Print policies automatically apply cost-saving settings that users may forget, like double-sided printing and removing colour from documents. They reliably enforce budgets by redirecting print jobs from expensive devices to cheaper ones. Reporting also demonstrates the rapid payback of print policies by detailing the savings from modified jobs. Cost allocation is improved through identifying departmental printing costs. Fault tolerance is increased as jobs are rerouted to available printers when devices are busy or out of toner.

1. The Document Masters’ Digest brought to you by
Your regular guide to best practices in document systems
software solutions reliably
enforce your cost-saving
print policies
Effective control of colour costs
There is no better time to implement cost-management policies than when you
install new colour printers and multifunctionals. You will have established
anticipated running costs during the purchase cycle but your ability to stick to your
Print policies
budget targets depends on the equipment being used appropriately.
automatically With the best will in the world, any strategy that depends on voluntary action can
apply the cost-
only ever be partially successful. The most effective way to ensure success is to use
saving settings
users might
software to enforce print policies.
forget. Print policies can help in many ways, for example...
Print documents over nn pages on
Print documents from Word and Acrobat 63pp departmental printers, avoiding the
double-sided, avoiding wasted paper
higher costs of desktop devices
Prohibit certain printing after working Ignore duplicate print jobs, avoiding
hours, stopping the abuse of full-colour wasteful and unnecessary printing
Remove colour from Outlook print jobs, Print monochrome jobs on a
avoiding pages with a blue web link monochrome device, exploiting the low
incurring a charge for a full-colour page cost of such machines
The beauty of policies is that they are totally automatic. This is great for your staff
because they no longer have to remember to apply several print settings. And it is
great for your organisation too because the rules are always applied.
Users are always
At the same time, print policies are flexible. Users can be given permission to step
kept informed of
outside the policies in exceptional circumstances. And if documents are modified or
changes applied
by print policies. redirected by a policy the user is always notified.
ITQ’s expert support staff will be delighted to help you develop and deploy print
policies using ITQ’s Print Control Solution.

2. Tangible ROI
Print policies Not only do print policies save your organisation money – they prove
demonstrate
it. Through comprehensive reporting they detail the jobs that were
how rapidly they
modified and the cost savings that followed. In this way you will be
pay for
themselves. able to see how quickly the system pays for itself.
Cost identification and allocation
One of the by-products of monitoring your network printing is the ability to
Print policy identify how much each department (or even each user) spends on printing.
management
Armed with this information, you can implement policies to reduce excessive
allows internal
printing, apply quotas to prevent a recurrence or allocate costs to the relevant
and external cost
allocation department so the rest of the organisation is not unfairly burdened.
With ITQ’s Print Control Solution, you even have the option to pass printing costs
on to your clients. This is especially useful when a project involves large amounts
of printing. You may consider it unfair to treat this cost as a general overhead and
share it with other clients and it would certainly be economically unattractive to
absorb the cost internally. Effective print policy management gives you the
flexibility to pass the cost on if desired.
Fault-tolerance
Unavailable “I just want to press Print and have my documents print” consistently comes top of
printers are any user’s printing wish list. Reliability is crucial to staff satisfaction and your
automatically office’s productivity.
side-stepped by
print policies, All too often though, printers are unavailable when they run out of paper or toner
leaving your or when they are tied up printing a massive job for another staff member. Print
office running policies prevent backlogs developing by re-routing jobs when they detect a busy
efficiently.
or broken printer. It is entirely automatic. The user is notified of the redirection and
can go and collect their document for an alternative device.
Also in this series...
Cost-saving print options: numerous cost-saving facilities are available without
any new software or equipment.
Free solutions for colour cost control: exploiting driver features and applying
them universally using free network utilities reduces colour print costs.
Published in conjunction with
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