APWI - CASE STUDY # 112

Company / User: Any Town High School

Many customers do not want their name and information published, our case studies honor their privacy while telling their story.

The Challenge:

How to control printing cost at a school without upsetting the teachers and faculty. This school has been wrestling with different ways to cut printer and consumables costs without imposing restrictive rules and regulations on the teachers and staff. The Principle wanted to find a way to encourage the teachers to use their classroom inkjet printers less and the main school printer/copier more.

The Solution: RoutXpress

Product General Descriptions: RoutXpress is a rules based software package that tracks all print jobs and produces reports showing usage and cost by printer, user, and groups of users. This information is important to the Administrator as he tries to get a handle on his total print cost, and to better understand how he can best utilize his print capabilities. The Administrator’s goal is to optimize his network printing capabilities so all jobs print economically and expeditiously. RoutXpress can help them do this. RoutXpress can also increase the users productivity by routing all print jobs to the best printer, as defined by the Administrator. Users can send any type of document and RoutXpress will route the print job to the best printer! If a printer stops functioning for any reason (paper jam, out of paper, out of toner, mechanically “down”) RoutXpress will automatically re-route the print jobs to the NEXT best printer as defined by the Administrator's pre-defined rules. If and when RoutXpress does re-route a print job, it notifies the user, telling them which printer printed the job and when the job is finished printing. This way the user does not waste time going to the wrong printer or standing around waiting for the print job to finish printing. RoutXpress also includes security features that allow only the Network Administrator to create, modify, or delete, the rules. Predefined rules can initiate email notification to the Administrator, remote technical support and service personal when certain conditions such as printer down, out of paper, out of toner, etc, are detected.

Solution Application:

The first step toward saving money is to understand where you are currently spending money. After RoutXpress is installed it identifies all the printers on the school network. A database of all printer activity is created and used to generate helpful reports showing all print activity by user, printer, and department. This knowledge is then used to establish “rules” that govern all the printing on the network. A typical rule will route larger print jobs to less expensive printers, reducing printing cost.

The Administrator also established a monthly budget for each teacher and staff. A typical teacher would receive a $10.00 per month budget. This would allow the teacher to print 40 prints on the inkjet printer or 500 sheets on the main school printer; the choice of where to print now lies with the teacher. Another advantage is that the teachers always knew how much they had left in their monthly budget. The Administrator can easily change the budget and set up additional departmental budgets, such as yearbook, PTA, athletics, etc.

Alert Notification: RoutXpress was also set up so that an email is automatically sent directly to the schools service provider if and when the printer/copier needs repairs.

Computer Lab: The school’s computer lab was also able to use RoutXpress. The computer lab has 3 printers and 20 computers. Students no longer need to know which printer to send their print jobs to, as RoutXpress knows that status of every printer and routes the student’s print job to the printer that is “next available”. The school also likes the fact that RoutXpress creates an audit trail identifying every print job that every student sends to a printer.

If you have a similar need, please contact our sales staff at 949-488-2222

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