Businesses and organizations have increasingly turned to managed print services to reduce costs and reduce downtime in recent years. A good MPS program will certainly accomplish both, especially when paired with a reliable print partner. More frequently here at A&A, some of our customers are telling us that as helpful as MPS is, it's sometimes not enough to control spending or to meet their "go green" initiatives. In cases like these, it's necessary to employ additional solutions to achieve the desired goals.
Managed print is great; I could sing its praises all day. But for many organizations, it's actually only one component in a much broader ecosystem. Leveraging a whole range of applications to measure, direct, and control print is more important than ever in cost (and environment) conscious businesses. Thankfully, it doesn't have to be confusing or time consuming to implement some or all of these solutions. Print Audit offers not just managed print software, but additional packages, such as Print Audit 6, that put you in total control.
Here are our 6 favorite features of Print Audit:
Easy Installation
Ok, so easier installation isn't necessarily a feature that's going to save anyone any money. In fact, once the installation process is complete, who really thinks about it? But a painless installation makes for a good first impression and really does set the tone of the entire experience. Before I wrote blogs and tweets and other fun things for a copier company in New England, I was in IT. Coordinating a tricky installation with a partner could quickly sour a relationship. Everyone loves easy installations!
Service and Supply Alerts
This is the core of any MPS program. Print Audit's Information Collection Engine (ICE) gathers performance data on your networked and local machines and relays that information to your print partner, who can then dispatch toner or service technicians with little to no intervention from you. You don't have to store toner onsite, you don't have to waste time with phone calls, and all the costs are conveniently rolled into your MPS contract.
Valuable Metrics
Knowledge is power, as they say, and Print Audit's Infinite Device Manager, in conjunction with ICE, provides all manner of usage statistics. This information provides real, actionable data, and makes it easy to identify problematic machines or departments with high print volumes. Which means you know where to deploy a new multifunction printer (MFP) or where to implement new print rules. Which brings us to...
Rules Based Printing
Rules based printing is the next evolution of managed print. This puts IT in total control of user behavior, whether that's setting cost controls for a department or forcing economical print settings like black-and-white or duplex. Not only does rules based printing save money, but it's also great for the environment!
Follow Me Printing
Technology has brought has a great many things, and for the workplace, follow me printing is among the best. This feature pushes print jobs to a central server, not to a particular print device. Users can retrieve their print job from any machine using card authentication or a login. Follow Me ensures the right job gets printed from the right machines; no more wasted documents printed from an incorrect copier.
Security
Security truly begins with policies and adherence to procedure within your organization, but of course, using the right tools goes a long way. Print Audit supports your security policies with features such as data encryption and user security profiles. On top of that, leveraging other Print Audit features can contribute to a healthy security policy. For instance, using Follow Me printing is great for cost control and the environment, but because it forces the user to log in before completing a print job, it's centrally managed and can lock out any unauthorized use of a machine. Print Audit can easily be a part of your business' security policies, or fit within broader compliances, such as HIPAA.
Managing your print devices and workflow can seem pretty daunting, especially if your organization has a lot of copiers and a lot of users. Print Audit 6 streamlines the process and makes it easier than ever to get your print fleet under control.
Now that you know a little more about the wonders of Print Audit 6, why not download our FREE eBook to learn more about other fantastic aspects of print technology?