Managing printer groups

Administrators use groups to manage large number of users. Groups are used for all manner of purposes such as reporting, access control and management. PaperCut MF also offers the ability to group printers offering administrators the same level of management advantages they get from user groups. Printer groups are most useful for organizations with a medium to large number of devices.

Printer groups allow administrators to tag or group printers by attributes. Group names are user definable and may represent any attribute appropriate for printer management. Examples include printer type, location, make, function, owner, age, etc. PaperCut MF's grouping is implemented using text based "tags" offering similar flexibility to that seen in many modern online systems such as Flickr - the popular photo management website.

Some examples of where printer groups may be useful include:

To group printers that support color output the admin will follow the following procedure:

  1. Locate and click a color printer via the Printers tab.

  2. On the printer details screen scroll down to the Printer/Device Groups section.

  3. Enter an appropriate group name such as Type:Color and press 'Enter' to add. Read best practises in the section called “Suggested best practises for naming printer groups”

    Adding a new printer group "Type:Color"

    Figure 7.12. Adding a new printer group "Type:Color"

  4. Click OK to save the change.

  5. Repeat step 1 and 2 selecting another color device.

  6. This time, click on the list and you will see a list of all available printer/device groups, click on Type:Color.

    Adding an existing printer group

    Figure 7.13. Adding an existing printer group

  7. Repeat step 6 for all color devices.

Tip

An alternate method to apply a set of printer groups to multiple printers is to use Copy settings from printer to printer action.

Suggested best practises for naming printer groups

An important requirement of group management is to have clear and consistent naming conventions for your groups. This convention needs to be followed by all involved in group management. Being able to see a list of printer/device groups is a good way to ensure consistency. A group name may contain any character except for ",". Administrators are encouraged to use a key-colon-value format such as:

  • Type:Laser

  • Location:Floor1

  • Department:Science

  • Subnet:192.168.4.*

  • Office:NewYork

Prefixing the value with a type makes it easier to compare and locate groups of interest.

Like user groups, it's important to keep printer groups up-to-date. Ensure someone is tasked with assigning printer groups when new devices are added to your network.