Scenario: The Public Library or Internet Cafe/Kiosk

The Sandy Beach Cafe is a typical Internet cafe offering Internet access, faxing, printing and other services. This business has 50 computers and two printers. A black & white laser printer called "Black and White Printer" and a high-end color inkjet system named as "Color Printer". They would like to implement a pay-per-print system that meets the following process and requirements:

Requirements

  1. The customer prints the job to the appropriate printer.

  2. At the front desk, the customer pays a staff member for the print job.

  3. The staff member releases the job for printing.

  4. The customer collects the print job.

Implementation

PaperCut MF's hold/release queues are ideally suited to the Internet cafe scenario. More information on the hold/release queues are available at Chapter 10, Hold/Release Queues & Print Release Stations. PaperCut MF provides both an application interface for release station managers (i.e. desk staff) as well as a convenient web browser-based interface. To summarize a typical implementation:

  1. The PaperCut MF server software is installed on the system hosting the printers. An existing server or desktop system will suffice.

  2. Workstations are configured to print to the printers shared on the system set up in step 1.

  3. Inside the PaperCut MF admin interface, the printers should have the manager only release option selected.

  4. Desk staff can view and control pending print jobs, their cost, and other details via the web based release interface accessible at the URL:

        http://server_name:9191/release