How to Streamline Back-end Batch Printing

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Let’s say you land at your desk first thing on Monday morning when a department head approaches you asking for help on a critical printing process. The department is implementing a new ticketing system to print thousands of tickets for an event. The ticketing system groups the tickets by order number, which could include multiple tickets for multiple people in a single order. 

Obviously, it’s imperative that these tickets are printed in the correct order to avoid confusion during distribution to the paying customers without disrupting productivity. However, the problem is that the ticketing system can’t guarantee this. 

How are you going to achieve this?


The answer: Batch printing to streamline your printing

Batch printing is necessary to streamline the output of bulk documents from ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) or EMR (Electronic Medical Records) systems since, more than likely, the way in which they are printed directly impacts your customers, productivity, budgets, and more. 

Printing in large batches happens in any industry. Whether you have lab techs trying to print off patient lab results for the day, manufacturing staff printing bulk shipping labels, or printing tickets for a major event; your goal is to make this experience as seamless as possible. 

This functionality is simple enough, right? Batch printing is a pretty standard capability, especially for enterprises that need to print a lot of documents. 


But where does Output Management enter this conversation? 

Vasion’s Output Management solution connects to your back-end EMR, ERP, or line-of-business applications to facilitate printing. Output Management offers an API Print Service that allows you to deploy the API within your network to connect your back-end applications to printers and handle any specific printing needs using RESTful API calls. 

One instance where this is used is batch printing. The Output Management Batch Printing feature supports requests sent natively from Epic, along with our API Print Service, to handle printing from any number of EMRs or ERPs. Regardless of the source application, Batch Printing follows these four basic steps:

  1. The source application (EMR/ERP) sends a request to the Output Management Service to open a batch with a batch open request. This request contains a unique identifier for the batch and identifiers for all jobs that will be received as part of this batch.
  2. Batch jobs are sent through the Output Management Service. While a batch is open, it is put on standby and will not be printed until it is closed. Of course, your non-batch jobs will still be processed and printed normally.
  3. The batch is closed once the Output Management Service receives a batch close request containing the unique batch identifier.
  4. Then your jobs are printed in the order they need to be in! At this point, the API Print Service makes the request back to communicate the status of the print job, either successful or unsuccessful.

 

Why Output Management?

Vasion’s Output Management solution is highly reliable and highly available. With support for load balancing, API printing, and ERP/EMR connections, Output Management eliminates single points of failure when printing from your critical line of business applications, ensuring output is received exactly as needed. 

And, you have access to several other great capabilities for your batch jobs like:

  • Bidirectional communication with the printer confirming your batch jobs were 100% successful
  • Converting files to print-ready formats for individual printer preferences
  • Automatically redirecting batch jobs to a backup printer in case of failures
  • Remote facilities printing batch jobs outside the network to secure company printers
  • And many more…

 

Let’s have a conversation about your printing environment and back-end document processes. Schedule a demo today.

How API Printing is the Missing Puzzle Piece for Your Environment

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You may be familiar with printing protocols such as Line Printer Daemon Protocol (LPR) or Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) when communicating with servers and clients. These industry-standard protocols are widely used for most printing processes and provide a secure connection for print data all the to the printer tray. 


Closer Look at What LPR and IPP Printing Protocols Are and Do

Line Printer Daemon (LPR) has a very strict communication standard, and a majority of all printers support this protocol, as defined in RFC 1179. Due to its widespread support and well-defined parameters, it can be easy to lean towards when needing to print over the network as a default printing connection.

Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) is a communication protocol–its name explains what it does: facilitating printing over the Internet. IPP requests use the hypertext transport protocol (HTTP) and can support HTTPS (becoming IPPS), alleviating security concerns. In contrast to LPR, it also supports strong error messages and modern features of the printer. IPP Everywhere came a few versions later, allowing printing from any device–being “driverless”–regardless of vendor-specific software. 


Going One Step Further  

You’ve got your standard print communication down with LPR and IPP protocols. But when you need to connect your printers with custom software in your organization, like web-based line-of-business applications that don’t have a native printing connection into a seamless printing process, you need a customizable, simple solution to make that possible. 


Introducing API Printing: The Piece to the Puzzle 

Printing with an API connection bridges the gap with flexibility and customizability when printing from web-based applications without native printing capabilities. As well as being extremely lightweight with no need for physical print server hardware, API printing gives you that extra control over your print jobs, making it a necessary printing connection to introduce into your environment. 

1. APIs are customizable to your organization’s applications

Within PrinterLogic’s Output Management bundle, the API Print Service connects any web-based system, not natively equipped to communicate with printing protocols but can make requests over the Internet with your existing print management solution or directly with your office printers–all driverless and strong security measures built in. A few of these integrations include:

  • Salesforce and other CRMs
  • Point-of-sale and line-of-business systems
  • Custom kiosks
  • Batch printing daily routes and tasks (to be talked more about in a future blog)!

2. API calls make sending print jobs simple

Sending a print job through the API Print Service is as easy as performing an HTTP call, for example:

const formData = new FormData();

formData.append("queue", "HP127");

formData.append("jobID", "96e31686-daae-4820-9389-5a9d36496bad");

formData.append("deviceName", "m123.local");

formData.append("paperSource", "1");

formData.append("username", "john.doe@vasion.com");

formData.append("statusURL", "https://example.com/print-job-status");

fetch("https://print-server:31990/v1/print", {

method: "POST",

headers: {

    "accept": "application/json",

},

body: formData,

})

.then(response => response.json())

.then(data => console.log(data))

.catch(error => console.error('Error:', error));

It’s that easy. The API code establishes the connection between your application and printers, acting as that puzzle piece you need to unify your processes. We’ve defined the implementation of the schema in our documentation for more information. 


3. API printing creates a seamless Output Management experience

And after the API makes the connection, PrinterLogic Output Management handles the rest, sending the document to the correct printer, rendering it to a format the printer can handle as needed, and reporting the status after success (or failure). Output Management combines the advantages of both LPR and IPP into a simple API post request that is secure and performant. 

Output Management can provide your organization with the modern tools and automation necessary to ensure output from any system is delivered where it needs to go, in the format it needs to be in, and when it needs to be there. You get more granular control over printing with rules-based document routing, EMR/ERP connections, and High Availability–all to unify your systems and increase efficiency. 


If you’re interested in API printing and our Output Management solution to facilitate printing with your businesses’ applications, visit our website and schedule a demo today. Our Output Management team is available to discuss your needs and goals and your organization’s automation initiatives.

How to Achieve the Printing Efficiency You Need with Rule-Based Automation

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Output Management Rules & Routing

Your electronic medical record system, enterprise resource planning, and other large-scale applications your organization relies on form critical parts of business processes. It’s crucial the output from those systems ends up in the right place, in the correct format, and on time.

With Vasion’s introduction of Output Management comes higher reliability, speed of delivery, and unification of management for both office and back-end application print management when printing from these systems, but still leaves the opportunity to further increase the efficiency, accuracy, and reliability of print and workflow tasks. 

 

Our customers stress that better efficiency is necessary for their output processes.

One of the concerns commonly brought up by customers I’ve spoken to has been ensuring uptime for critical printing with their printers themselves. If the printer designated for shipping labels or customer invoices breaks, it can put a serious dent in productivity while it’s down, and it’s not always easy to redirect traffic to a new printer within a customer’s application, resulting in unacceptable downtime.

Additionally, these environments often bring processes requiring manual intervention. A healthcare organization we worked with hoped to reduce costs by printing the majority of their documents in black and white, with only after-visit summaries printed in color to maintain a positive patient experience. Now, a manual touchpoint is introduced into the printing process, and it’s up to the individual clinician to remember to select the correct setting for just that type of job every time. 

 

These, and many other examples, drove Rules & Routing, a rule-based automation feature, as part of our Output Management Bundle. 

I challenge you to look deeper into your printing processes–you’ll notice those manual touchpoints often arise in your print environment, like manually converting documents to print-ready PDFs, paper notes taped to the printer reminding employees to print only in black and white, and attaching digital files to emails after scanning. These can all be automated as rules that trigger specific actions based on a set of behaviors. 


The three main components of Rules & Routing: 

  • Triggers are used to watch for specific events that should prompt the Rules & Routing service to decide which course of action to take.
  • Conditions provide the qualifying attributes that decide whether or not an action should be performed.
  • Actions are the actual behavior applied when conditions are met. 

These automated rules reduce or even eliminate any manual intervention, alter print data, increase document security, ensure proper delivery of documents, and more. In addition, document delivery goes beyond printers, including delivery direct to storage folders or through email, eliminating the manual touchpoint for your coworkers. 

 

Let’s look back at the example above from our customer needing to ensure continuous uptime for their printing processes. 

To solve this issue, I would create a rule that automatically reroutes my print data to a backup printer in the event we detect print failures on the primary printer to avoid long periods of downtime by following these steps:

  1. Create a rule with the trigger “Print Job Failed”
  2. Choose a condition selecting the primary printer(s) you are watching for failures
  3. And the “Redirect print job” action, where you’d select the backup printer
  4. Optionally, you could also add an additional action to email the originating user to alert them their job is located on a new printer

 

We’re very excited about the new Rules & Routing feature and its benefit to our Output Management customers’ complex environments. Visit our website and schedule a demo today. Our Output Management team is available to discuss your organization’s needs, goals, and automation initiatives.

How to Reduce Paper Waste in the Workplace

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Money may not grow on trees, but trees made into paper certainly cost a lot of money. While recycling paper is a step in the right direction, it’s far better for a business’s bottom line if the paper wasn’t used for printing in the first place. In fact, businesses in the U.S. spend over $120 billion on printed forms, most of which become outdated within three months. Rather than simply managing paper waste with recycling, it’s time to save trees—and a lot of money—by reducing paper waste with paperless office software. 

 

Strategies for Reducing Paper Waste at Your Company

Reducing paper waste is an effort that involves everyone in an organization. Here are some strategies everyone across an organization can use to help prevent wasted paper in the workplace. 

  • Use printer monitoring software: Several different types of paperless office software products monitor who is printing, how much, and when. These metrics can help the company make strategic decisions about where printing is necessary and where the organization can cut back.  
  • Create a company culture of electronic communication: Printed forms are less and less practical, especially with remote work and global teams. Invest in features such as esignatures, chat platforms, digital content reviews, and cloud content storage such as OneDrive or Sharepoint.
  • Digitize existing content: Digitizing physical content items is a great way to prevent extra copies from being made and more paper being printed. You can scan images, faxes, photos, and forms. Bonus: they’ll be easier to find and share when they’re electronic. 
  • Take notes electronically: Taking notes electronically and using solutions such as OneNote or Evernote is a great way to reduce paper waste while also making your notes more searchable for future projects. 
  • Invest in a document management system: Document management software works for electronic documents as well as scans of existing documents. This prevents the need for extra copies and facilitates document collaboration. 

How Businesses Benefit from Reduced Paper Waste

Businesses that invest in paperless office software gain many company-wide advantages. Reducing paper waste is an environmental success—and  92% of consumers trust environmentally responsible brands. In addition to building trust, your business will see some other tangible wins along the way. 

For example, using less paper leads to immediate cost savings—paper, printers, ink, postage, and storage costs can add up. The average employee’s printing habits cost a company $725 per year per employee. Reducing paper usage saves space, too. By transitioning to digital storage, businesses can free up physical storage space, reducing the need for filing cabinets or off-site storage.

Increased security is another major benefit of moving away from excessive printed paper. Digital documents can be encrypted and protected with passwords. Access to documents can be restricted to authorized personnel only. This provides a level of security that’s hard to achieve with physical papers.

Digital documentation is safer against being hacked, but it’s also safer against physical danger. With proper backups, the risk of losing documents due to fires, floods, or other disasters is minimized. 

Other benefits you’ll see when you move away from those 8×11 sheets include the following:

  • Easier collaboration and access: Digital documents are easier to share and collaborate on, especially with tools that allow for real-time editing and commenting. This supports remote work arrangements and ensures that critical information is always at hand.
  • Better customer service: Easy access to digital records can lead to faster response times for customer queries or issues.
  • Easier compliance and auditing: Paperless office software solutions often come with features that allow for easy tracking of document changes, access histories, and versioning. 
  • Scalability: Digital solutions can more easily scale with your business, accommodating larger volumes of data without a proportional increase in physical space or manual effort.

Common Questions About Reducing Paper Waste at Work

Have questions about reducing paper waste in the workplace or investing in paperless office software? We’ve got you covered. 

What are the top features to look for in paperless office software?

When considering paperless office software, look for a product with automation features. These features often include naming, sorting, and batching capabilities. You’ll also want software with optical character recognition (OCR) capabilities, which makes data entry and document editing possible. 

What are some legal and compliance considerations with paperless software?

Security is always top-of-mind with legal issues. Make sure the paperless office software has authentication features for better data protection. Paperless software can also provide streamlined reports for compliance audits and help you track any incidents you may need to report. 

Does paperless office software have a mobile app?

Many paperless office software products have apps. Apps help you access information while you’re on the go, sign documents quickly, and communicate faster than you could when you had to hand printed packets to your team.  

 

Print Management Software Trends in 2024

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Print management software is a massive market, and it’s growing fast. The market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 18.4% for the next seven years, likely becoming a $6.3 billion market by 2031. As print management trends shift toward efficiency, security, and environmental responsibility, it’s easy to see the reasons behind such growth.

Here are some of the top print management software trends for 2024, and why they will be a differentiating factor for businesses. 

 

The Print Management Trends You Can Expect to See in 2024

Print management affects every aspect of a business and can have ripple effects through many departments, making the current trends a reflection of larger workplace trends. These are the top trends coming to print management in 2024:

 

Print management solutions with transparent sustainable printing capabilities

Customers are demanding more insight into the environmental impact of their print environment and print suppliers. About 70% of organizations say it’s important that their print supplier provides a range of sustainable products and services, and 69% think it’s important for print suppliers to show they are reducing their own environmental impact.

 

AI will make print management solutions more effective

As artificial intelligence continues revolutionizing technology, the print management market can also benefit. Print management software can implement AI solutions to reduce downtime, optimize print workflows, predict maintenance needs, and detect security breaches faster, among many other advantages.

 

Users will expect high availability, flexibility, and scalability in the cloud

Businesses are developing ways to become more agile while also reducing costs (both financial and environmental) compared to operating an on-premises environment. In addition to cutting costs and improving agility, cloud-first organizations are better prepared for advanced cyberattacks through optimized data compliance and security.

The shift to cloud-first solutions goes hand-in-hand with another trend: International business travel and in-person events are expected to increase in 2024. The growing amount of travel means that not only will people print more from work, but they’ll also print more from various off-site locations. If you plan to attend industry events while staying connected to work, you’ll need to be prepared with flexible and secure printing solutions.

 

Print security continues to become a higher priority

Print management solutions continue to boost their credentials when it comes to data protection and theft prevention. They do this by providing security features like pull printing and integrations with IdPs. Customers looking for secure printing should plan to leverage solutions that adhere to SOC or ISO security frameworks.

 

Return to office push = More printing

A whopping 90% of companies plan to implement return-to-office policies by the end of 2024. That means more people will be printing at the office, which costs more money to cover increased resource use. If your organization is moving employees back into the office, you may want to start looking for a solution that limits print volumes and keeps print costs in check.

 

Simple user experience will become a priority

Change is challenging. Implementing a print solution that doesn’t require users to jump through hoops is key. The learning curve for IT should be minimal as well. If your print management software has a better user experience, your employees are more likely to adopt the solution more quickly while maintaining or improving productivity.

 

Sustainability and eco-friendly printing will be non-negotiable 

Sustainability is a major factor driving printing trends, too. Print management is a key way to reduce paper waste and protect the environment; however, it’s just as important for the business. According to Brand Times, sustainability will be a key growth driver in 2024 because it will materially affect profit centers, stakeholder management, and market share.

As sustainability gains importance, print management software will incorporate more features to support environmentally responsible printing. This may include:

  • Eco-mode printing: Introducing further settings for reducing energy consumption.
  • Carbon footprint tracking: Tools that allow organizations to measure and reduce their carbon footprint.
  • Paperless initiatives: Integrating with document management systems to promote paperless workflows.

 

How PrinterLogic Prepares You for 2024 and Beyond

PrinterLogic is the key to future-proofing your print management for 2024 and beyond. Our solution simplifies your print infrastructure while reducing print tickets by 90%. Centralized management increases the security and efficiency of print jobs while still supporting flexible, scalable, and secure printing. And because PrinterLogic is a centralized cloud-native solution, you can access your critical print data from a single pane of glass so you can start printing less, saving money, increasing sustainability, and being more transparent with future customers. 

If you’re interested in accelerating automation and digitization and keeping up with print management trends, schedule a demo with us today.

Why We’re Excited About Simplified Scanning. And Why You Should Be Too

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We are excited to announce a new solution: Simplified Scanning! 

We’ve added Scan To Email and Scan To Cloud to the PrinterLogic SaaS Core feature set to help organizations like yours quickly access and collaborate digitally instead of using those pesky paper documents or scanned copies.

As a product manager at Vasion for the past two years, I’ve been able to meet with our customers to discuss their challenges with both printing and scanning, like configuring and managing scanning processes on on-premise MFDs from different manufacturers, maintaining security and visibility to user activity, constantly training users on scanning as the process differs from MFD to MFD—the list goes on.  

We prioritized solving those challenges with this new solution to improve your way of doing things. That’s why I’m excited about Simplified Scanning. I think you will be, too, for these three key reasons.

 

1. Simplified setup, management, and control 

Varying configuration methods and interfaces can be a nightmare. If you have multiple MFDs of different manufacturers—the process gets way more time-consuming than it should be.

That said, pay close attention to the configuration steps below in Figure 1. 

To enable scanning within the Admin Console, you toggle on the feature from your Global Scan Settings, then enable Scan To Email or Cloud in the settings of the devices you want scanning. 

That’s it. Not so complicated, right?

From there, you have complete control within the Admin Console over the default Global Scan Settings for all MFDs and who can see and adjust which settings.

 

 

Figure 1: Configuration for Scan To Email and Cloud is simple within the PrinterLogic Admin Console. 

 

Scan To Email 

SMTP for emails is pre-configured in this initial release of Scan To Email, so you don’t have to configure it on each of your MFDs. Set it once, and you’re good to go. You can also lockdown Scan To Email recipients to specific domains and address book contacts, depending on the level of security and control you want with user scanning permissions. 

 

Scan To Cloud

Configure each cloud storage provider (Google Drive, Box, OneDrive, and SharePoint) within the Admin Console once rather than per user at every printer. You can set up specific groups or users to see and scan to particular cloud storage folders users need, like NDAs, contracts, and more. As long as the user has access to their cloud storage provider account, those folders will display for them at the MFD. 

Employee access maintenance is simple, too. Users are added and removed from cloud storage folders without you needing to re-configure access. If the user is in an IdP group, they get access automatically. 

 

2. Better visibility over your entire environment 

If you’re using the built-in scan function on your MFDs, you probably can’t see who is scanning or where files are sent—unless you’re standing at your MFD all day long, watching everyone who uses it. Scanning can be an inherently vulnerable process, and we put a big emphasis on being able to view and monitor all user scan activity from every MFD, all from a single platform, without standing guard at your scanner. 

Your basic MFD uses an NTLM V1 encryption, but we know you need more coverage than that. All file transfers that happen within PrinterLogic go through HTTPS/TLS 1.2, with all emails encrypted over SSL. With Single Sign-On (SSO) functionality, you can manage user access to MFDs to ensure only those that you have authorized can access printing and scanning functions. All users must authenticate their identity at the CPA via badge swipe or username and PIN credentials before scanning, ensuring that anything they do after login is tracked to their usernames. 

Then, within the Admin Console, you can access a designated scanning report to see activity information like who is scanning and from what workstation, the time of the scan, and additional scan job details to help you manage and maintain document and organizational security. 

 

 

3. Universal and convenient end user experience 

The old-school process for an end user to scan required users to scan a document, track down wherever that file was saved, then manually attach it to an email, or upload it to a cloud storage folder just to share it with others. Doing this with a few documents now and then can work, but it’s not a long-term solution, especially as the organization scales. 

With Simplified Scanning, your end users can log in to the Control Panel Application (CPA) on the printer as they usually would for Secure Release Printing, select a Scan To option (Email or Cloud), define their scan destination and settings, and then scan. The process takes minutes. 

This paperless process is great for you, too. With an intuitive, universal interface for end users to scan with no matter the printer manufacturer, you spend less time on helpdesk tickets for user configuration, logins, and retraining for different manufacturers. 

 

Looking to the future

Big things are happening behind the scenes that we can’t wait for you to see. 

There is more to come with additional scanning capabilities, from scanning to a network from a mobile device to a workflow with Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. We’re dedicated to developing products that make your lives easier while benefiting your organization. 

Solutions like Simplified Scanning that automate manual processes and digitize document management are just the start of our Vasion unified platform—bringing print, workflow, and document management together. Stay tuned, and get excited. 

If you want to try Simplified Scanning in your organization, schedule a demo or contact your Customer Success Representative. 

How to Easily Migrate Printers from Print Servers with Automated Migration

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With Windows 7 now officially past its end of life, OS upgrades and migration are on everyone’s minds. For IT departments and providers of managed print services, that’s not always a good thing.

 

Migrations cause migraines

Sure, the process has gotten a little easier over the years, but it’s almost impossible not to run into some hiccups. Even when moving from one Windows version to another.

With traditional printing solutions like print servers, migration takes on a whole new level of complexity. You’ve got to bring over drivers and profiles, many of which are incompatible with the new server version. You’ve got to reconnect workstations and cross your fingers that the client OS will play well with the new printing software. If you’re using group policy or scripts, you’ve got triple-check all the associations.

And then, of course, you’ve got to deal with all the end users who call the next day because they can’t print.

At least, that’s what migration looks like if you’re not using PrinterLogic.

Our serverless print infrastructure features an automated migration tool that makes life dramatically easier for IT and managed print services. With PrinterLogic, your organization can migrate away from legacy printing solutions once and for all.

 

What automated migration looks like with PrinterLogic

PrinterLogic’s built-in migration tool fully automates the transfer of printer objects from your existing print server to our next-generation printing solution. It’s a simple and straightforward process:

  1. First, the migration tool copies printer objects and drivers from the print servers you’ve selected into PrinterLogic’s centralized Admin Console.
  2. Next, the CSV uploader bulk imports any unmanaged direct IP printers you might have.
  3. Then, the PrinterLogic workstation client silently converts Windows shared printers into managed direct IP printers.
  4. Finally, the workstation client assumes control of all authorized printer objects.
  5. There is no step five. Your end users are now enjoying robust serverless printing, and you’re enjoying enterprise-wide print management from a single pane of glass.

We know that most admins can’t wait to say goodbye to their print servers. At the same time, they also don’t want to force downtime on their end users.

That’s why PrinterLogic’s migration tool makes things quick and seamless. RC Willey Home Furnishings transitioned several hundred printers—and 1,500 users—to PrinterLogic in under two hours (read the case study here).

And they’re not the only ones.

More than one IT professional has told us that their end users didn’t even know that a large print migration had taken place.

We also know that first impressions count. That’s why we designed our migration tool to be a stunningly smooth experience for large, distributed enterprise environments as well as managed print services providers who oversee multiple clients. And, yes, it’s just as straightforward with tricky Citrix printing environments.

 

The benefits of automated migration with PrinterLogic

Seamlessness, simplicity and ease of use are rare among printing solutions and therefore big pluses in any migration. But PrinterLogic’s migration tool also gives IT professionals granular control over which print servers they choose to migrate.

Using the tool, you can browse to your existing print servers through your Active Directory tree or the Windows network. Or you can target your print servers by IP address. That makes it easy to pinpoint the print servers you want to migrate and ultimately eliminate with PrinterLogic’s serverless print infrastructure.

Citrix printing sometimes falls into a class by itself, but PrinterLogic has been verified as Citrix Ready and offers the same level of control when migrating (and eliminating) Citrix print servers.

After migration, regardless of the prior print environment, you’ll have more reliable, cost-effective and less resource-intensive printing with PrinterLogic. And that’s true whether you’ve chosen to migrate to our cloud solution, PrinterLogic SaaS, or our on-prem version, PrinterLogic Virtual Appliance.

You don’t have to make a full-scale print migration based on faith alone. As a proof of concept, sign up for a free 30-day PrinterLogic trial today. You’ll see how easy it is to move from your current printing solution—no matter if it’s print servers, Citrix printing, or unmanaged direct IP—to PrinterLogic’s serverless print infrastructure.

Your Guide to Secure, Uninterrupted Printing with SAP

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This blog is part of a three-part Output Management series about the Oracle Health EHR, Epic, and SAP connectors. Read the other installments on Epic and Oracle Health EHR. 

SAP is the world’s leading ERP solution that processes operational data and manages complex business processes in enterprise organizations. Organizations, like manufacturing and distribution that require continuous delivery of printed orders and invoices to keep their systems running, rely on highly available printing methods. 

 

Print Servers and High Availability

The typical method of printing from SAP is through a print server—often Windows print servers. On the back end, SAPWIN hands an initiated job to a print server running SAPSprint, which then processes and delivers to a standalone SAP print queue to finally be printed. 

Windows print servers may do the job of managing the high volumes of printing from your SAP environment, but what happens when hardware fails and halts printing? Microsoft deprecated print spooler clustering in Windows Server 2012 and instead, to maintain redundancy, put their print servers behind a load balancer to split print traffic. Unfortunately, when a print job has already been received or a print queue has an error, those jobs won’t print and often the load balancer won’t detect the failure. 

Connection interruptions and hardware failures aside, print servers in complex print and output webs require continued maintenance by trained IT professionals which fills up daily schedules. We’ve spoken to admins like you who struggle with the demand of managing complex print server environments. We recommend: 

  • Reducing print server hardware
  • Consolidating front- and back-end printing
  • Adopting Zero Trust values

If you’re asking yourself, “Is this even possible?”, we have the answer, and Vasion Print (formerly PrinterLogic) has the solution you’re looking for.

 

How can I reduce print server hardware while maintaining redundancy?

The end-to-end process without a print server is simple when you have Vasion Print facilitating your back-end printing from SAP. Here’s what that process looks like: 

All of your existing print queues are migrated into Vasion Print using our built-in migration utility. From there, you can deploy those queues to your end users automatically. If you’re an existing Vasion Print customer, you have likely already done this and are one step ahead!

Your print job originates from your SAP environment and is sent over TCP 515 to a designated Service Client, a lightweight desktop LPD Service that intercepts your jobs from SAP and routes them to your printers. These can run anywhere you want, but we recommend hosting them on an existing utility server used for other (non-printing related) tasks. You can spin up multiple Service Clients to achieve redundancy and high availability that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to do with your old print servers. Your print job data and metadata are received and analyzed by the LPD Service to determine where and how it will be printed.

A copy of the job persists in your own configured storage solution until the job is printed; either via direct IP printing or held securely until manual release with no threat of interruptions from connectivity loss. That’s it! All without the need for print server clustering. 

 

What is meant by front- and back-end printing consolidation? 

There is generally a disconnect between SAP back-end printing, print server management, and general office printing. With Vasion Print’s cloud-based Administrative Console, administrators can have control over all back-end configuration and redundancy and the entire printing lifecycle, while still maintaining visibility to front-end printers and print activity. No more managing a web of print servers and output locations when the entire process can be consolidated on a unified platform from a single pane of glass. 

 

How can I adopt Zero Trust on top of all of this?

We understand that managing network security in a complex net of print servers is time-consuming and stressful (that’s why we got rid of our print servers). Zero Trust levels the playing field for all employees by demanding verification from everyone. There are a few print methods that follow this principle: 

  • Off-Network Printing allows your guest or contracted users to print without you giving them access to the local network. Off-network jobs pass through a load-balanced gateway on your instance, then release via authentication at the printer.
  • Secure Release Printing holds print jobs on the queue until identity authentication at the printer to ensure all proprietary information gets into the right hands. Vasion Print offers these features and more in our add-on Advanced Security Bundle. 

In addition to secure print methods that help you adopt a Zero Trust environment, there are new features currently in progress with our development teams, which will offer even more output and print management capabilities. 

 

Why Vasion Print?

It just works! Vasion Print gives you centralized administration control to ease your security management burden while maintaining high availability in every print job. We think you’ll be pleased with what you see. 

We’d love to hear from you and discuss the Vasion Print Output Management solution further. If you’re interested in interfacing with a member of our team, contact your Vasion Print representative or schedule a demo here.

Managing Your Clinical Printing with Epic from a Unified Platform

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This blog is part of a three-part Output Management series about the Oracle Health EHR , Epic, and SAP connectors. Read the other installments on Oracle Health EHR and SAP. 

Epic Systems Inc. is the leading supplier of Electronic Medical Records (EMR) software in the U.S. and is expanding its customer base worldwide. It’s a highly trusted solution for many healthcare organizations. 

Despite Epic’s many strengths, managing printing in this environment is often challenging for IT because Epic queues are handled separately from other forms of (non-clinical) printing. There’s a way to unify the management of both administrative and clinical printing in a single Administrative (Admin) Console, with additional secure print methods—I’ll explain below.

But first, how can Epic host your environment?

Epic has two primary hosting architecture options: an on-premises, customer-hosted model and a cloud-based, Epic-hosted model. Customers may choose either model based on their infrastructure and the amount of control they want to have over their environment.

On-premises

An on-premises, customer-hosted model is a traditional method for Epic installations. It offers IT admins more control but requires more infrastructure and resources. Print management can be labor-intensive. Because printing is mission-critical, IT admins must create and manage multiple identical print servers for load balancing. They monitor their status and keep them synchronized.

Cloud-based

When Epic hosts the solution in the cloud, print servers are no longer controlled by the healthcare client, and administrators can no longer add to, remove from, or make changes to their print queues. Nor can they install software to help them manage their environment. They must contact Epic to open a ticket for every change. The response can be fast, but in some cases, there are delays. Many admins we work with want a more straightforward solution they can control. 

Either model has upsides and downsides. In any case, managing printing can be cumbersome without a solution to reduce the complications of multiple asynchronous servers and limited administrative access.

That’s where PrinterLogic comes in. 

PrinterLogic gives IT full control and allows healthcare organizations to manage all of their printing from one Admin Console—both for the clinical Epic environment and business-management office printing.

There are two ways PrinterLogic manages printing for Epic customers. One involves keeping the traditional Epic print servers but providing a powerful Admin Console for managing drivers and print settings across the Epic infrastructure. The other method is available by installing the PrinterLogic Epic Connector. Our Epic Connector eliminates the need to deploy drivers and queues to print servers altogether, unifying all forms of healthcare print management—including clinical and general office printing—from a single pane of glass. I’ll explain how it works. 

How does the PrinterLogic Epic Connector work?

The PrinterLogic Epic Connector reroutes print jobs so that, rather than flowing through a web of disconnected servers and drivers, it’s directed through PrinterLogic to the destination printers. The PrinterLogic Admin Console then becomes “mission control,” enabling you to manage the various servers, drivers, and queues across both Epic and clinical printing without the need for third-party equipment or services. 

Here’s how it works in 4 steps:

  1. The Epic Connector utilizes Epic’s Output Management API to receive documents to be printed directly from Epic, sent via HTTPS.
  2. These documents are sent with an XML file specifying the destination printer, print settings, the user who sent the job, and additional metadata. 
  3. The Epic Connector processes the job without a driver, eliminating the need to spool and render the job as with a traditional driver.
  4. Once printed, the Connector will use the included metadata to properly report user-level printing records and respond back to Epic that the job was successfully printed. This service includes automatic redundancy to protect against failures ensuring business-critical Epic printing is not interrupted. 

 

 

This architecture can be used with either on-premises or cloud-hosted instances of Epic on version 2018 or later.

This solution allows end users to securely hold their print jobs, which requires the user to authenticate their identity at the printer with an employee badge swipe, QR code scan from a mobile device, pin or password, and other release mechanisms, for the job to print. Secure Release can reduce print volume by up to 20 percent and prevent PHI or PII from being exposed to unintended viewers. 

Off-Network Printing is another method—allowing any traveling or contracted providers working in a hospital or clinic temporarily to still access networked printers and print, while not having official network access. When a job is printed via an off-network print queue, the job travels through the cloud, is received by an Internal Routing Service on the network, then pulled to the destination printer. 

How is the Epic Connector set up with an existing environment?

Setting up centralized management of printer drivers and settings for all Epic print servers is very straightforward. It only requires one simple step: The administrator installs the PrinterLogic agent on each server and allows the agent to import all existing print queues and their settings. 

Once imported, the administrator can work completely from PrinterLogic’s web-based Admin Console to update drivers, change settings, add or remove queues, and more, to gain more granular control over their environment. 

These changes automatically apply to all appropriate print servers to keep them in sync with one another without the need for manual changes or scripting. This method is only supported with on-premises instances of Epic.

Interested in eliminating all of your print servers?

We deliver a highly available serverless printing infrastructure, all managed from a cloud-based centralized Admin Console. We’d love to show you how. Schedule a demo here to learn more. 

How it Works: Oracle Health EHR Printing with PrinterLogic’s LPD Service

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This blog is one of a three-part Output Management series about the Oracle Health, Epic, and SAP connectors. Read the other installments on Epic and SAP here. 

PrinterLogic’s healthcare customers value our serverless printing solution for the secure, unified print management it provides. We help simplify the complexity of conducting general office printing alongside EHR/EMR solutions, which almost always come with their own print infrastructure and framework. 

As part of our efforts to make that day-to-day experience even better for all healthcare personnel, while reducing the load on IT admins, we’ve developed tools to better manage back-end Oracle Health electronic health record (EHR) printing and overall front-end output.

The LPD Service is the bridge between Oracle Health EHR software and your printers, and has big benefits of convenience and ease of use for healthcare organizations. 

 

Let’s dig in a little deeper.

The line printer daemon (LPD) is part of a standard software protocol that allows networked computers to submit print jobs to printers on the same network. The LPD is the liaison responsible for relaying print jobs to the network printer.

The PrinterLogic LPD Service works by identifying a service client device on the network that is running the standard PrinterLogic client agent. It runs in the background and listens for compatible print jobs.

Once the LPD Service has been enabled by an admin, it can receive LPD print traffic and extract information from the print job’s bundled metadata. That data includes who printed the job, which printer it’s targeting, as well as details like finishing options (e.g., duplex, B/W, output tray) and secure release settings. Based on that metadata, the print job will be routed to the correct printer, including off-network configured printers, and/or held for release if requested.

The same metadata is also used for PrinterLogic’s reporting functionality. Details like the initiating user, destination printer, timestamp, and filename are collected and uploaded to the PrinterLogic Admin Console.

Behind the curtain information: The PrinterLogic LPD Service will first try to send the job to the printer without using a driver via the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP). IPP is another printing standard that supports advanced capabilities like access control, authentication, and encryption. If IPP isn’t supported on the printer, you can use any signed Type 3 printer driver instead.

VAS 3440 23 Cerner OM Connector Diagram@2x

 

What does the LPD Service offer Oracle Health and print management?

Oracle Health provides one of the world’s leading EHR solutions for the healthcare industry to access and securely maintain vast data stores of confidential patient medical information. By design, it also becomes the central source of printing for the organization, as almost every record originates from or passes through Oracle Health before it’s printed. 

Unfortunately, this can cause issues with general office printing and back-end applications, because Oracle Health has its own server-based print infrastructure. Device incompatibilities, downtime, and routine printing errors are common occurrences that multiply in IT environments with diverse printer fleets.

PrinterLogic’s LPD Service leverages the universal line print remote (LPR) printing standard—the same one that Oracle Health’s own EHR system uses—to enable users to print from back-end applications without the need for legacy print servers, sidestepping all the problems inherent to those print servers. Additionally, with PrinterLogic’s advanced printing features, IT admins get even more control over printing:

  • Comprehensive reporting: See who printed what, when, where, and why.
  • Secure Release/pull printing: Jobs are held until the user has authenticated their identity at the printer to release them. This keeps protected health information (PHI) from sitting unclaimed in print trays accessible to anyone.
  • Off-Network Printing: Conveniently allow devices to print, without direct access to your network, while maintaining strict Zero Trust policies.

These features complement the stringent security requirements of EHR systems and enable organizations to maintain compliance with HIPAA and other industry regulations.

The LPD Service also increases with print resiliency to avoid downtime. Multiple PrinterLogic LPD Service clients can be used to create redundancy. These can be set up behind a load balancer or configured to communicate amongst themselves for failover scenarios.

 

Availability 

The PrinterLogic LPD Service is available in our Output Management Bundle, an add-on license to the core print feature set. The service supports connections with Oracle Health, Epic, and SAP systems to provide organizations control over everything they print. Stay tuned for exciting features coming soon that include automations to increase uptime and avoid disruption to your business-critical printing. 

Additionally, Off-Network Printing and Secure Release Printing are available in our Advanced Security Bundle to help you adopt Zero Trust principles and practices. 

 

A Complete Solution for Printing and Print Management 

The LPD Service is just one benefit among many that PrinterLogic offers to healthcare organizations. With our serverless printing solution, you can:

  • Lower costs: Fragmented solutions and all the required support infrastructure can lead to mounting costs. By minimizing the hardware footprint and eliminating deep-rooted print inefficiencies, PrinterLogic keeps costs down.
  • Simplify print management: It can be difficult to bridge the different systems for EMR and general office printing. PrinterLogic helps to unify the print environment and provides a single window for IT to oversee it.
  • Harden security: Thanks to its Secure Release and Off-Network Printing functionality, PrinterLogic increases the security of Oracle Health and similar EMR/EHR solutions without sacrificing ease of use.
  • Provide insights: In addition to capturing extensive metadata for every print job, PrinterLogic offers a convenient way to view, filter, and sort that information. IT can easily monitor print activity across the organization.

 

Interested in eliminating all of your print servers?

We deliver a highly available serverless printing Infrastructure using a centrally-managed direct IP printing platform. If you want to empower end users with mobile printing, Secure Release Printing, and many advanced features, we’d love to show you how.