Convenience, cost-efficiency and security don’t always arrive as a set. You might find an IT solution with two out of the three if you’re lucky. But scoring the hat trick is rare.
When it comes to your print environment, pull printing with PrinterLogic is a proven way to achieve all three.
Pull printing is an approach that splits printing into two steps. First, the user clicks “Print”—or taps it, in the case of mobile printing—just as they normally would. Second, the user issues a command to release their print job. Far from being an inconvenience, that second step is key to pull printing’s effectiveness.
You can also beef up the inherent security of pull printing by making authentication part of the second step. This is often called secure release printing. Before we talk about that, though, let’s see how pull printing alone can save time and money.
What Pull Printing Looks Like in the Real World
In many organizations, printing is fully automated. The user clicks “Print” and their job goes to whatever printer was selected at the time. Unfortunately, automation doesn’t always make things more convenient.
If users are mobile, they don’t always want to print to the same default printer.
If users have a habit of forgetting to claim their print jobs, it wastes toner and paper.
And if users are printing sensitive information, it’s risky if the document prints out before they can get to the printer.
Pull printing is ideal for all these scenarios:
Mobile users can choose their target printer after they’ve already clicked print on the document, so printing on the go is much more convenient.
Forgetful users are far more likely to claim the jobs they print. That helps keep the cost of consumables down.
Users who print confidential documents can ensure they’re physically present before the job prints.
Users can easily access their waiting pull-print jobs through our Print Release App, the printer’s built-in control panel or even a mobile device in kiosk mode that’s associated with a specific printer.
PrinterLogic allows admins to enable any networked printer for pull printing. That means you can use it with your existing printer fleet. PrinterLogic also features a centralized admin console, which makes it easy for admins to roll out pull printing anywhere in the organizations.
The Next Level: Secure Release Printing
As I mentioned earlier, pull printing that requires authentication to perform the release step is typically called secure release printing.
This clearly introduces an added layer of security. Print jobs can only be executed by the user who initiated them. PrinterLogic’s serverless printing infrastructure adds even more security because waiting print jobs are held on the original workstation and not in a shared job queue.
PrinterLogic also brings flexibility to secure printing. Along with our Print Release App, organizations can choose from several other fully supported authentication schemes.
Entering a PIN or password on the printer’ control panel (native support on Sharp and Canon models with more to come).
Swiping a badge or ID card on a connected card reader.
Using a CAC or PIV card (often in federal agencies and their contractors).
Increase Convenience and Security, Decrease Printing Costs
Whether you choose to implement pull printing or take it one step further with secure printing, the benefits are largely the same.
The waste from unclaimed documents—20% of all printed output, according to one study—is less likely to be generated when printing is more intentional.
Confidential documents are at less risk of exposure because they don’t end up sitting in the output tray.
And mobile users will have more control and higher productivity when they can easily choose their destination printer on the fly.
EPIC Management, L.P. saw these multiple benefits from a single solution. This California-based company used PrinterLogic to provide secure printing capabilities to medical staff who needed to comply with protected healthcare information (PHI) regulations. In a complex Citrix virtual environment, no less. (Read the case study here.)
Georgia’s Fulton County School System did the same thing in a completely different industry and use case. Their IT department put PrinterLogic’s seamless pull printing into the hands of their administrative staff as a way to add flexibility, security and control. (Read that case study here.)
PrinterLogic can do the same for your organization too. We offer a no-cost, 30-day demo so you can see how our next-gen solution can not only provide you with pull or secure printing but eliminate print servers completely. Simply sign up for your free PrinterLogic trial today.