Simplified Scanning: Your Solution To Streamlined Document Sharing

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 PrinterLogic helps organizations better collaborate by streamlining document sharing and digitization. All users have to do is scan documents 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 PrinterLogic, I’ve met with customers directly and Simplified Scanning addresses common printing and scanning challenges in three ways, which I'll explain in this blog.

Varying configuration methods and interfaces can be a nightmare. If you have multiple MFDs from 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 to scan. That’s it. From there, you have complete control within the Admin Console over the default Global Scan Settings for all MFDs, as well as who can view and adjust which settings.

Figure 1: Configuration for Scan To Email and Storage is simple within the Printer Logic Admin Console.  

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 shared 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 shared folders will display for them at the MFD. 

Once you have enabled your desired cloud storage providers, end users can connect all of their personal cloud folders in a few steps.

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. Scanning can be an inherently vulnerable process, and we place a significant emphasis on being able to view and monitor all user scan activity from every MFD, all from a single console, 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 within PrinterLogic 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, ensuring only those 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 PrinterLogic App, ensuring that any actions taken after login are tracked to their usernames. 

Within the Admin Console, you can access a designated scanning report to view activity information, including who is scanning, from which workstation, the time of the scan, and additional scan job details, to help you manage and maintain document and organizational security.

The old-school process for an end user to scan required them 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. This approach can work with a few documents, but it’s not a long-term solution, especially as the organization scales. With Simplified Scanning, your end users can log in to the CPA on the printer as they usually would for Secure Release Printing, select a Scan To option (Email or Storage), 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, regardless of the printer manufacturer, you spend less time on helpdesk tickets for user configuration, logins, and retraining for different manufacturers.  

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 PrinterLogic Automation Platform that unifies print, output, workflows, and document management together. Stay tuned to see what we’re building next. 

To see what Simplified Scanning can do for your organization, schedule a demo or contact your Customer Success Representative.