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Prevent jobs being released to a printer in error

When a printer or device is in error, print jobs can get lost, refunds might be needed, and highly-sensitive documents could be compromised. Support demands can quickly escalate when you have to deal with frustrated users on top of resolving the error.

PaperCut MF gives you the ability to choose whether or not users can release jobs to printers that are reporting an error. If you choose to block jobs from being released to a printer or MFD reporting an error, a message is displayed on the Release StationPrint Release Stations place a print job on hold and allow users to release it when required. Often a Release Station is a dedicated PC terminal located next to the printers, however, Release Stations can take other forms such as a web browser based interface. Some common examples where Release Stations can be used include secure printing, approved printing, and authentication. In a secure printing environment jobs are only printed when the user arrives at the print area and confirms his or her identity. This ensures the user is there to collect the job and other users can't "accidentally" collect the document. In some organizations it may be appropriate to hold jobs until they are approved by selected individuals. A good example would be a teacher approving printing on an expensive color printer. Hold/Release queues can be used as a form of authentication in an unauthenticated environment. Users must authenticate prior to releasing their jobs allowing PaperCut NG to confirm their identity. interface Held Jobs pageindicating that the job has not been released as well as directions for how to resolve the error. The user can then choose to either resolve the error or release to an alternative MFD in a Find-Me environment.

Not only do you have the control to block users releasing jobs when an error is reported, but when used in combination with the System Health Monitoring interface, you can be notified when printers/devices go into error so you can resolve the issue quicker, further improving user experience.

Note:

Any print jobs that were released before the printer/device went into error will still be printed when the error is fixed.

By default, this functionality is not switched on. You can switch this on for:

Important:

The way in which you set this up for each type of Release Station (ie. device, web-based, or standard Release Station interfaces) is different. If you switch on this functionality only for web-based Release Stations, it will be enabled in the Admin web interface Printers > Jobs Pending Release, User web interface > Jobs Pending Release, Release Manager interface, and the Mobile Release interface, but NOT in the Standard Release Station or the device Print Release.