Paper jams, toner problems and print quality issues will always occur. Larger organizations will require a policy to address these situations and under what conditions a print job may be refunded. The assessment to give a refund or not is subjective and needs to be managed by responsible administrators. To streamline and partially automate the process PaperCut NG provides a browser based refund management process.
Highlights include:
Users can request refunds via a simple form and track their status.
Administrators can quickly approve/deny requests with one click.
Administrators can be alerted via email when requests are pending.
Issue partial and manual refunds.
Users request refunds via the end user web pages. This feature is enabled as follows:
Log into PaperCut NG admin interface.
Navigate to → .
Under User Features, enable the option Allow users to request refunds.
Click .
End-users may enter a reason why they are requesting a refund. Some organizations may prefer to disable this feature, e.g. where users may write inappropriate comments. To disable end-user comments/reasons, deselect the Allow users to enter a reason for their request checkbox.
It is recommended that organizations follow a formal refund policy. This policy may be outlined via Refund policy/instructions option. This text may also include basic HTML markup such as a link to an external policy page.
The refund process is best described in the form of an example.
John's print job failed to fully print due to a printer jam, forcing him to reprint the remainder of the job on another printer. He would like to request a refund of approx. 50% of his job cost for the first failed job. John would place the request as follows:
Log in to the user web interface at
http://[server_name]:9191/userusing his network username and password.Locate the first, failed print job on the Recent Print Jobs page.
Click the [Request Refund] link.
Enter a reason.
Click .
![A [Request Refund] link on the Recent Print Jobs](images/screenshots/refund-request-link.png)
Jenny is an IT administrator at John's school. She has just received an email indicating that refund requests are pending review. To approve John's request Jenny would:
Log into PaperCut NG admin interface.
Navigate to → .
Locate John's request and review.
Click the Approve link.
Jenny could have denied the refund request by clicking on [reject] link. Clicking the [other] option would have allowed Jenny to review John's previous requests for refunds, edit the requested amount and write a comment.
Administrators may receive regular emails about pending refund requests. Email notifications can be enabled via → → → . More information is available in the section called “Pending refund request notifications”.
Emails may be delivered hourly or daily. By default daily messages are delivered at 7 a.m. This hour
of day can be configured via the config key
notify.pending-refund-requests.daily-hour-of-day. See
the section called “Using the Config Editor” for information about changing config keys.
Users may receive an email notification when their refund request has been actioned by an administrator. To enable this feature:
Enable the option at → → → → .
An SMTP server must have been defined so that emails can be sent (see the section called “Configuring Email Notifications”).
Either the user must have an email address defined, or the email suffix must be enabled.
The Email subject and Email body options make up the subject
and body of the email that is sent to the user. The Approved message and
Denied message options are used for the replacement marker
%approved-or-denied-message% in the email body.
Other than the %approved-or-denied-message% marker, the following markers can be used
in any of the above four fields:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
%job.copies% | The number of copies in the print job. |
%job.cost% | The original cost of the print job. |
%job.date% | The date the original print job was sent. |
%job.document% | The document name of the print job. |
%job.pages% | The number of pages in the print job. |
%job.paper-size% | The paper size of the print job. |
%job.printer% | The printer the print job was sent to. |
%refund.refund-amount% | The amount that was refunded. |
%refund.request-amount% | The refund amount requested by the user. |
%refund.request-date% | The date the user made the refund request. |
%refund.request-reason% | The reason the user gave for the refund request. |
%refund.request-username% | The username of the user making the refund request. |
%refund.response-date% | The date the refund was actioned. |
%refund.response-reason% |
The reason the admin user gave for approving/denying the refund request. |
%refund.response-username% |
The username of the administrator who actioned the refund request. |
%refund.status% |
The status of the refund request as it appears in the Job Log. |
Table 7.3. Fields available printer refund request user notifications