Effective control and management of your print environment
With uniFLOW Output Manager you can monitor and track what’s being printed, by whom and at what cost. You can set rules so that users only print on the devices you choose and also arrange for output to be diverted to alternative devices in the event of a problem, so that staff productivity is not affected. It is designed to save you time and money by providing effective controls over your entire print fleet.
Control costs
uniFLOW Output Manager helps you keep tight control on your costs. Prices can be assigned to users or teams in a manner that’s as sophisticated as you like. For example, you could set a different budget or price for A4, A3, B&W, colour, single-side, double-side, booklet making and even stapling. If the user exceeds their budget, you could either allow them to keep on printing or block his printing until his manager agrees a new budget. This information can then be used to define printing policies and ensure your print infrastructure is being used as effectively as possible.
Reduce costs through efficiencies
Another way to save money is to minimise the time spent managing and solving IT problems, and reduce the frustrations of users who can’t print when they need to. uniFLOW Output Manager addresses these issues, providing a clear insight into which devices are available, which are not, and highlights “out of toner” problems and paper jams. Your IT department is kept informed and, if required, pre-defined rules can be set up and followed for speedier resolution, saving both time and money.
Desktop accounting
Desktop printers can create headaches for IT staff since they can be costly to run and, since they’re not on the network, difficult to monitor. uniFLOW Output Manager helps you control the cost of these devices, as well as including the relevant usage and cost data within the uniFLOW Output Manager database.
Interactive rules and routing
To help keep costs low for you and your users, print jobs can be automatically routed to the most cost efficient devices in the office (eg colour print jobs from desktop devices to larger multifunctional printers). Furthermore, documents can be diverted to alternative devices (failover), in the event of a problem such as “out of toner”, reducing user frustration. Alternatively, “pop up” boxes within this module can also be used to proactively inform users if they’re attempting to print somewhere, when lower costs alternatives are available. Their subsequent decisions are all stored within the uniFLOW Output Manager database, keeping IT departments informed of their most cost conscious users and departments.
Access management system
Once installed on a device, this module allows administrators to pre-determine which device functions each user, or group of users, are able to use. For example, features such as “Send” or “Copy” can be restricted so that they’re not even visible in the device’s display.
Biometric
For the ultimate in failsafe security, biometrics allows users to identify themselves at devices using fingerprints.
Secure “follow-me” printing
uniFLOW Output Manager offers “follow-me” printing which will allow users to securely print jobs at any networked device. Print jobs sent to the print server are paused until the user authenticates at any multifunctional device or at existing printers. Authentication can be managed in a number of different ways, including swipe card authentication and/or PIN code.
Print management information
uniFLOW Output Manager provides a Document Accounting solution which will enable you to monitor and report on your printer fleet.
Statistical analysis will provide reporting by device, by user, and by department or cost centre.
This allows easy identification of trends, giving a clear picture of printing costs and enabling accurate planning for future needs.
In addition uniFLOW Output Manager can report on the cost savings achieved when printing on a Canon multifunctional device versus a networked or local printer.
As part of data collection during user print or copy activity, uniFLOW Output Manager recognises whether the job is colour or mono and stores this data in the uniFLOW Output Manager database. It is possible to block users from using colour, or apply user, group or Cost Centre level budget controls. The budget would be set according to the per page costs for colour configured in uniFLOW Output Manager and the requirement the user has for colour output.
Once the budget has been used, colour prints will be blocked until it is renewed by an administrator, or automatically on a timed basis. For example users or departments could be given a monthly budget.
Active Directory
The uniFLOW Output Manager software will integrate seamlessly with your current IT infrastructure. uniFLOW Output Manager is fully LDAP compliant, and is therefore able to integrate with Microsoft Active Directory to enable user level compliance with your printing policy. User PINs can be stored with their AD profile and synchronised with the uniFLOW Output Manager software via LDAP.