends up saving IT resources in every possible area.

It’s safe to say that many of those organizations first deployed PrinterLogic exclusively as a robust print management solution. Those impressive TechValidate numbers show how many of them are now enjoying its manifold benefits as a printer driver management solution too.

Posted by Andrew Miller

Driver management. Those two words are enough to make some folks sigh in despair. Because it’s one thing to manage all the networked printers throughout your organization—but drivers, as necessary as they are, end up adding another layer of complexity to the situation. And with that complexity comes a whole host of issues that can emerge and require extensive troubleshooting.

In your print environment, maybe you have a mix of hardware by different manufacturers. Maybe you use universal drivers for some equipment, custom drivers for others, and manufacturer-supplied drivers for others. Maybe you use different configurations of the same driver for different sites and departments. When it comes to driver management, all those are variables that are hard to monitor and change—especially when you factor print servers into the equation.

Then there are driver updates, which can require loads of WAN bandwidth and cause incompatibility issues with certain hardware. Sometimes you want to automatically push out those updates enterprise-wide, and sometimes you want to do it selectively to particular workstations or groups.

As many of our customers have already discovered, PrinterLogic allows you to take control of all those potential driver management problems. In fact, according to a recent TechValidate survey of PrinterLogic customers, more than three-quarters of the respondents said that PrinterLogic helped them find a simple and efficient way to manage drivers.

What does PrinterLogic do that’s so special?

For starters, it has rock-solid universal support. That means it just works with all printer drivers and end-user workstations—it doesn’t matter whether your drivers are custom or manufacturer-supplied, or if you’re in an environment that’s Windows, Mac, Linux, or a combination of all three.

PrinterLogic also allows you to manage your drivers, just like your printers, from a single pane of glass. That saves you the time and hassle of traveling to remote sites (or maintaining a satellite IT team) to make driver changes or updates.

Speaking of updates, you can maintain a single driver repository on your local network, eliminating WAN overhead when pushing out new versions. You also have the option of deploying updates to end-user workstations manually (for added control) or automatically (for added convenience).

Furthermore, PrinterLogic gives you precise control over how each driver is configured. You can adjust common driver settings such as dpi, duplexing and paper size, thereby limiting or expanding the options for your end users depending on the scenario. You can even dive deeper, accessing advanced settings in the driver interface that can adjust any function the printer is capable of providing.

Give PrinterLogic a try and see for yourself how easy it is. And the next time someone mentions driver management, you might join the rest of our customers and cheer instead of sigh.

Check out this page for even more information on how PrinterLogic enables you to manage drivers easily and efficiently across your entire enterprise print environment.

Posted by Jordan Lindsey

In today’s print management ecosystem, the availability of the physical device and the need to know what is and isn’t working is a high priority. PrinterLogic can transform your printing environment into a centralized direct IP environment, removing the need for print servers, server management, downtime, and other daunting tasks. PrinterLogic also makes available the SNMP status of the physical devices, helping you avoid a long lasting paper jam, a tray being left open on accident, or other errors that can cause unnecessary downtime.

PrinterLogic constantly communicates and reports back any errors the printer currently has, e.g. printer is low on paper or has a paper jam. Each printer managed by PrinterLogic has a “Status” tab that allows the instant view of that printer, including: Community Name (adjustable), Ping Status, Last Updated, Console Message, Operational State, Current Status, Error Condition, Model, Color (supported), Duplex (supported), Uptime, Hostname, IP Address, MAC Address and Lifetime Page Count. You can set a timer on how you view this information, or you can always click a refresh button to get an instant new view.

Along with the Status tab, there are also reports that can be viewed or used as a dashboard. You can view “All Printers” or “Printers w/ Errors Only” which will give you a view for the entire company. You can sort on any column, search certain times, names, errors or other information that is relevant for you to find exactly what you are looking for. Each report can be set to auto-refresh, they can also be exported out, allowing you to easily and quickly email the report to someone to further address a printer hands on.

SNMP monitoring is great, but what you really need is the ability to be proactive about monitoring your printers. PrinterLogic provides the ability to notify whoever you choose—whether that be IT admin, help desk or your MPS—when there is an error. You can choose what error spurs the notification, enabling you to preemptively eliminate help desk calls and downtime for users.

To learn more about how PrinterLogic’s SNMP monitoring can help your printing environment, schedule a demo today.

Posted by Devin Anderson

Are you using Windows Server 2012 as your print management solution? Are you seeing things like the additional drivers greyed out? Maybe it’s not showing printers or the printers appear to be missing altogether?

You can run into lots of problems when using Windows Server 2012 as your print server, particularly when pushing out printers to your end users with group policy objects (GPOs). GPO scripts might be relatively easy to create, but GPO settings certainly aren’t forgiving, and something as basic as an unchecked box can cause a deployment to fail. That’s usually followed by hours and hours of troubleshooting.

With PrinterLogic, however, you can overcome all the limitations of utilizing Windows Server 2012 as a print server. PrinterLogic allows you to deploy printers to the Active Directory (AD) user, computer, group, container or organizational unit (OU) with a lot less fuss than Window Server 2012 normally requires. Better still? Not only can you fine-tune further options within container and OU deployments, you can also deploy your printer according to hostname, IP address (or range thereof), or even the MAC address of the workstation.

Furthermore, deployments that you schedule in PrinterLogic are installed after the user has logged in to his or her workstation—unlike GPOs or scripts, which take place while a user is logging into his or her workstation. That simultaneous process makes troubleshooting and error logging a lot more difficult with Windows Server 2012 than with PrinterLogic.

That’s why more and more companies of all sizes have used their Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2012 print server migration as a chance to put true best practices into action and make a wholesale switch to PrinterLogic, eliminating the slowness, hassle and frustration of print servers for good.

If you’re running Windows Server 2012 right now and experiencing any of these issues, there’s good news. PrinterLogic features a simple import utility that is designed to make the print management migration effortless. It does so by copying the following information from your Windows Server 2012 print server into the PrinterLogic database:

• Printer name
• Location information
• Comments
• Port name (IP or hostname)
• Protocol (RAW or LPR)
• Both 32- and 64-bit drivers for that printer

Once the import has completed successfully, you can use PrinterLogic alongside Windows Server 2012 or you can permanently abandon your print servers along with all their problems. With or without Windows Server 2012 as your print server, PrinterLogic will allow you to centrally manage all the printers in your organization from its single web-based administrative console and deploy them as direct IP printers to your end users. You’ll wind up with greater at-a-glance control over your print environment, yet day-to-day management will be simplified—as will the printing experience for your end users.

Who would have thought that Windows Server 2012 issues could have such a great outcome?

Posted by Andrew Miller

Of all the headaches that are associated with managing an enterprise print environment, what would you say is the at the root of most of those issues?

If you said “printer installation,” you’ll find yourself with plenty of company. With traditional print management solutions, the list of things that can go wrong is endless. A driver incompatibility or one mistyped setting can lead to hours of troubleshooting.

Installation also frequently forces end users with varying levels of computer skills to meet skilled IT professionals halfway. That’s why routine printer installs account for so many service desk calls: “I’m not seeing the new printer.” “It says there’s been an error and to contact the system administrator.” “There are three printers available to install. Which one do I choose?” “My old printer was working yesterday, but now the new one isn’t.” You and your support team are probably all too familiar with comments like those—not to mention the frustration and confusion that usually accompany them.

But what if you could make routine printer installation for end users as easy as a mouse click?

That’s not a pipe dream—that’s exactly what you get with PrinterLogic. No wonder a whopping 89% of our customers surveyed in a independent TechValidate study say that PrinterLogic helped them simplify end-user printer installation.

PrinterLogic achieves such impressive figures in this area by doing what it does best: simplifying the complexity of enterprise print environments. Our print management solution provides a single consistent printer installation portal across your entire organization, so every employee sees the same easy-to-use interface regardless of their location or department. These end users can then easily browse, select and automatically install the correct printer. You can even upload an optional floor plan, making printer installation as intuitive as clicking the desired spot on a map.

Of course, the end users are only presented with what’s necessary for proper, painless installation. On the backend, you and your IT team are able to deploy those printers to specific Active Directory users, computers, groups, containers and even IP address ranges. That way, you retain complete control over configuration and deployment, but end users are given the confidence and empowerment to install printers by themselves without relying on service desk assistance. It’s a win-win situation that saves time and boosts productivity.

To find out more, visit our

page

describing PrinterLogic’s self-installation portal in a bit more detail.

Using industry shorthand, we often broadly describe PrinterLogic as a print management solution, but it’s also helpful to think of PrinterLogic more explicitly as network printer management software. True, that’s a bit of a mouthful, but in some ways it better captures PrinterLogic’s core strength of straightforward centralized management of your enterprise print environment.

Through PrinterLogic’s centralized direct IP printer management, you’re able to centrally manage every single networked printer in your organization by using a single web-based admin console. You can manage using domains or trusts—but then again, you don’t have to. The Administrator console shows a simple tree view that allows you to quickly locate printers by country, state / province, city, building, or floor and modify printer attributes such as; driver, default settings, IP address, etc.

When you modify any one of those settings, they are automatically applied to the printer configurations on the end-user workstations. As you might expect from any network printer management software worth its salt, you can even use a convenient find-and-replace function to search for particular attributes and change them individually or collectively.

And with a network printer management tool like PrinterLogic, you don’t just get central oversight and control of existing printers. You have the ability to centrally create new printers too. By adding a familiar object such as an Active Directory (AD) group or an IP address range to the “Deploy” tab in the admin console, you can instantly deploy printers to end users. The printer will automatically be installed on the end user’s computer during the next login event or following a refresh of the PrinterLogic desktop software client. At the time of creation, you even have the ability to specify the new printer as the default printer on a one-time or permanent basis. This process is as straightforward for one printer as it is for 10 or even 1,000.

And when it comes time to remove one or more of those printers, you can do so manually or automatically based on specific criteria you set.

Bundled with all this are powerful, more granular management options. When using PrinterLogic as your network printer management software, you’re able to configure driver settings such as resolution, duplexing, paper size, and lots more right from the admin console. You also have the ability to monitor and manipulate individual printer queues. Is there a stuck job at some distant remote site that’s holding up the works? You can identify and delete that job on the end user’s workstation directly from the admin portal.

When you think of having such versatile features like these at your fingertips, maybe calling PrinterLogic a mere network printer management tool is an understatement. It’s more like the Swiss Army knife of network printer management software!

Printer management in an Enterprise network can be a touchy subject. Especially when the network consists of multiple OS’s and platforms. Windows and its various versions, OS X and now Linux distributions are all making their way into the enterprise network. Though it is possible to connect your Windows, Mac and Linux clients to the printers being shared from your Windows print server, the question is, how do you go about managing all those printers and drivers across the array of operating systems seamlessly?

The answer to that question is PrinterLogic. With PrinterLogic you can manage your entire enterprise printing environment with a single server. The server host’s a web application (PrinterLogic) that can be accessed from any computer on the network with a web browser. The PrinterLogic web application, paired with it’s client—which resides on the endpoint device—will automatically convert your existing printers over to Direct IP and assume all future management from that point on. The next time you need to update a printer driver, rename a printer, or just gather extensive reporting and statistics about your printing, you can log into the PrinterLogic Administration console and with a few clicks your entire environment is updated automatically and you have informative reports and historical printing records. In addition to being able to manage your printers and drivers, you’ll no longer have a print server—which means you eliminate that single point of failure, while also reducing or eliminating WAN traffic caused by printing. That’s a win win. So how does this all work?

Step 1. Spin up a server running Windows Server 2008R2 or newer. This can be a VM or physical box.

Step 2. Run PrinterLogic Web Stack (formerly Printer Installer) setup on the server. This should only take around 10 mins to complete since it will be adding the IIS role and installing the web app.

Step 3. Import your existing printers into the software with an easy to use import utility that can read your print server. If your printers are already installed locally via Direct IP then you can use a spreadsheet file and our Data Manager utility to import your document and create the printers.

Step 4. Install the PrinterLogic Client on your workstations. This can be done with a provided MSI, PKG, and DEB file. Mass deployments can be done silently with SCCM or Group Policies.

Step 5. You are done.

Once the PrinterLogic Client is installed on your workstations, it will automatically convert the existing Windows Shared printers over to Direct IP. And for existing Direct IP printers, the Client will assume the management. At this point you can update your printers from the provided PrinterLogic Administrator Console, from any computer on your network, and that change will replicate back out to your environment and be applied to every workstation with that printer installed.

By now you are probably wondering how it works with your Linux workstations. Our developers have created a Client that can be installed on your Linux workstations (debian distros only at the time of writing) with a deb file. After running through steps 1 – 3 found above you can now install the PrinterLogic Client with your organization’s tools used to deploy .deb applications, or with sudo access you can manually install the PrinterLogic Client. The steps for the manual install are as follows:

Method #1:

Manually Installing the PrinterLogic Client from the PrinterLogic Self-Service Printer Installation Portal

To manually install the client visit the PrinterLogic Portal http://printers.yourdomain.com

1. Click on the Install Client link in the top right corner to download the PrinterLogic Client installation deb file.
2. Browse to the download folder and open the printerinstallerclient_amd64.deb file with Ubuntu Software Center by double clicking or right clicking and selecting “Open with Ubuntu Software Center.”
3. Click Install at the top right and enter your password to authorize the Client install.
4. Refresh browser and the Client install is complete.

Method #2:

Manually Install the PrinterLogic Client in Linux Ubuntu from a Terminal (you must have sudo access)

1. 1. Get the PrinterLogic Client install .deb file from the server:
      wget http://<yourserver>/client/setup/printerinstallerclient_amd64.deb
      Note:
      * Sudo access is required

 

1. 1. Install the Client and set the home url with the following command:
      sudo dpkg -i printerinstallerclient_amd64.deb || sudo apt-get -f install && sudo /opt/PrinterInstallerClient/bin/./set_home_url.sh <set http or https> <homeURLhere>Example: sudo dpkg -i printerinstallerclient_amd64.deb || sudo apt-get -f install && sudo /opt/PrinterInstallerClient/bin/./set_home_url.sh http printers.printerlogic.local

 

1. If you are on an HP ThinPro device you will install the Client with the following command:
   sudo dpkg -i printerinstallerclient_amd64.deb || sudo apt-get -f install && sudo /writable/opt/PrinterInstallerClient/bin/./set_home_url.sh <set http or https> <homeURLhere>

The PrinterLogic Client is now installed and you are managing the printers and drivers for your Linux workstations.

As Microsoft’s End of Life deadline has come and gone for Windows Server 2003/R2, you might be considering using the company’s Print Server Migration Tool (yes, they do offer one) to help with the upgrade transition.

There are a couple of paths you can take to deal with the obsolescence. Since Windows Server 2008 is still supported for a few more years, you can:

• Use the Print Server Migration Tool to go from Windows Server 2003 to 2008
• Use the Print Server Migration Tool to go from Windows Server 2003 to 2008, then to 2012
• Or use the Print Server Migration Tool to go from Windows Server 2003 straight to 2012

Regardless of which path you choose to follow, the Print Server Migration Tool will present you with a wizard that will allow you to export your print queues and drivers. Then you can import all these settings into the new server. One big caveat is that you might not have 64-bit drivers installed on Windows Server 2003, yet you will need to have them in place when transitioning to 2008 or 2012. You’ll have to add each of those 64-bit drivers manually prior to using the Print Server Migration Tool, otherwise the migration could fail. To be on the safe side, you’ll want to use the most current universal drivers—unless, of course, you need a manufacturer driver for specific capabilities.

Once you’ve completed the Print Server Migration Tool process successfully, your work isn’t over. Next you’ll need to allow the users to connect to the server and see if everything is running smoothly. Remember to rename the new print server or take the old one offline beforehand! It’s a common oversight that causes no end of headache.

The larger problem with using the Print Server Migration Tool at all is that you’re bound to run into object or queue errors, dependency issues and configuration complications. And in the end you’re still stuck with print servers.

So here’s some food for thought: Why not use this migration from Windows Server 2003 to 2008 or 2012 as a chance to eliminate print servers altogether? Instead of wrestling with the Print Server Migration Tool, you can use PrinterLogic’s web-based application to select all your existing queues, drivers, preferences and information. Then everything will be carried over seamlessly into PrinterLogic’s rock-solid, highly adaptable print environment. After pushing out a tiny client to your workstations, any Windows shared printers on your network will be automatically detected and converted into direct IP printers.

Nor does the ease of use stop there. PrinterLogic lets you automatically update drivers individually or en masse, manage printers and print queues from a single pane of glass, and even empowers your users with simple self-service printer installs. All that fretting over 64-bit drivers and dependencies? It’s now a thing of the past. Just like your old print server.

There’s an oft-repeated saying that the Chinese use the same word for crisis and opportunity. That idea certainly applies to migrating from Windows Server 2003. Rather than view it as a crisis of driver errors, lost queues and incompatible settings, isn’t it better to seize the opportunity to move to PrinterLogic?

Posted by Devin Anderson

Many of our enterprise customers praise PrinterLogic for its astounding ease of use—especially when it comes to their employees’ printing experience. Which is to say, those employees click “Print” and their document is instantly queued and printed at the correct printer. No cryptic errors, no jobs that mysteriously vanish into the ether. That’s exactly how they expect it to be. Which is exactly how it should be.

When it comes to security, though, that effortlessness can pose a risk. It’s like letting your web browser store all your login credentials. Sure, it makes things more convenient, but it opens up the possibility for exploitation too. That’s why two-step verification—whereby a website will immediately follow your login attempt with a time-limited security code that only you can access—has started to become common practice.

To address similar concerns over security, PrinterLogic uses secure pull printing. What is pull printing? Think of it as two-step verification for your enterprise print environment. There’s the initial step that comes when a user sends a job to a printer you’ve authorized for their use through Active Directory or an IP range. Then there’s the second step that issues the command for the printer to actually print the document.

The “pull” command can be issued in a variety of ways:

• Release Station: A PC or tablet (Android or iOS) is set up next to the printer. The device is set to kiosk mode and allows the end user to see and release their print jobs via the PrinterLogic web-based app.
• Mobile Device: Any device with a browser can select and release the stored print jobs via PrinterLogic.
• Control Panel or Console: The print job is released through a PrinterLogic app that is located on the Multi Function Printer control panel.

What’s different about the way PrinterLogic implements its pull printing solution is that no server is required. Traditional print solutions end up routing the job to be pulled through one or more print servers—which creates additional waypoints where the job can be intercepted, lost or held up.

PrinterLogic, by contrast, uses server-less pull printing, so the job goes directly from the device to the virtual pull printing queue. Once it’s in that queue, it can only be “pulled” by authorized users.

But here’s the ultra-convenient part: Those users can pull the job wherever they happen to be. That means you can print out a sensitive presentation from a workstation on the third floor and pull it for printing once you reach your meeting on the fifth floor. That way, it’s not left sitting in the paper tray for all to see.

PrinterLogic’s server-less, secure pull printing solution is a great way to keep your documents confidential while actually adding practical features. Because, as we all know, even the most rock-solid security features are ineffective if they’re not convenient enough for everyone to use.

Posted by Andrew Miller

Let’s do a little macro/micro exercise. We’ll start by zooming in on the average employee. He’s there at his desk, printing out an important spreadsheet or the annual report, along with a cute sign for the break-room or his buddy’s band poster—maybe even doing it in color. Toner and paper are a natural part of his workday routine. Sometimes they run out—but then they’re replenished as if by magic (by the diligent office manager). So he doesn’t think about how much he’s using.

Now let’s skip ahead to the next day, when he does the same thing again. And the next. And the next. All to the tune of $1,000 in consumables per year on average. When you start to zoom out, multiplying that by the number of employees in your entire organization, it quickly becomes apparent that the cost of print consumables in enterprise printing is anything but trivial. It’s actually a significant expense.

Auditing is a great way to get a grip on the runaway costs of consumables, but traditional print management solutions don’t provide any useful reporting tools that give you both the comprehensive and granular data you need to audit effectively. Native Windows print services don’t provide any auditing and reporting features at all. On top of that, you have the hefty upfront costs of print servers (see our previous post on reducing print server infrastructure) and the time your staff spends answering print-related service desk calls (see our previous post on reducing these costs, too).

Fortunately, PrinterLogic printer management software allows you to reduce or even avoid these costs while giving you powerful auditing and reporting tools to monitor usage of consumables at the same time. Even though every print job is sent directly to a physical printer, the client on each workstation sends relevant metadata to the admin. That data is then collected and presented in a way that enables you to view all print job statistics in a clearly understandable format that can also be exported for further analysis and shared.

With PrinterLogic, you’ll be able to easily keep an eye on things like the number of pages being printed in a particular department, your company’s top 100 printer users, and employees who frequently initiate large printing jobs. This link has a few more examples of all the parameters you can monitor at a glance.

Thanks to these detailed auditing and reporting features, our enterprise customers have been able to take steps to reduce their usage of print consumables considerably. A recent TechValidate survey of our enterprise customers showed that 21% of the respondents were able to reduce their print consumables by 70% or more. Nearly one-third of customers saw a reduction of at least 50%, and 47% of them saw at least a 30% reduction. When you apply that kind of decrease to our average employee above, you’re looking at $300 per year in print consumables instead of $1,000. Multiply that by all the employees in your organization, and suddenly your significant expenses turn into massive cost savings.

Such proven auditing tools might not be the primary reason why our customers make PrinterLogic their enterprise printing solution of choice, but you can be sure that more and more of them are finding these tools indispensable.