November 06, 2023
Simplified Scanning: Your Solution to Streamlined Document Sharing
Bryce Daugherty
We’re all sick of the same old scanning song and dance: you scan your documents then head back to your workstation to manually attach them to emails to send, or even worse, distribute physical paper copies—what a nightmare! There’s got to be a faster way to access and share documents, right? Yes!
Simplified Scanning from Vasion Print helps organizations better collaborate by streamlining document sharing and digitization. All users have to do is scan documents on any MFP and share them digitally through email or store them in cloud storage locations (including Google Drive, Box, OneDrive, etc.) right there at the MFP.
As an engineering manager with Vasion, I’ve met with customers directly and Simplified Scanning addresses common printing and scanning challenges for them three ways:
1. Simplified Setup, Management, and Control
Varying configuration methods and interfaces can be a nightmare. If you have multiple MFDs of different manufacturers, the process gets way more time-consuming than it should be. That said, pay close attention to the configuration steps below in Figure 1.
To enable scanning within the Admin Console, you toggle on the feature from your Global Scan Settings, then enable Scan To Email or Storage in the settings of the devices you want scanning. That’s it. Not so complicated, right? From there, you have complete control within the Admin Console over the default Global Scan Settings for all MFDs and who can see and adjust which settings.
Scan To Email
SMTP for emails is pre-configured in this initial release of Scan To Email, so you don’t have to configure it on each of your MFDs. Set it once, and you’re good to go. You can also lockdown Scan To Email recipients to specific domains and address book contacts, depending on the level of security and control you want with user scanning permissions.
Scan To Storage
Configure storage folder destinations(Google Drive, Box, OneDrive, SharePoint, or local network drives) within the Admin Console once rather than per user at every printer. You can set up specific groups or users to see and scan to particular storage folders that users need, like NDAs, contracts, and more. As long as the user has access to their cloud storage provider account or shared network drives, those folders will display for them at the MFD.
Employee access maintenance is simple, too. Update user scan access on the fly through the Admin Console for centralized, hassle-free management.
2. Better Visibility Over Your Entire Environment
If you’re using a built-in scan function on your MFDs, you probably can’t see who is scanning or where files are sent—unless you’re standing at your MFD all day long, watching everyone who uses it. Scanning can be an inherently vulnerable process, and we put a big emphasis on being able to view and monitor all user scan activity from every MFD, all from a single platform, without standing guard at your scanner.
Your basic MFD uses an NTLM V1 encryption, but we know you need more coverage than that. All file transfers that happen within Vasion Print go through HTTPS/TLS 1.2, with all emails encrypted over SSL. With Single Sign-On (SSO) functionality, you can manage user access to MFDs to ensure only those that you have authorized can access printing and scanning functions. All users must authenticate their identity at the Control Panel Application (CPA) before scanning via username credentials, PIN, QR code, release code, badge swipe, or through the Vasion App, ensuring that anything they do after login is tracked to their usernames.
Within the Admin Console, you can access a designated scanning report to see activity information like who is scanning and from what workstation, the time of the scan, and additional scan job details to help you manage and maintain document and organizational security.
3. Universal and Convenient End-User Experience
The old-school process for an end user to scan required users to scan a document, track down wherever that file was saved, then manually attach it to an email, or upload it to a cloud storage folder just to share it with others. Doing this with a few documents now and then can work, but it’s not a long-term solution, especially as the organization scales.
With Simplified Scanning, your end users can log in to the Control Panel Application (CPA) on the printer as they usually would for Secure Release Printing, select a Scan To option (Email or Cloud), define their scan destination and settings, and then scan. The process takes minutes.
This paperless process is great for you, too. With an intuitive, universal interface for end users to scan with no matter the printer manufacturer, you spend less time on helpdesk tickets for user configuration, logins, and retraining for different manufacturers.
Looking to the Future
We’re dedicated to developing products that make your lives easier while benefiting your organization. Solutions like Simplified Scanning which automate manual processes and digitize document management are just part of the Vasion Automation Platform that unifies print, output, workflows, and document management together. Stay tuned to see what we’re building next.
If you want to see what Simplified Scanning can do for your organization, schedule a demo or contact your Customer Success Representative.
Bryce Daugherty has helped hundreds of IT leaders tackle a variety of print-management challenges. He joined Vasion’s PrinterLogic division in 2020 to handle product-support escalations, and soon after was promoted to Product Manager, where he leads the company’s secure printing program, including the development of printer control panel applications. Bryce partners with printer manufacturers and enjoys building these relationships. He has numerous technical certifications including enterprise CRMs, SAP integration, and networking. In his free time, Bryce enjoys the outdoors and is always up for an amazing adventure.