Much of PaperCut NG flexibility and usefulness comes not from the features you can see, but from the advanced hidden features. PaperCut NG is packed full of handy tools, utilities and options and you will read about these throughout this guide. To provide a quick overview now, the most popular hidden features are:
PaperCut NG is a 100% web based application. Full system administration can be performed from anywhere on the network via a standard web browser - no special admin software is required! To access the administration section, point a browser at the server on port 9191:
http://[server_name]:9191/admin
Encrypted SSL/HTTPS access is also available on port 9192:
https://[server_name]:9192/admin
Access is granted to the built-in admin, or to any user that has been
granted administrator level access.
PaperCut NG is an enterprise level application designed to be managed and controlled from a central location. Multi-server environments are common in large organizations and PaperCut NG handles them with ease. All servers are configured to report back to the central Application Server. This ensures that all management, logging and control is centralized on the one location. These secondary servers simply run a light weight monitoring component and communicate to the central server via XML Web Services calls.
Would you like to run some of your printers on an alternate operating system such as Linux? Again, no problem! PaperCut NG supports mixed or heterogeneous networks as well!
You can also use PaperCut NG to manage local desktop printers directly attached to a workstation! Just treat the workstation as a Secondary Server and install the monitoring component as normal!
See Chapter 14, Configuring Secondary Print Servers and Locally Attached Printers for more information.
Many organizations would like to track their printing on more than a per-user level. With the Shared Accounts feature, users can allocate jobs to cost areas such as Faculties, Departments, Projects, Clients, Cost Centers, or Pools. Shared accounts are selected via a customizable popup window. Two popup window types are available:
Standard - A simple window design ideal for most users.
Advanced - An advanced window designed for the power user including features such as search, preference list, recent selections, comment entry and invoicing options. This is ideal for businesses including Engineering, Law, Accounting and Architecture Firms.
Access to accounts is controlled via integrated network group membership or optionally PIN's.
See Chapter 8, Shared Accounts for more information.
Did you know that the end-user interface can be quickly customized to make it look like an official part of your organization's infrastructure? With some simple HTML, you can make the PaperCut NG end-user interface look just like your existing web site or intranet site.
See the section called “Customizing the User web pages” for more information.
It seems like everything these days is Web Services enabled. Not to be outdone, PaperCut NG exposes dozens of API's via secured XML Web Services. This provides advanced administrators and developers with the ability to programmatically remotely control, integrate and manage the application. The possibilities are endless... some of our users now have their library fines hooked into the PaperCut NG system!
In addition to the Web Services API's, system administrators may hook into the inner workings
of PaperCut NG via our advanced server-command
application. This simple, but powerful command-line tool provides command based access to
dozens of system functions. Maybe you have batch files or scripts managing back-ups, account creation
or system maintenance. With server-command you can quickly integrate PaperCut NG
into your existing infrastructure. Some ideas:
Schedule "online" backups to coordinate with your existing backup processes. No need to take the system down to take a data snapshot.
Create users in PaperCut NG automatically and as part of your existing user creation scripts.
Automatically import/sync list of accounts from a file, 3rd party system or existing directory structure. (Great for Engineering and Architecture firms)
Automatically schedule user/group synchronization with Active Directory or another environment. Have full control of how and when synchronization takes place.
See the section called “The XML Web Services API” and the section called “Server Commands (server-command)” for more information.
Do you have problems with users forgetting to collect their print jobs or other users accidentally picking up the wrong document? With PaperCut NG's secure print release station support, administrators can alleviate many of these problems. PaperCut NG's hold/release queues are also ideally suited to education environments and Internet Cafes where per-print-approval or pay-per-print is required.
See Chapter 10, Hold/Release Queues & Print Release Stations for more information.
PaperCut NG maintains a real-time tab-delimited text log listing all printing activity in detail. The system already includes advanced analysis tools such as reports, statistics and graphs, however many organizations would like to use the data for their own ad-hoc analysis. The real-time text print logs can be tapped and extract into applications such as external databases, scripts and even Microsoft Excel.
See the section called “Data Access and Custom Reports” for more information.
PaperCut NG ships with its own preconfigured and self-maintaining database. The system however is database independent and can be run on top of a number of leading database systems. Maybe you have an existing Microsoft SQL Cluster and would like to take advantages of this infrastructure. No problem! PaperCut NG can be quickly configured to hook into your preferred database.
See Chapter 18, Deployment on an External Database (RDBMS) for more information.
PaperCut NG is implemented using 100% server-side logic and no client software is required. A simple lightweight client tool is however provided so end-users have access to advanced features such as shared accounts and the option of viewing their account balance in a popup window.
Deploying client software can be a time consuming and fiddly process. To streamline the process PaperCut NG allows its client to be run directly off a network share - no need to install locally, or mess around with deployment tools! Just set the executable as a startup program.
See the section called “User Client” for more information.
Software is only as good as the development process. PaperCut NG is developed in an open and transparent fashion by a small development team. Suggestions and feedback are encouraged and source code access is provided to our customers. The team works closely with key system users to architect new features. A member of the development team is online for 8 hours a day and is always happy to chat. Come visit us on our Live Web Chat page!
See the PaperCut Software website http://www.papercut.com/ for more information.