Pcounter Configuration Guide

Transcription

1 Pcounter Configuration Guide Pcounter Configuration Guide v

2 Pcounter Configuration Guide Table of Contents Pcounter Configuration Guide Table of Contents... 2 Document Overview... 3 Section 1 CLIENT BILLING Enable PopUps Choose PopUp window type Enabling PopUp agent How to edit a user message for a PopUp window How to create Client codes Associate Client codes to particular users Advanced Client Billing (create subcodes) PopUp window with subcodes How to import a list of client codes Section 2 ACADEMIC How to define a quota for schools, universities, libraries, etc How to choose between the Page mode or the Currency mode How to manage a user account User notification How to manage quotas for users who do not have a network profile Import an existing list of PopUp users SECTION 3 CORPORATE Define department / service code Rule base printing setup Section 4 PCOUNTER PRO General consideration Authentication method Pcounter Configuration Guide Pcounter Configuration Guide Table of Contents 2

3 Document Overview This document is a guide to typical and common configurations for academic/educational, client billing and corporate scenarios, covering the various modules and possibilities of setup and configuration of Pcounter. There are basically three ways to use Pcounter and its accounting, tracking and billing capabilities which correspond to three categories of companies: CLIENT BILLING: Charge a client for any print job ACADEMIC: Define a quota and limit the number of pages for every user CORPORATE: Define service/department codes, obtain fully detailed statistics to analyse and manage the cost of printing There is a fourth Section in this document which applies to all other sections. This is the Pcounter PRO configuration. Pcounter PRO is required only if you want to track and count photocopies from a networked multifunction device, in addition to print jobs from the network, or extend Pcounter with terminals, Internet Web payment and similar. Pcounter Configuration Guide Document Overview 3

4 Section 1 CLIENT BILLING Client billing is used to charge every print job to an external customer or department inside a company. Rather than put a print job to the user session who printed it (the user who started a session under his network profile), the target is to ask this user to choose an account to which the current print job will be charged. To do this, it is necessary to launch a Pcounter feature called PopUp window. A PopUp will be displayed each time a user will send a print job to a printer, asking him to choose in a list or to directly type the client name or code to be billed. In the Pcounter reports, the administrator will retrieve the information and will be able to use it to creta the customer invoice. Note: Pcounter Client Billing does not have any direct connection to any accounting package. All data contained in Pcounter will require to be manually added to the customer accounting software. Typical Popup window used for Client Billing Editable user message Client code list Pcounter Configuration Guide Section 1 CLIENT BILLING 4

5 Typical report returned by Pcounter (CSV file) User Client code Jobs Pages Cost HERVIS\Administrateur Finance 2 3 0,03 HERVIS\administrateur Konica Minolta ,68 HERVIS\administrateur 800/ ,1 PrinterPopupUsers\User PrinterPopupUsers\user SOLUTIONS\Robert 1 1 0,02 SOLUTIONS\Robert cod ,16 SOLUTIONS\Robert cod ,08 SOLUTIONS\test cod ,4 Total ,47 Client Billing requires to display a PopUp menu. Each workstation requires to have the PopUp agent to be installed. Client Billing printers need to be paused when a chargeable print job is submitted. You first need to define which users will be required to use a PopUp window, and which printer need to be paused. 1- Enable PopUps In Pcontrol, select the printer you want to add to the Client Billing feature (right click on printer). You get the below window Super Pause is automatically selected to avoid users to release jobs in the Windows print queue manager (if they have the rights in Windows), without to enter the client code Check this box to activate the popup feature for the selected printer 2 Choose PopUp window type In Pcontrol, you ll need to choose the type of PopUp window you want to work with. The above example shows how to define Client Billing with one client code to enter when PopUp is displayed. Pcounter Configuration Guide Section 1 CLIENT BILLING 5

6 In Pcontrol select Pcounter > Configure Pcounter server to get the Pcounter Configuration window, and click on the PopUp tab. The below window will be displayed Select the type of PopUp you want (for the example, we select Client code list ) Select here if you want the user messages to be displayed to all printers, or only this printer. (you can define a message for each printer) Check this box if you want to allow users to choose a client code from a list. If not, no list will be displayed 3 Enabling PopUp agent The PopUp agent need to be deployed on each workstation which will use Client Billing. To do this, the system Administrator will need to install PopUp.exe from the server to each workstation. It is mandatory to have administrator rights to proceed. To install PopUp.exe on a workstation, you can copy it to the workstation and add it to the Windows task bar. If you double-click on the green pyramid, you can verify if the proper Pcounter server is selected Once installed on a workstation, the green pyramid appears on the Windows task bar Double-click on the green pyramid to check if the proper Pcounter server is selected (below screenshot) Pcounter Configuration Guide Section 1 CLIENT BILLING 6

7 Important: When PopUp is activated, it is necessary to restart Pcounter services prior to using it. To do this, go to Configure Pcounter server in Pcontrol, choose the Services tab and restart the Print and Data services (it is also possible to do the same via the Windows Services) Now, when you send a job, the following PopUp will be displayed A user message can be displayed here. Next section will describe how to edit a user message A client code will need to be entered in this field to release the print job and print it (see section 6 How to create client code to learn how to create them) Once the client code has been entered, you just have to click Print to release the job 4 How to edit a user message for a PopUp window You can create your own messages, in your country language to be displayed at each PopUp To do this, open Pcontrol and right click on the printer you have enabled PopUp to obtain the below screen Pcounter Configuration Guide Section 1 CLIENT BILLING 7

8 Click on the link Edit information message You can type here the message you want to be displayed at each workstation which will use PopUp menu for the selected printer. Use the substitution variables as shown on this screen. If you define %C and %P variables, you will be required to enable the Count job in advance option. This can be done on the Printer Configuration window (see previous screen) The below screen shows that defined variables were replaced by user name and job cost Pcounter Configuration Guide Section 1 CLIENT BILLING 8

9 5 How to create Client codes In Pcounter, Client codes can be created manually inside the Pcounter Application, or imported from a list To create a Client code manually, open Pcounter Administrator and click on the Client code tab Right click in the Left frame of the client code zone and select New code Pcounter Configuration Guide Section 1 CLIENT BILLING 9

10 The «New Client Code» window will appear with Client code radio button pre-selected. Keep it and type the Client code you want. The description field is only for comment purpose and will not appear in the reports You have successfully created a client code. Repeat the same process to create another code. All client codes are listed in the Client code menu with a green pyramid 6 Associate Client codes to particular users This can be helpful to avoid users to assign a print job to a Client he is not supposed to handle. With Client code association, a user will be required to type a client code and only his authorized code will be recognized. To assign client codes, open Pcounter Administrator and click on the Client code list association tab. Pcounter Configuration Guide Section 1 CLIENT BILLING 10

11 Right click on a user name and select Associate code Choose which client codes this user will be allowed to use Pcounter Configuration Guide Section 1 CLIENT BILLING 11

12 Administrateur has now been assigned to the code MKT. He will be able to type only this code at the Client Billing popup window 7 Advanced Client Billing (create subcodes) Now that you have created client codes, you might need to use second level client codes that all belong to one client code. We call them Subcodes. In example, you have a customer Mercedes Benz, but you deal with several agencies of Mercedes Benz, let s say Mercedes Benz Paris, Mercedes Benz London, and Mercedes Benz New-York. Once you have created the main client code Mercedes Benz, proceed as described below Right click on the Mercedes Benz client code to select it (here the client code is , and Mercedes Benz is the description) Pcounter Configuration Guide Section 1 CLIENT BILLING 12

13 Select the subcode radio button. You can see that you get the subcode of you previously selected Type the subcode here and add a comment Click OK and you will see the subcode you created in Pcounter Administrator 8 PopUp window with subcodes To activate the PopUp window which requires a user to enter 2 codes: the client code and one of its associated subcode, go to Pcontrol and open the Pcounter configuration window as described in section 3 Pcounter Configuration Guide Section 1 CLIENT BILLING 13

14 Select «Matter number list» in the window type dropdown menu 9 How to import a list of client codes You may also use an existing list of client codes without to have to manually create codes. Pcounter offers an import option which allow you to insert in the client code zone, a list of client codes. Prior to importing a list, you need to ensure the file is in the right format. To be imported in Pcounter all list of codes requires to be in text or csv format with comma as separator. One record for each line. The format of each line should be: ClientCode,Subcode,Description Notes: 1. The description field is optional and can be left blank. 2. If a subcode record is imported without also having imported its associated client code record, then records will appear to import correctly, but none of the subcode records will be seen. 3. Do not import a subcode record unless its associated client code record exists. 4. Reindexing is recommended after importing many records. Example 1 : Importing only client codes without descriptions (Imports 3 client code records.) Client1 Client2 Client3 Example 2: Importing client codes, subcodes, and descriptions Pcounter Configuration Guide Section 1 CLIENT BILLING 14

15 (Imports 2 client codes with 3 associated subcodes each.) Note that the client code record should be imported first. If a client has no subcode but has a description, you need to insert a second comma between the client code and the description. RAZZL,,Razzle Gadgets RAZZL,ENG,Engineering RAZZL,MKT,Marketing RAZZL,ACC,Accounting CTHOS,,City Hospital CTHOS,RAD,Radiology CTHOS,PHA,Pharmacy CTHOS,CAF,Cafeteria Now that you have created a list of codes, you are ready to import into Pcounter 1. Open Pcounter Administrator 2. Click on the Client Code tab 3. Select the Database menu 4. Click on import as shown on the screen below Once you ve clicked on import, you ll get the following screen: Pcounter Configuration Guide Section 1 CLIENT BILLING 15

16 Choose the type of file you have created. In our example we have chosen the first one. Then click OK A message will indicate that your import was successful. Click OK You can see now that client codes and subcodes appear into the Pcounter Adminstrator Client code window You have successfully imported a list of client codes. You will be able to use these codes with the Client Billing PopUp window Pcounter Configuration Guide Section 1 CLIENT BILLING 16

17 Section 2 ACADEMIC 1 - How to define a quota for schools, universities, libraries, etc.. The objective is to give each user a quantity of pages that he will not be able to exceed. If the quota is reached, print stops and the user is notified. Before to setup quotas, you will need to choose between two possibilities. A quota of pages, or a quota in currency. With quota in pages, the unit is a page. This unit is indivisible. (it is not possible to print less than a page). A quota of 20 will mean 20 pages and the maximum quantity of pages to be printed will be 20. This is true for a A4 B&W page. If color printers are available, Pcounter will use a multiplier which will count more than a unit for a color page. Same for Duplex printing and A3 paper format. With a quota in currency, the unit is the a cost per page. This means the price you want to charge users for a page. In example, if you setup a price of 0.02 Euro for a B&W A4 page, you will define a quota in Euro. The user will have to buy a quota. If he buys a quota of 20 Euros, as the price per page was defined for 0.02 Euro, he will be able to print 1000 pages (for A4, B&W) 2 - How to choose between the Page mode or the Currency mode Open Pcontrol and open the Pcounter Configuration window which popup on the Global Setting tab. The below screen shows what you get when you open this window Select here the accounting method. Currency or Pages Now, you need to define the accounting unit value. In Pcontrol, right click on the printer you want to define the price per page, as described below Pcounter Configuration Guide Section 2 ACADEMIC 17

18 Riht click on the printer and select Printer, then Configuration On the Printer Configuration window, click on the Prices tab This screen shows the configuration for the Page mode. In this example, the printer is a colour printer and supports both A3 and Duplex. All price boxes are for B&W. We have defined 1 as the default unit for A4, and 2 for A3. We have defined a multiplier price for colour and duplex. Click OK to validate In the second example, the billing mode is Currency. Pcounter Configuration Guide Section 2 ACADEMIC 18

19 This example shows the price definition with the Currency mode (values are fro explanation only). Put the value you want to sell at on these boxes, and define also a multiplier for colour and duplex, then click OK to validate Now, you can define quotas Open Pcounter administrator Right click on a user, this opens the menu where to define the quota operations. Pcounter Configuration Guide Section 2 ACADEMIC 19

20 3 - How to manage a user account There are 4 operation to manage a user account : DEPOSIT CHARGE SET BALANCE SET LIMIT Deposit : The value you will type on the Deposit window will be added to the current user account balance. In example, if the user balance is 5 and you type 5 as a deposit value, the user balance will raise to 10 (pages or currency) You can decide that the value will be added now, or you can program that this value will be added at predefined period. Here we have defined that the value 10 will be added every month, the first day of the month, at 12:00 Pcounter Configuration Guide Section 2 ACADEMIC 20

21 Charge The Charge action is used exactly the same way as as the Deposit, but the value typed will be deducted from the balance. It is also possible to program this operation. Note : If you type a value which is inferior to the current balance, this balance will become negative. So, if after this, you do a Deposit action, remember the deposit value will be minored. Set Balance The value defined with the Set Balance command will supersede the current balance value. If the current balance is 30 and you type 50 for the Set Balance value. The balance will be 50, not 80. (it would have been 80 if you had used the Deposit command) Pcounter Configuration Guide Section 2 ACADEMIC 21

22 Set Low Balance Limit The Set Limit command is used to decide where is the stop printing value The normal value for this is 0. If a quota reaches 0, then this user will not be allowed to print anymore. If some users do not work with a quota, you can check the Allow unlimited credit box, and printing will not stop NOTE : It is possible to define a negative value of the Set limit. This is very useful to give users free of charges pages. In example, if the quota of a user is 100 (in page mode) and you define -10 as the limit, this user will be able to print 110 pages. If you work under the currency mode, the value will be theoretical as it depends on the price per page value The quota definition is not yet finished. What you need to do know is to determine the action that Pcounter will do when the quota (balance) is reached To configure this, open Pcontrol and go to Pcounter Configuration menu Make sure that Accounting is set to User account balances and Log file Set Action if below low balance limit to Delete job, and when the balance of a user will reach 0, no print will be possible Pcounter Configuration Guide Section 2 ACADEMIC 22

23 4 - User notification It would be nice that users are notified of their balance. It is possible to notify users with different manners that you can define in the Pcounter configuration window as shown below In the Pcounter configuration window, go to the Data Server tab. Choose the appropriate Pcounter behaviour when the balance limit is reached. If you want users to be notified of their balance after each print job. Do it in this box You can edit the message that you user will get as you did for the popup, by using the % variable Another possibility is to notify a user only when the limit (0) is reached or, better, when the balance is close to reach the limit. In this example, the message will be sent to the user when the balance goes below 10. This will indicate this user that he will need to reload his account very soon. NOTE : Account balance notification messages are send to users with Microsoft NetSend process. Check first in the Windows services if the service is started and Automatic Pcounter Configuration Guide Section 2 ACADEMIC 23

24 It is possible for a user to know what is his current balance, even if he does not intend to print a job. To do this, the administrator will need to install the Wbalance agent on each user workstation. The Wbalance agent is located at :C:/Program files/pcounter for NT/ NT. Once installed on a workstation, the Wbalance icon appears on the Windows task bar as a Dollar symbol. Double-click on the Dollar symbol and the user balance will popup 5 - How to manage quotas for users who do not have a network profile What was described above is valid only if users have a login and password on the network. It is frequent that schools do not work with network profiles. In this case, all users log to the network with the same login. As a consequence, Pcounter will not know what user is printing and will not be able to use quota. The PrinterPopUpusers option will need to be used in this case. With PrinterPopupusers, the user is no longer identified with his network profile, but when sending a print job, a Popup will ask him to enter a user name and password that was created inside Pcounter. To work with PrinterPopUpUsers, open Pcontrol and go to Pcounter Configuration window. In the Pcounter Configuration window, open the PopUp tab, and select ID ans Password as the Window type In the ID and password options, select PrinterPopupUsers only Then Click OK Open Pcounter Administrator Pcounter Configuration Guide Section 2 ACADEMIC 24

25 Click on PrinterPopupUsers menu, and select New User In the New Printer Popup User window, enter the name which was defined to be used, and enter a password Now, when a user will print, a popup will ask him to type his user ID and his password You can edit a message for the Printer Popup Users window In the New Printer Popup User window, enter the name which was defined to be used, and enter a password 6 Import an existing list of PopUp users Pcounter Configuration Guide Section 2 ACADEMIC 25

26 Typically, schools already have a student database that can be used to be imported in Pcounter. This will avoid waste of time for creating the user ID s manually in Pcounter. The format is the same as for the Client codes (see Client Billing section). The structure of the file will be: User ID, Full name, Password user1,james Bond,U1 user2,jacky Chan,U2 user3,bruce Lee,U3 user4,frank Sinatra,U4 user5,bruce Willis,U5 user6,john Wayne,U6 NOTE : We recommend you create the file with Excel. Import the original database into a spreadsheet, and keep only the name of users. Left to the user name, create a user ID. Right to the user name, create a random value which will be used as passwords. This to avoid users to easily retrieve a chronological password. Save as a text file. Printer Popup user accounts are managed the same as for the standard network users In Pcounter Administrator, click on Database Click on Database and select Import. You will be asked to select the file to be imported from tour hard disk The list was successfully imported. Note that passwords are never displayed Pcounter Configuration Guide Section 2 ACADEMIC 26

27 SECTION 3 CORPORATE This section gives an approach of how it is possible to setup Pcounter for the purpose of managing costs of printing without the need of Client Billing. Typically, medium and large companies can use Pcounter to get statistics on who printed what, the number of pages and extract from Pcounter needed data to split cost between the company departments. A workflow tool is also available, It is called Rule Based Printing. It allows to define redirection filters to another printer when a print job reaches a certain quantity of pages or when a printer is down 1 Define department / service code To define a department code, refer to the Client Billing section, chapter how to create a client code. The client codes can be used either for Client Billing or for department/service To assign a service code to a user or several users who works on the same service, open Pcounter Administrator We assume here that you ve created the service codes Click on the User Accounting tab. Then right click on a user name, and select Set Auto Client code, and choose from Client codes Pcounter Configuration Guide SECTION 3 CORPORATE 27

28 Click on Sales to assign this service to the selected user User Serge was assigned to service code Sales. This appears on the field Auto Client code Each time Serge will print a job, this job will be tracked with the service code Sales and all records about Serge will mention this service code. This method avoid the user to be prompted to type his service code at each print job with a popup window. This setup is totally transparent for the users and provides the required tracking without bothering users. 2 Rule base printing setup Rules can be defined for a printer, in order to build a system which allows management of traffic, the cost and the efficiency of the printing services at a company. The most common used rule is If printer Pcounter Configuration Guide SECTION 3 CORPORATE 28

29 A is down, move job to printer B. This will ensure users a non stop printing services. Of course users who have sent a job to printer A will be notified that their job was redirected to printer B. Other rules can be defined. Basically this tool is organized into Filters and Rules A rule is for example: If a job has more than 600 pages, what to do A filter for this rule could be: If rule is true, then Delete the job, or move to another printer, or reschedule this job later on the day List of Filters If byte size is greater than If byte size is less than If page count is greater than If page count is less than If number of copies is greater than Printer is down move job to Load balance to List of Rules Delete job Move job to end of queue Pause job Move job to another printer Reschedule job Do not charge Example 1 If page count is greater than 100, then move to HPLaser 5si Open Pcontrol and right click on the printer you want the rule to be used. In the Printer configuration window, click on the Rules / Balancing tab Check the appropriate box and click on Modify rule This window belongs to printer Xerox 8200 DX In the Edit rule window, type the value for the filter and select the action to take. Here, Move job to another printer was selected Pcounter Configuration Guide SECTION 3 CORPORATE 29

30 In the Select printer window, choose the printer to which the job will be redirected The printer HP 4640 has been defined to receive the jobs which exceed 100 pages that the user previously sent to the Xerox 8200 DX Check the Send message box to notify the user that his job was redirected to another printer. NOTE : A list of editable messages is available. Refer to next section to learn how to edit a message Pcounter Configuration Guide SECTION 3 CORPORATE 30

31 The rule haw been correctly registered in Pcounter Any job greater than 100 pages sent to the Xerox 8200 DX will print on the HP 4650 All other filters can be configured the same way, with 2 exceptions : Load balance and Document name pattern match Load Balance job on If you print a very large job, ie 10,000 pages and if this happens very few during the year, you might not purchase a high volume expansive printer. What you can do is to split the volume between several printers. The Load balance job on can do this In the Rules / Balancing window of the normal destination printer, select «Load balance job on, and click on Modify Pcounter Configuration Guide SECTION 3 CORPORATE 31

32 Check the boxes of printer you want to split the job to Don t forget to check the Send message box, and click OK NOTE : When this rule is activated, all other rules will be overridden, but not disabled. This means the other rules remain true, but will not be true during the load balance action The rule is now activated. Note that the other rule is still valid (green rectangle) You can also use the Document match filter to deny print jobs that contain forbidden words or file extension. Click on the Modify rule button. The edit rule window appears. Type here the words or file extensions, separated by comma. Pcounter Configuration Guide SECTION 3 CORPORATE 32

33 Section 4 PCOUNTER PRO Pcounter Pro is necessary only if you use Pcounter terminals/card readers connected to multifunction devices. This for photocopy tracking and accounting. Refer to the specific manuals Pcounter Pro terminals and Pcounter Pro Gateway to learn how to install and configure these devices. This section only describes how to use the authentication and PIN code association General consideration When printing on a network, Pcounter knows who is printing because users have open a session with their private network name and password. All print jobs will be assigned to a network profile since the session is open. But for a photocopy, the user is not known by Pcounter because the operation is local. To authenticate a user, Pcounter uses a terminal which can be used only with codes, or which is equipped with a card reader (inbuilt). When connected to the multifunction, the terminal will keep the copier in an idle mode, and users will be required to type a code on the terminal keyboard. Once code is typed, the terminal interrogates the Pcounter Pro server to check if the user is valid. It can also check if this user has enough credit. Authentication method By default, the authentication method will be: type the user name, and then type the user password. This method can bore users if they have a long user name, because they will need to type it each time they do a copy To make user s life more easy, Pcounter Pro offers to create short codes that can be associated to a user name. To create short codes and do an association, open Pcounter administrator and click on the Pcounter Pro ID/Pin number tab Right click on a user name, and select Set ID number Pcounter Configuration Guide Section 4 PCOUNTER PRO 33

34 In the ID number window, type the code you want, it can be numeric or alphanumeric. You can define the maximum and minimum length for all ID codes Right click again to the user name and select PIN number. Enter a PIN number to be assigned to the short ID, and click OK Pcounter Configuration Guide Section 4 PCOUNTER PRO 34

35 This number corresponds to a card serial number. This is used only with terminal with card readers. Refer to the specific manual to learn more about this The Association has been done with code 1237 as a short ID, and ** for it s PIN code. (PIN codes are for user s privacy use, and are never displayed in clear). Now, user IUSR_HERVIS will only have to type 1237 and his PIN code to be allowed to do copies. Copy count will be assigned to the IUSR_HERVIS user account and consolidated with print jobs count done by this user from his workstation Pcounter Configuration Guide Section 4 PCOUNTER PRO 35