Print Job Tracking: Monitor Printers and Print Costs
Has your boss asked you, “Is there a way to know which printers are used more often and which are not, so we can decommissioned or replace them”?
We need to cut costs, is there a way to see how much users are printing? We would like our business units to pay for their paper, can we get a report to chargeback our business units? Yes, there is a way! It´s called print job tracking.
With our Tracking Service, you can track who printed to what printer and more such as:
- Costs per page
- Number of pages printed
- Settings used (b/w color)
- Errors
- Print Duration
The Print Job Tracking Service has been around for years, it’s a very useful tool that is an add-on component the the Thinprint Engine product. It comes bundled with the Thinprint Engine Premium package.
In the end, you can find out information such as, which printers have the most errors? That may need to be replaced or repaired? According to this Tracking Report Engine screenshot, the printer “Hall_S” has had 25 errors.
There are few points that are important to note:
- It requires a SQL server to store database
- It will track all print jobs going thru the Thinprint ports.
- It provides a graphical view of the statistics via web browser
- You can query and gather data from the SQL server database
You can also install the SQL management studio in order to get access to the database and run queries: Install SQL Server Management Studio
You can use the SQL Management Studio to run database queries, then save or copy results.
There is a lot of data that can be gathered either from the Tracking Report Engine browser or from SQL Management studio. You can find out which printer is used less to decommission? How much are users printing? Which printer need attention and so on. The Tracking Service is a must have in your printing environment!
Have a happy printing day!
Laura Zagal