How Print Management Software revolutionizes the Education Industry

Printer Tracking

Print Management Software, as stated, allows you to track the usage of how much print is being done. This is huge for schools, because there are a lot of uncontrollable variables. High volume of students and staff that could print at any time or moment. Having tracking allows for valuable data to be gathered and creates a plan of action for your business.

Maybe you notice that a certain department is receiving more prints by comparison. Or perhaps certain printers are getting used while others barely see use or remain idle. Having the knowledge to know this can help determine what rules and regulations you need to apply to then minimize costs.

Printer Rules and Policies

Once you learn of the usage, the software will allow you to set up policies and rules to better manage your printing environment. For example, you can add rules like black and white only, saving costs on colored ink for certain printers. Or maybe you only want double-sided printing to be done by students. Additionally, rules can be set up to limit access to who or what group can use the printer further, giving better control and keeping print costs low.

Many Education industries that utilize PaperCut for example have reduced their printing costs up to 70%, thanks to all the rules and set ups that have kept usage under control. It might seem minor, but even a setting like only double-sided printing will halve your costs. You can additionally have user authentication, by enabling single sign-on where users will actually need to login before utilizing the printer. If your school wanted to further enhance its security, multi-factor authentication is also a possibility which can greatly reduce the risk of data breaches.

Maximizing Printer Fleet Productivity

Print management software capabilities don’t end there, with schools it’s often that many printers will be needed to support the high volume of students across multiple rooms or buildings. This software allows for administration to automatically redirect jobs to the most cost-effective device. It can also be very useful especially when a large print job is required, and you’ll need a much more capable machine to handle the task.

Additionally, teachers and students can securely release the print job at the office copier that makes the most sense to them. This can be as trivial as just wanting the print job to happen at the closest printer, but there are also moments admins are printing something confidential. In those moments, an admin or staff may want to select an office printer that is in a more private or secluded location away from where students might be.

Secure Print Release

Print management comes with a feature known as secure print release. This is a huge feature as it allows users to authenticate themselves at the printer before the print job releases. This keeps confidential documents, perhaps secret documents from students, protected and ensures they don’t fall into the wrong hands or go missing in the printing process. This feature allows your printing environment to remain compliant with the law and keep professionalism with your educational standards.

While it serves as a primary purpose to keep prints secure, it also greatly helps in reducing costs for schools and educational institutions. Students may often print documents then forget about them. Without the feature to block and wait till the user authenticates, students would be wasting paper. In fact, statistics show that 15% of print jobs left in the holding queue are never printed. That means your business gets a 15% return on investment for not only your paper, but your ink and toner consumptions as well.