There are seven pillars of wisdom and seven types of ambiguity, so maybe it’s not surprising that there should be seven common enterprise printing problems. These are the infuriating—but ultimately solvable—hassles that IT experiences on a regular basis when using legacy printing and print-management solutions.
The most common enterprise printing problems
In this blog post we’ll go into detail about what those pillars are:
- Decentralized print management
- Printer security breaches
- Help desk support
- No user print restrictions
- Incompatibility with BYOD
- Managing print servers
- End-user printing problems
1. Decentralized print management
In many organizations, print management is fragmented. There’s no single window onto the whole print environment; it’s more like a hall of mirrors. Visibility suffers, and admin tasks become tedious and piecemeal. Printer deployments, driver updates and profile changes require multiple steps, and the same operations often have to be repeated for different locations and user pools.
2. Printer security breaches
Print infrastructure often gets short shrift in the wider efforts to harden security. A widely cited 2015 study conducted by the Ponemon Institute found that 64% of respondents said their organizations prioritize computer security over printer security. Default passwords on many printers are never changed, creating an opportunity for man-in-the-middle attacks. End users also have a habit of printing documents with sensitive information and then forgetting them in the output tray.
3. Help desk support
Printer and print-management issues typically have one outcome: a call to the help desk. Has a printer run out of toner? Is an employee unable to print to their regular printer? Are end users experiencing crashes or system hangs from rogue drivers? All of that is likely to get them on the phone to IT. The steady stream of support tickets eats up resources and drags down productivity.
4. No user print restrictions
Daunted by the hoops that Group Policy forces them to jump through, some organizations choose to keep rights restrictions minimal. Otherwise they’re setting themselves up for—yep, you guessed it—more calls to the help desk. Or maybe their print-management solution doesn’t even give them the granular control they need to place essential limits on certain aspects of end-user printing.
5. Incompatibility with BYOD
BYOD policies are in more demand than ever. End users want to work with their preferred laptop, tablet or smartphone and move seamlessly between their time on and off the clock. But, despite stats indicating productivity increases and cost savings from BYOD policies, many organizations continue to struggle with implementing and supporting BYOD printing.
6. Managing print servers
When you’re dealing with legacy print-management solutions like print servers, you spend as much time managing the solution as you do managing printers. That’s because print servers need to be migrated, upgraded, rebooted and maintained. The best way to address this is to eliminate print servers and implement a serverless print infrastructure, as we’ll soon see.
7. End-user printing problems
Last but not least is the assortment of errors and roadblocks that end users face. Not being able to see certain printers. Default printers not working. Driver-related freezes, hangs and crashes. Print jobs being routed to the wrong printer. And, of course, all these problems create bad blood between end users and IT while also generating unwanted help-desk calls.
PrinterLogic’s serverless print infrastructure is the answer
Through its powerful combo of direct IP printing and centralized management, PrinterLogic is able to solve all seven of these common enterprise printing problems in one fell swoop. Its serverless print infrastructure allows organizations to eliminate print servers completely while introducing more reliability, flexibility and ease of use to printing and print management.
PrinterLogic unifies your print environment, providing you with full control via a single pane of glass. Using this admin console, IT can quickly deploy printers, update or roll back drivers and configure advanced settings from one convenient interface. There’s no need for Group Policy or scripts to set up precise deployments. And queue management allows IT staff to cancel or remove problematic print jobs.
BYOD? PrinterLogic’s mobile printing functionality makes it easy to support user-owned devices. Security? PrinterLogic’s serverless print infrastructure coupled with secure release printing and its advanced reporting (which includes auditing) all help to thwart malicious actors. User friendliness? PrinterLogic’s self-service printer installation portal empowers end users with the ability to easily identify and safely install printers with a click.
As a result, all the problems that used to culminate in support calls vanish. So the support calls vanish too.
No print environment is too complex
GH Metal Solutions thought their nationally distributed VMware environment was too dynamic to ever enjoy centralized print management, too complex to ever eliminate print servers. But that wasn’t true. PrinterLogic’s serverless print infrastructure brought effortless print management, reduced help-desk calls and greater end-user satisfaction—which all amounted to strong ROI. Read the case study here.