Optimising San Anton School’s printing environment through uniFLOW Online and Canon Multifunctional Printers allowing multi-user, remote printing facilities with enhanced security features.
Challenges Faced by the School
- Our main objective was to better manage our printing environment and paper usage. Multiple staff members were printing on one printer with teachers taking too long to retrieve printouts, due to them having to search through piles of documents to find
their own. - In certain situations, printouts forgotten on the printer were getting mixed up with other staff members’ documents or getting lost. This also compromised confidentiality and security when it came to printing exam papers.
- All the above issues created bottlenecks in daily operations as teachers would have to restart their print jobs from scratch.
- Additionally, if a printer was down, staff members wouldn’t be able to direct their printing job to a different printer.
- Printed documents vary from full-text documents to text with images and sometimes just images, so constant reprinting meant that the School was facing higher replenishment costs as well as higher rates of paper wastage when documents were misplaced.
Challenges Faced by the School
- Our main objective was to better manage our printing environment and paper usage. Multiple staff members were printing on one printer with teachers taking too long to retrieve printouts, due to them having to search through piles of documents to find
their own. - In certain situations, printouts forgotten on the printer were getting mixed up with other staff members’ documents or getting lost. This also compromised confidentiality and security when it came to printing exam papers.
- All the above issues created bottlenecks in daily operations as teachers would have to restart their print jobs from scratch.
- Additionally, if a printer was down, staff members wouldn’t be able to direct their printing job to a different printer.
- Printed documents vary from full-text documents to text with images and sometimes just images, so constant reprinting meant that the School was facing higher replenishment costs as well as higher rates of paper wastage when documents were misplaced.
Setting Up uniFLOW Online
STAGE 1: OVERVIEW –
UNIFLOW ONLINE SERVERLESS SOLUTION
To address San Anton School’s challenges, Avantech installed uniFLOW Online at the School, which is a cloud-based print management solution that does not require a dedicated server.
This solution allows organisations to take control of their printing environment and benefit from flexible scanning and printing workflows without investing resources in a local server.
STAGE 2:
USER AUTONOMY AND SELF-REGISTRATION
As part of the user onboarding process, which in the case of San Anton School would mainly be teachers, Avantech introduced self-registration functionality. First-time users can autonomously access the uniFLOW Online portal and retrieve their account information. This approach allows for simplified onboarding since teachers can access the portal and register on their own.
STAGE 3:
PRINTING RESPONSIBLY
The implementation of uniFLOW Online allows for the organisation to set its own default printing setting. In order to encourage responsible printing practices, the School’s setting was changed to black and white, meaning that printing in colour is done only when required. This significantly reduces unnecessary colour printing and the associated costs
STAGE 4:
USER TRAINING AND SUPPORT
A Visual Demo, via a shared PDF, serves as an Instruction Document for users. These short notes are placed above all multifunctional printers at San Anton School and provide users with a demonstration of how to retrieve their documents, making it easier for users to get started without the need for extensive training.
STAGE 5:
ENHANCING THE USER EXPERIENCE THROUGH SCANNING CAPABILITIES
The scanning capability which has been implemented was chosen to complement the overall user experience. As part of the print management solution, users have the ability to easily scan and digitise their documents.
With this solution in place, a new level of security was also added to the solution provided. A print job is not output until the person who issued the job is physically at the printer. For the documents to be printed, the user must first authorise the job at the printer, allowing them to collect their papers immediately.
Setting up uniFLOW Online
STAGE 1: OVERVIEW –
UNIFLOW ONLINE SERVERLESS SOLUTION
To address San Anton School’s challenges, Avantech installed uniFLOW Online at the School, which is a cloud-based print management solution that does not require a dedicated server.
This solution allows organisations to take control of their printing environment and benefit from flexible scanning and printing workflows without investing resources in a local server.
STAGE 2:
USER AUTONOMY AND SELF-REGISTRATION
As part of the user onboarding process, which in the case of San Anton School would mainly be teachers, Avantech introduced self-registration functionality. First-time users can autonomously access the uniFLOW Online portal and retrieve their account information. This approach allows for simplified onboarding since teachers can access the portal and register on their own.
STAGE 3:
PRINTING RESPONSIBLY
The implementation of uniFLOW Online allows for the organisation to set its own default printing setting. In order to encourage responsible printing practices, the School’s setting was changed to black and white, meaning that printing in colour is done only when required. This significantly reduces unnecessary colour printing and the associated costs
STAGE 4:
USER TRAINING AND SUPPORT
A Visual Demo, via a shared PDF, serves as an Instruction Document for users. These short notes are placed above all multifunctional printers at San Anton School and provide users with a demonstration of how to retrieve their documents, making it easier for users to get started without the need for extensive training.
STAGE 5:
ENHANCING THE USER EXPERIENCE THROUGH SCANNING CAPABILITIES
The scanning capability which has been implemented was chosen to complement the overall user experience. As part of the print management solution, users have the ability to easily scan and digitise their documents.
With this solution in place, a new level of security was also added to the solution provided. A print job is not output until the person who issued the job is physically at the printer. For the documents to be printed, the user must first authorise the job at the printer, allowing them to collect their papers immediately.
“The solution is relatively simple and quick to set up and manage. Users quickly get used to uniFLOW online and enjoy using it.”
Ian Deguara – Information Technology Manager | San Anton School
Enhanced Security
This enhanced security feature also solved the problem of printouts getting mixed up and teachers having to sort through piles of documents, saving time and print resources since printouts no longer go missing. Moreover, if a document was sent to the printer by mistake, the user has a chance to cancel printing while being physically at the printer, which greatly reduces the amount of paper waste generated.
“Canon offers reliable and heavy-duty copiers which allowed us to seamlessly integrate with uniFLOW online. The combination of Canon hardware and software allowed us to manage our print environment efficiently and easily.”
Ian Deguara – Information Technology Manager | San Anton School
Hardware Used
San Anton School presently uses Canon multifunctional copiers. Avantech’s Managed Print Services work perfectly together with Canon hardware and software, as well as with uniFLOW Online. This seamless combination allows the School to manage their printing more efficiently.
Avantech’s high-quality service offers the ability to set up a managed printing environment including the following:
- Setting up the School’s print policy and secure printing ensuring confidentiality.
- Ensuring appropriate device use for maximum efficiency.
- Setting up specific print-managed software which sets duplex printing as default, allowing for a reduction in the amount of paper consumed.
- Automated machine click readings by the system, so that the School does not have to depend on its own staff.
- Automatic replenishment of consumables to eliminate downtime and avoid machine stoppages.
- Regular maintenance on machines to reduce downtime and ensuring an agreed-upon response time for such maintenance.
Benefits After Implementation
The issue of wasteful printing has been tackled since each print job is linked to a user account and the user must be physically present at the copier to print their documents.
Less resources are being wasted on reprinting misplaced documents. This also saves time for staff.
Moreover, after implementation, we have noticed a decrease of around 10% in printed documents, leading to a decrease in printing costs overall.
uniFLOW Online also allows for Mobile Printing and Scan-to-Cloud. This convenient feature allows non-staff members or guests to easily, but securely, print their documents without having an account with the School.
Instead of going to the printer and authorising a print job with their School account, a temporary job code is sent to their email address. This code then authenticates the user at the printing device, so that they can execute the print job. Non-staff members also receive instructions on how to use this Guest System.
In order to have further control on resources utilised, different default options can be configured for staff and guests, such as:
• printing in black and white
• duplex printing
• printing attachments and/or email body text
Scan-to-Cloud allows staff to scan their documents and securely store them in the cloud. Users can then access them from any device and distribute them to multiple destinations.
“We are dedicated to promoting sustainability and preserving our environment. With uniFLOW online, the coordination of print jobs ensures that documents emerge seamlessly, eliminating the issue of lost printouts and reducing wasted paper and prints.”
Ian Deguara – Information Technology Manager | San Anton School
Hardware Used
San Anton School presently uses Canon multifunctional copiers. Avantech’s Managed Print Services work perfectly together with Canon hardware and software, as well as with uniFLOW Online. This seamless combination allows the School to manage their printing more efficiently.
Avantech’s high-quality service offers the ability to set up a managed printing environment including the following:
- Setting up the School’s print policy and secure printing ensuring confidentiality.
- Ensuring appropriate device use for maximum efficiency.
- Setting up specific print-managed software which sets duplex printing as default, allowing for a reduction in the amount of paper consumed.
- Automated machine click readings by the system, so that the School does not have to depend on its own staff.
- Automatic replenishment of consumables to eliminate downtime and avoid machine stoppages.
- Regular maintenance on machines to reduce downtime and ensuring an agreed-upon response time for such maintenance.
Benefits After Implementation
The issue of wasteful printing has been tackled since each print job is linked to a user account and the user must be physically present at the copier to print their documents.
Less resources are being wasted on reprinting misplaced documents. This also saves time for staff.
Moreover, after implementation, we have noticed a decrease of around 10% in printed documents, leading to a decrease in printing costs overall.
uniFLOW Online also allows for Mobile Printing and Scan-to-Cloud. This convenient feature allows non staff members or guests to easily, but securely, print their documents without having an account with the School.
Instead of going to the printer and authorising a print job with their School account, a temporary job code is sent to their email address. This code then authenticates the user at the printing device, so that they can execute the print job. Non-staff members also receive instructions on how to use this Guest System.
In order to have further control on resources utilised, different default options can be configured for staff and guests, such as:
• printing in black and white
• duplex printing
• printing attachments and/or email body text
Scan-to-Cloud allows staff to scan their documents and securely store them in the cloud. Users can then access them from any device and distribute them to multiple destinations.
“We are dedicated to promoting sustainability and preserving our environment. With uniFLOW online, the coordination of print jobs ensures that documents emerge seamlessly, eliminating the issue of lost printouts and reducing wasted paper and prints.”
Ian Deguara – Information Technology Manager | San Anton School
San Anton School is an independent, co-educational, mixed-ability School with a staff complement of 300 educating over 1300 students aged 18 months to 16 years from Day Care, right through to the end of compulsory education.
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