Print Insights - Flo-Tech Blog

How Managed Print Services Can Make Your Company More Efficient

Nancy Bauer — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 13:32:00 GMT

How much does it cost your company to print a document? If you’re like most companies you probably don’t know what it’s costing you every time someone in your organization hits file/print or pushes the copy button. Many businesses today are trying to get a handle on exactly what that cost is. Why is that?

Gartner Group estimates that companies spend up to 5% of revenues on document output. But what makes up that spend? You typically think of the direct costs like the acquisition cost of your printers and copiers and their supplies. But a study by InfoTrends indicates that for every $1 a company spends on equipment, supplies and service, another $9 is spent on indirect costs, which can include IT support and infrastructure, administration and purchasing, and document management. So how do you assess and manage those costs within your organization?

Working with a company that specializes in managed print solutions, they can help you to evaluate your print environment, determine a baseline of your current spend and implement processes, services and technologies to manage and reduce those costs – things like intelligent remote monitoring, predictive service, fleet optimization strategies, workflow solutions and more. What impact can those things have? Gartner estimates that “cost savings of between 30% and 50% as well as significant environmental savings can be realized with a properly implemented Managed Print Services Program.”

The key to determining the best managed print solution or strategies for your organization is to understand what is driving those costs in your environment:

Do you have too many devices?
Is lack of standardization driving up your support costs?
Is your reactive break/fix service model causing too much down time and lost productivity?
Are too many IT hours being spent on printer/copier related issues?
Is your helpdesk handling too many printer related calls?
Is color being used when it really isn’t needed?
Do you have unnecessary dollars tied up in toner sitting in a supply closet?

Depending on those key drivers and other issues or objectives you may have (ie, document security to address compliance issues, how to support your growing mobile workforce, etc.), the right managed print implementation for your organization may include one of the following or all of them in a phased in approach:

Having the managed print services provider simply take over service and support of your existing fleet of devices gaining benefits from improved service levels, device uptime and supplies inventory management.
A plan for device redeployment to make more efficient use of the devices you currently have in place, ie.) moving underutilized devices to locations/departments with higher print volumes.
Footprint consolidation to eliminate unnecessary devices (ie: combining a printer, copier and fax machine into a multifunction device or consolidating local printers to a departmental or workgroup device).
A technology refresh where user applications may require additional functionality, faster print speed or higher print volumes. A refresh may include replacing 1 device or many.
Software solutions for things like mobile printing, document capture and routing, document management, rules based printing, etc. that can be rolled into your managed print agreement.

What’s the right solution or best approach for your business? Download this ebook to see how to get started.

To learn more, contact Flo-tech today. You can also watch this short video.

Click here for your free e-book about the MPS assessment process

Click here to register for Flo-Tech's document management webinar

Get Control of Your Workflow with Document Management Solutions

Nancy Bauer — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 19:00:00 GMT

How much time do your employees spend searching for important documents or information? How often do documents go missing? How often are documents or content recreated? Some interesting statistics to consider:

10% of all business processes revolve around searching for information and/or documents (Source: IDC)
95% of information is on paper. It is estimated that the average worker prints out 45 sheets of paper per day (Source: IDC)
86% of invoices are still printed on paper (Source: Gartner Group)
45% of all client emails are inaccessible by anyone other than the recipient (Source: IDC)

IDC surveys estimate that the time spent searching for information averages 8.8 hours per employee per week. Analyzing information consumed an additional 8.1 hours. That’s costing some organizations as much as roughly $27,000 per person/year. How much could it be costing your organization? IDC also found that significant dollars are lost, as much as $6 million annually for an organization with 1,000 knowledge workers, in time wasted when employees reformat information as they move between applications.

These numbers can be staggering for businesses for of all sizes and point the way toward some major improvement opportunities. What would be the impact on your bottom line if you could improve document access, distribution and filing? Improve turnaround times? Eliminate duplicate data entry and/or recreating documents? Eliminate lost data and documents? And of course reduce the physical space needed to store all those paper documents?

Workflow Solutions

To run their business more efficiently and to begin to get control of these costs and reduce time searching for paper documents and information, many organizations have turned to a document scanning and retrieval system as part of a workflow solution or document management system.

Whether you’re a law firm collaborating internally or communicating externally with clients, experts or opposing counsel; a manufacturing company needing to stay in touch with sales people on the road, provide custom quotes and product information or respond to customer inquiries; a bank processing loans or filing compliance documents; or an accounting department or human resources department rife with paper - moving your paper based workflows to a digital workflow nets a number of benefits:

Improved efficiency by making documents available to staff when needed.
Facilitate compliance with HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley or General Accepted Accounting Practices (GAAP) for your industry by providing access to audit trails, version and access control.
Create a strong disaster recovery program for all documents.
Provide higher customer service levels with instant access to customer records plus the ability to email or fax documents from the desktop.
Costs savings

To learn more about document management programs contact us here

Click here for your free e-book on best practices for document management

Hurricane Sandy and Your Printers

Frank Davis — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 18:15:00 GMT

Our thoughts are with all those that may have been impacted by Sandy. We hope this finds you all safe and on the road to recovery.

As businesses are beginning to get back to normal operations, we did want to make you aware of the impact water damage may have on your office printers and copiers. It is important to examine your devices to see if there are any signs of water damage. If you suspect your device may have been wet, it should not be turned on. Like any electronic device, just because the covers have been dried, the real damage will happen as power is applied. As the power flows through the electrical components on the circuit boards, those components will short and the boards will need to be replaced.

It is possible for a machine to dry well enough to actually start up. However in the long term, the circuits on those boards, if they were damaged, can cause future problems.

If the machine obviously got wet it should be replaced. If you are unsure, a service technician can inspect the circuit boards for signs of water damage. You will also want to check the accessories like finishers and document feeders to see if they are wet or show any signs of water damage. Lastly check the surge suppressor that your device is plugged into. Make sure the suppressor has not been on a wet floor or impacted by other water damage.

We know some of this may seem obvious, but for those impacted by the storm, there are so many other things to address. Hopefully this will help to prevent you from experiencing any additional damage to your devices. If you suspect there may be some damage, have it checked out by your service provider.

Is Your MPS Service Provider “Reactive”, “Preventative”, or “Predictive”?

Mike Assunto — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 12:30:00 GMT

Before you can answer this question, let’s define the three types of service: (Note: All three contain a portion of some reactive services).

The Reactive service model waits for a device failure and an end-user to place an emergency service call to their service provider. In most cases this device is not functioning at all, which creates downtime and loss of productivity for the employees. Five to seven times out of ten, when the technician does finally arrive, they are not armed with the correct parts to address the current and/or potential near term component failures. This reactive method results in a 50% to at best, 70% first time fix rate. This leads to even more down time and inconvenience due to the technician having to order parts and return days later when these parts do arrive. In this model, downtime will equal 6 to 12 business hours to respond and repair, and additional time for parts to arrive, total estimated downtime equals, 16-24 business hours average.

The Preventative service model is a more effective process than reactive service. In the proactive service model, the service provider uses some analytics to assist them. As an example, the provider may base the need for service on days or productive time (in this case page volume) since the last service event, similar to the recommended oil change sticker they place on your windshield. In this model the technician should perform basic maintenance and inspect all areas of a device, replacing any questionable components proactively, and preventing potential near term failures. Proactive service organizations will also ensure that they arm their technicians with components when responding to any reactive calls, so that they can drive that first call effectiveness up to 85%-90%, reducing potential downtime to 8-16 business hours on average.

The Predictive service model is the highest service level and most effective process of all. In this model the service provider is utilizing monitoring tools via the customer’s network to collect, analyze and potentially react to the device alert data being collected. As trending of error data is collected and analyzed, these providers can dispatch a service technician prior to the device going completely down. The provider will also be sure to arm the technician with potential components due to fail based on service history data, alerts received, analytics, or a combination. In this model, a predictive service event has no downtime until the technician is actually onsite performing the service. In this model the total estimated downtime is 2-6 hours on average and the first call effectiveness will be 90% or greater.

This Predictive model is only in its infancy stages at this time. But as technology advancements continue and our ability to analyze big data in more effective and efficient ways improves, look for more focus on this process from your service provider, or look for a provider with the vision and knowledge to understand the importance, not only to their benefit, but most importantly to yours, the customer.

Feel free to contact me for more information on Flo-Tech’s predictive service.

Click here to download your free best practices guide for next generation MFP Management:

Print Servers vs Direct IP Printing

Joe Miller — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 12:30:00 GMT

When dealing with network printers there is a fundamental question that every System Administrator needs to answer and that is in what fashion will printing be enabled for client computers; by using a print server or direct IP printing? This article will help with answering this question by describing these two print service methods and listing some of their pros and cons.

Direct IP Printing

Direct IP Printing is when a user’s workstation is configured with a print setup where the queue is added on the workstation and points directly to the printer’s IP address or hostname. Under this configuration, the workstation becomes the “print server” and is responsible for all aspects of the printing from drivers to configuration to spooling, etc… This method is popular with smaller organizations where there often is no real server, but is sometimes seen in larger organizations as well.

Pros

Simple in concept, each computer maintains its own print queue, driver and connection information to the printer
Minimal cost to implement
Each client maintains complete control of their printer and print jobs
Allows for network connected printing when no server available

Cons

Decentralized administration for the System Administrator
Increased training for end users, if they will be responsible for printer setup rather than the System Administrator
Lack of job prioritization can lead to print device contention as multiple users submit print jobs at the same time and must wait for other jobs to finish first
No easy way for end users to “see all the jobs” and their place in line when printers are being used by multiple users
Printer configuration changes (IP, hostname, etc..) require updates to multiple clients to maintain printing services
Driver version control amongst clients more difficult

Print Server

A print server setup is when a server(s) is configured for each printer and shares them with clients to enable printing. The client connects to the server for the driver, configuration information and when printing the client sends the job to the server for spooling. The server is then responsible for connecting to the printer, processing and printing the job.

Pros

Centralized management, monitoring and security of print queues
“Point and print” (e.g. automatic printer setup for clients)
Allows for driver administration, default preference configuration and version upgrades being automatically deployed to clients
Faster print spooling and server side processing of printing which frees up client resources
Auditing and tracking capabilities
Server clustering capabilities and device “pooling” provides failover capabilities
Minimizes traffic to/from printer itself since only the server communicates with the printer
Allows for print devices to be on alternate subnet for increased security
Allows for setting print queue to be set “offline” for maintenance and end user notification

Cons

Requires more overall administration
More costly due to required server hardware and licensing

These are just some of the things the System Administrator needs to consider when deciding what method will work best for their environment. Flo-Tech can help with deciding, call your sales representative to setup a consultation with our Customer IT Support Staff.

To learn more about Best Practices for Next Generation MFP Management, click here:

Next-Gen Print Management— Oh So Compelling

Nancy Bauer — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 14:13:00 GMT

OK—so printer management might not be the most compelling topic, but we got your attention. Print management typically doesn't get the limelight it deserves in IT management—regularly being passed over for cloud computing, virtualization, security, analytics and pretty much any other more exciting initiatives—but consider how many helpdesk tickets it uses, how much tech time it consumes and what a large percentage of the budget it eats (here's a hint—it can be up there with utilities and rent!).

Staying up to date with print management techniques is critical for companies looking to dedicate more time to proactive IT projects, as it frees up the resources to do so. But before you sigh and resign to the fact that print management is something you have to do, know that it has become much more exciting with the changes in print management practices and technological advances that have taken place as of late. Changes that are allowing companies to recognize a greater ROI on their MFP devices.

Upgrades in management practices have delivered on promises of smaller physical footprints, lower overall TCO, efficiency and productivity gains, lower consumable use, accountability, cost control and reduced management costs. These gains can only be achieved by using better management practices to distribute device workload and automate manual interventions. The success of these techniques leads to increased proactive time to improve security protocols, make document workflows more efficient, implement stronger enterprise usage policies and deal with billing chargebacks.

Sounds great right? Intrigued about how to do this exactly? Good, keep reading—then download our e-book for instructions on how to act on these next-generation print management techniques.

Canon is delivering next-generation print management practices, with a host of software solutions that deal with every facet of print management. Their software is based on location-less device management via web interfaces that creates a virtual map of all networked devices and intuitive controls that substantially reduce helpdesk tickets. Their software roadmap includes their imageRUNNER, imagePRESS and imageWARE Enterprise Management Console software programs

Canon's wealth of solutions rest on their all-seeing, web-based console, which encourages best practices that includes categories like task automation, self-management, use of an advanced content delivery system, advanced user privileges, universal driver use, customized print driver creation, metering and use of task-specific plug-ins.

It is only through technology-infused best practices that you can maximize your ROI, minimize your TCO and deliver on the print technology your company needs to proactively address all print concerns.

Download our e-book on Best Practices for Next Generation Multifunction Printer Management for specific advice on how create your proactive print management plan using next-generation management tactics created by the world's top print company.

10 Rules-Based Printing Tips to Reduce your Print Costs Today

Nancy Bauer — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 12:13:00 GMT

If you're reading this then you've already heard about rules-based printing, and if you're reading this then you're wondering how it can help you. Beyond the productivity, control and information gains that a rules-based printing environment brings, you can also reduce your overall print footprint. A footprint that determines how large your printing expenditure is and will continue to be. Shrinking your print footprint is the only sure-fire way to lower your overall costs.

There are 10 major ways that rules based printing can be leveraged to reduce print costs:

Print Job Routing
By routing specific types of print jobs to the printer that is best suited for them, for example: routing to the low-cost printer for large-run, low-quality black and white jobs, you can cut your costs by having the most cost effective printers running the highest volume runs.

Duplexing Enforcement Rules
Enforcing duplexing printing is critical to cutting costs—because your users won't always do it on their own. Enforcement double-sided printing cuts down on your paper costs by 50%--which is a major savings given that paper is one of the biggest costs of printing, along with toner. Since toner is another major expense, use your rules-based environment to enforce gray-scale printing. Another targeted savings tip is to create a rule to use economy mode whenever possible.

Internet to B&W
Email- and internet-based print jobs do not require the high-quality printing that presentations and customer-facing documents do. To save a bundle on your printing, create a rule that directs all web pages and emails to the most cost-effective, black & white device.

Restricted Use
Restricting device access by user and/or by application is important to cutting down on needless high-quality, high-expense printing since certain applications do not need high quality. Low-quality candidates include print jobs coming from smartphone apps, browser searches, or databases.

Make it a Rule to Be Green
Being green is very chic these days, and the world of printing is doing a lot for the business world when it comes to greening themselves. Being green has become a company-wide initiative for many companies, and for good reason. Certain industries are rewarded when they reach specified green targets (and can prove it). But being green is not only chic—it saves money...yay! By using rules to use less toner and paper you can reach your green initiatives while cutting down on your toner and paper use by half—while halfing your print budget.

Change your Print Culture
The key to rules-based printing is that it enforces policies that your users might not enforce themselves. But something happens when you enforce print rules on your environment and users—they change. Your entire print culture changes as people begin to realize just how much print waste they created in the past. This change in print culture will eventually begin to align with your current green initiatives, and your culture will become one of reduced waste and increased savings.

Policies for Centrally-Managed Custom Print Rules

Rules are rules, but at some point, some user is going to need to create a custom print job. This means you need to create rules /policies for the rule breakers, rule-breaking policies that can be centrally managed.

User Education
Users are smart and can make informed decisions when empowered with the right information...but they have no idea how much printing costs the company. Part of changing your print culture—and print spend—is educating your users as to just how much each print job costs and what the savings are if simple jobs are redirected to lower-cost devices. The savings from this simple awareness is unbelievable—until they see the savings for themselves.

Rules for Secure/Pull Printing
It's a thorn in every print manager's side to walk by printers and see uncollected print jobs sitting around for eternity. You can use your rules-based print environment to create secure/pull printing. Pull printing is a 'follow me' style printing where users hit print first then decide what printer to print on after. After they've chosen the printer they need to physically go to it to authenticate themselves before their job is printed—drastically cutting down on abandoned print jobs.

Measurable Results
The most important feature of rules-based printing is that it gives you measurable results. Any IT manager understands the perils of having measurable results to show to the board when it comes time to play orphan Oliver and ask for “some more sir”. Rules-based printing initiatives give you the measurable proof that they are working, with dollar figures in hand. These dollar figures can then be easily routed to other, more exciting, initiatives.

The savings from a rules-based print environment is significant. We'd love to say the savings is so big it is immeasurable—but it isn't, it is a bastion of measurability. Start reaping the benefits today by implementing a rules-based environment at your company.

Click here for your free Mobile Print strategy checklist

Mobile Printing Strategy - Negating Security Risks

Nancy Bauer — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 12:30:00 GMT

Mobility terrifies many IT directors, and for good reason—it compromises their security in new and scary ways. Any high-tech pickpocket now has the ability to penetrate their company's network. While security is always a concern, it is a prime concern when you're talking about mobile strategies and implementations.

Mobile printing in particular poses a number of security risks, as well as productivity issues—especially when you consider the proliferation of internet-enabled mobile devices in the corporate space. Printing from mobile devices is a danger in itself, but there are plenty of other concerns, including those associated with uncollected printouts. Uncollected printouts have long been a concern of IT execs, but these concerns have compounded as people print from their mobile devices, on the go, at off-site locations—and have the possibility of leaving sensitive company data in MFP trays at remote offices...or Starbucks.

Many companies have steered clear of mobile printing due to the inherent security risks, but that creates another risk all in itself, with lost productivity. Sort of a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't scenario.

But there is another way.

There are ways to keep your users and network protected and minimize your risk while harnessing the power and productivity that mobile printing can bring. We've put together an e-book to address the biggest security risks of mobile printing—and their SOLUTIONS—in our new e-book, Mobile Printing Strategy.

In this new ebook we look at the most common, and evil, mobile printing security threats. We examine why they are so common and how exactly they occur in the corporate space. But—since most busy IT guys care more about curing ills instead of figuring out how their network got sick in the first place, we also offer tangible solutions on how to allow your users to print on-the-go while negating the security threats. Tips that include things like using a secured, monitored pull-printing option for mobile guest printers.

To finally begin unleashing the productivity in mobile printing, download our Mobile Printing Strategy ebook today for network-saving security tips.

Your 6-Step Strategy to Print Security

Nancy Bauer — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 14:52:00 GMT

If you're reading this, then congrats—you've been doing your homework and know that there are security threats inherent in printing, you've also recognized a set of security threats that go overlooked.

These days, printers are computers and require similar security- they are connected and networked. They retain sensitive data, that like any corporate data, can be leaked and/or stolen. Hard drives need to be replaced and sensitively disposed of. Devices can be stolen, they can also be modified. Guests and printer techs have access to important data via these printers. These print devices function as multifunction machines, which means they have information being transmitted via fax, email and the internet—each of which contains its own security issues.

All the above threats leave you open to security breaches that includes things like identity theft and loss of information; vulnerable to litigation, loss of licenses and damage to your reputation and brand integrity.

The good news is that print-based security threats are easier to circumvent than more serious security issues like trojans, cyber crime, viruses and social networking. Preventing security breaches in the print sphere is do-able, in fact, we've broken it down to our should-be-patented 6-step process to print security.

This 6-step process includes action items like giving you a checklist of ways to assess your network for security threats (step 1), action items via a yes/no question & answer session to secure your data, risk mitigation techniques, how-to properly authenticate your users, how-to protect your print server and encrypt print jobs, plus much more. All of this and more can be found in our latest free-to-download e-book.

Within this e-book we use yes/no Q&A sessions to identify your network-specific threats and personalize your action plan. Within each of the 6 steps we use mini steps that help guide you through the process while ensuring you don't miss a beat. We've also got some great research and stats on the importance of print security—just in case you need to justify including print security in your IT security portfolio to non-technical higher ups.

To get our 6-step action plan to protect yourself from print security threats, download our latest ebook, The 6-Step Print Security Action Plan.

Is your 'Mobile' Print Solution TRULY Mobile?

Nancy Bauer — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 14:37:00 GMT

How much productivity would you lose if your company destroyed all its mobile devices? Don't worry—we won't ask you to do the math. The answer is a lot. But the truth is—you are losing just as much productivity by not empowering those mobile users in the same way as you empower them on their stationary devices. Not only are these devices becoming increasingly important in our corporate lives but as we switch more and more tasks to mobile devices more workers are becoming mobile; now making up a large percentage of workers. Not having truly mobile solutions for this growing amount of mobile workers is costing far too much in lost productivity, which is why enterprises are turning to tools like mobile printing.

Mobile printing is one of the many ways that corporations are going mobile, a move being driven by their users. These users crave (and demand) access to networks, devices and technology from their mobiles - and they want it now.

Yet despite the growing mobile workforce, many companies still do not have a truly mobile print environment. A truly mobile environment is one that empowers users to print from anywhere, on any device, anytime they want—at the push of a button. But despite our best efforts, many users are left out in the cold—just ask any mobile salesperson visiting remote offices about his print experiences.

When it comes to mobile printing, being quasi-mobile just doesn't count.

HP recognized that mobility can't be fragmentary and that 'mobile printing' solutions weren't as mobile as people thought. They thought they could do better. And they did. Instead of relying on a system based on networked devices, bluetooth or portable printers they came up with a mobile solution that can be used, accessed AND managed anywhere, a solution in the cloud. Their solution was a web-based console that allows for one-button printing. Their solution, HP’s ePrint Enterprise provides cloud printing and the ability to keep printing services with a secure network. It is easy to use, easy to deploy and supports today’s leading smartphone and tablet pc’s.

For further information on what gaps in mobile printing HP's ePrint Enterprise can fill for your company—and for their 3-step to print mobility plan—download our latest ebook, Cloud Printing in the Enterprise: Truly Mobile Solutions for Printing Without Borders.

DocuWare—Solving Document Management Problems you Didn't Know you Had

Nancy Bauer — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 15:35:00 GMT

They often say an accountant is someone who solves a problem you didn't know you had—the same can be said for document management solutions. They can solve problems that most companies don't even know they have; problems that are endemic with manual processes and document handling that lead to wasted time and money.

The 'wasted time and money' aren't minor expenses either. Studies have found that almost half of office workers' time is spent looking for, filing, sorting and shuffling documents. Now envision what this means for an accounting department, which deals with documents everyday, all day.

Docuware for enterprise content management isn't just about clearing the clutter, stopping the shuffle and finding the irretrievable though, it also affects a myriad of business-critical, daily accounting processes. It saves response time by empowering AR departments with easier access to invoices, it saves money by reducing the time and labor costs associated with the production of invoices—which cost an average of $20 each to produce, and can free up time for proactive initiatives like account resolution.

We've got some great examples of how DocuWare has helped accounting departments with their web of daily, difficult processes—but you'll have to read our e-book for that.
This software isn't just for accounting departments either, it can help other departments and employees—from controllers to executives. It also facilitates inter-department communication and collaboration for such things as budget planning.

And then there is the legal compliance. Shudder. We all dislike the extra paper work but legal frameworks are here—and are likely to expand in the future—and they need to be dealt with. Thankfully there is software out there, like DocuWare, that can keep you compliant- and can do so relatively easily without compromising accuracy. The truth is, complying with GAAP and Sarbanes-Oxley is near impossible without the right software (OK, maybe not impossible, but truly a hassle).

The DocuWare benefits listed above are responses to problems that you likely didn't even know you had. To quote cartoonist, David Sim "Once a profound truth has been seen, it cannot be unseen"

To find out which of your business-critical processes could be solved with DocuWare, how much time (AND MONEY) you could be saving already, and some great examples of how it accomplishes this with minimal effort from you, download our ebook, “DocuWare: Critical Document Management Software for High-Functioning Accounting Departments” today.

Managed Print Services Implementation: Superhero Needed

Scott MacGregor — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 14:21:00 GMT

 Managed-Print Superheros are like most of our masked avengers, self-sacrificing soldiers willing to take responsibility for the city's (or company's) crime. The crime in this case: the company's over-spending on printing. A crime that the entire company is guilty of, but nobody really takes responsibility for. A crime that eats as much out of some company's budgets as their utility and communication bills.   

The one thing we often hear when we first approach CIO’s and CFO’s about migrating to a managed print solution is “I’m not involved” or “I don’t make that decision”. But they really do or should. Most are typically unaware of how big their print costs actually are. In our 20 years of experience we have yet to find an organization that understands or can correctly estimate how much it costs them each time someone hits file/print. We get their attention though when we show them that their print costs can top that of their utilities and rival their rent.   

Once expenses-wrangling executives understand the budget-consuming nature of printing and make the move over to a Managed Print Services (MPS) solution they ask us, “why didn't we see/do this before?”. The simple answer to this question is that there are too many cooks in the kitchen. IT or the end user buys the printer without thought to cost-per-page expenses, then the Purchasing department buys the supplies and sends the bill to Accounting. The IT techs then fix all the errors, jams and hopefully do some preventative maintenance—all on a patchwork of machines. All of this means that the cost accountability is spread over various departments—while not belonging to any one of them.

Without the clever oversight and management that a Managed Print Superhero brings, you lose out on cost-savings opportunities through standardization, reduced support requirements, reduced downtime, simplified contract management, consolidated invoicing and an overall reduction in unnecessary spending through end user controls and improved fleet management.

 Somebody needs to be the MPS superhero, and it won't be by the disjointed roles of the departments described above. No, to realize this major cost savings through better management and improved print services it is critical that a CIO/CFO is engaged in the decision making process to move to a managed solution that is handled by experts. It is only through top-down management that companies can leverage the technology and savings that come with MPS and this move takes a decisive decision maker eager to move their company forward.

Take it from us, the involvement of a high-level executive is critical, because in almost all successful implementations of a managed print solution--the CIO/CFO has been involved. 9 times out of 10 they are the final decision maker - they are responsible for the go-ahead decision and for the delegation of implementation tasks to key staff members.

Almost every exec we've worked with has candidly told us that the significant cost savings and enhanced productivity was well worth the move and really did require a minimal amount of time and effort on their end. Other candid confessions include stories of their IT techs, who teared up in happiness as they learned they no longer had to deal with printer issues.   

Start a dialogue with us today, because we want you to experience the same sigh of relief that Managed Print Services has brought our other customers.

Diagnosing Poor Image Quality: How to Avoid Streaks and Smudgess

Frank Davis — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 12:51:00 GMT

It doesn’t matter if you are printing or copying, you want the output to be free from streaks, dots, or smudges. Listed below are some tips to help identify image quality issues.

The first step is to determine if the image quality is a result of the scanning portion of the machine or the printer portion. This is easily done by sending a print job to the machine, if it is connected, or printing an internal report like a configuration page or counter report. If the image quality is good then the problem resides in the scanning portion of the machine.

The next step to look at is the copies made from the document feeder, verses the copies made by placing the original on the glass. If the copies from the copy glass are good, but copies from the document feeder are not, examine the feeder’s “slit glass” as shown below. These areas can be cleaned with glass cleaner.

If the above test produces the reverse result, good copies from the feeder but not from the copy glass, the obvious solution is to clean the copy glass, as shown above, with glass cleaner.

As a general rule, a dirty copy glass will produce copies with spots, but a dirty slit glass will produce copies with streaks.

If the image quality is printer related the solution is slightly more complicated. If you have a cartridge based product, changing the cartridge is the quickest and easiest thing to try. By changing the cartridge, you are effectively changing a large portion of the image formation portion of the machine. If the image quality problem has been resolved then you’ve fixed your problem. If the problem persists the fusing area would be the next logical area to look at. In some machines the end user can access the fusing area and actually change the fuser itself.

If you can’t access the fuser, or you have a non-cartridge based machine, a technician must be called. However you will be able to point to the problem area with confidence when the technician arrives. The tech can troubleshoot down to the exact problem area and repair it.

One last thing to try before calling a technician, especially for light copies, is to change the paper. Moist paper will cause either light copies or light areas in the copy. This is most commonly found when making those first copies in the morning or after long weekends. When humid weather conditions exist, humidity causes the paper left in the trays to become moist, as the air conditioners are lowered at night or on weekends. Replacing the paper in the trays with fresh paper from an unopened package will often help.

Trying these few simple tips will often times get you up and running in no time, with copies free from image defects.

Additional Reading:

Troubleshooting Paper-Related Printer and Copier Issues

Paper Jam: Avoid Downtime and Improve End User Satisfaction

Mobile Printing: BYOD   Mobile Technology Party—Everyone Invited:

Nancy Bauer — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 13:21:00 GMT

There's a reason why party throwers opt for a BYOB event—it's cheaper and everyone gets what they want. This is exactly the same approach corporations are taking with their BYOD, Bring Your Own Device, approach to their mobile hardware lineup. But unlike a party with 12 different kinds of micro-brewed beer, variety isn't the spice of life for IT departments. The patchwork of networked devices created by BYOD approaches to mobile hardware poses a myriad of issues when it comes to standardization, software rollouts, device management and most of all its a security nightmare.   

The pressure on IT departments has been compounded with this race to mobility, but these mobile issues are the necessary byproducts of an inevitable migration. Mobile technology uptake has become so critical in the enterprise that it has grown to the #1 priority of 2012 for CIOs (source: 2012 Gartner CIO Leadership Forum), surpassing analytics, cloud computing AND virtualization.

As companies respond to a push for mobility from its users, most of whom want to use their personal devices, they are encountering challenging new issues that emerge--including the switch from a nice-to-have approach to technology management to a need-to-have one. This is forcing the hand of companies to quickly create mobile policy and infrastructure, like mobile security, mobile printing and the like. But this quick migration brings with it issues that companies are forced to deal with, including:

How do you enable and promote service delivery while dealing with architectural change to IT infrastructure and increased policy-based control?
How do you manage identity management without impeding access and workflows?
How do you stay on top of costs, licensing and asset controls to ensure compliance?
How do you guarantee application interoperability?
How can you administer support across a myriad of devices, software, operating systems and third-party applications?
How do you navigate issues of liability?
How do you set the proper level of security on employee BYOD devices while increasing employee self-sufficiency?

To be prepared for all the issues that a BYOD movement brings (whether it is a planned migration or not) a comprehensive mobile plan is required; a plan that aligns with other IT initiatives like moving to the cloud, virtualization, etc.   

Your BYOD roadmap should be a multi-phased approach that will be implemented over the next couple years. It needs to focus on things like change/upgrade management, mobile security, user-access controls, wireless protocols and wireless-based application creation/implementation/upgrade. A comprehensive roadmap for a BYOD environment worth its salt should cover the entire spectrum of BYOD issues, including device choice, user experience, privacy, security, identity management, app design, app governance, liability, emerging technologies and user communication. And to do this, you NEED to implement a rules-based environment.

A great example of how you can benefit from BYOD through a rules-based environment is in the realm of print. With the advent of new movements, like mobile printing, issues like privacy, security, identity management, liability and user experience have become of paramount importance. The benefit of a rules-based mobile print environment means you not only realize cost savings from a BYOD perspective but also from a well managed print environment. Gartner found that a managed print environment can save you up to 30% of your entire print budget, and when you combine BYOD savings with managed print savings the financial motivation is clear: you need a rules-based mobile print environment. Implementing a rules-based mobile print environment alongside a rules-based BYOD environment is easier than you think. You simply need to decide on and enforce rules, like forced print duplex versus single-sided printing; color authorization based on document type, personnel, department, application, etc.; automatic rerouting of certain job types to a central printer; etc.   

Implementing mobile printing alongside any BYOD policy simply makes sense because while you are setting up mobile device access you can setup mobile printing permissions—because both require OS-agnostic implementation and support.   

Any BYOD environment will need to be rules-based, otherwise it will not ensure secure user accessibility. While you are implementing rules for the myriad of devices involved in a BYOD policy, you can integrate other much-needed mobile technologies that will be required as users access your network in new, exciting and no doubt challenging ways that are sure to keep IT professionals on their toes.

Download our new e-book: Cloud Printing in the Enterprise

Paper Jam: Avoid Downtime and Improve End User Satisfaction

Nancy Bauer — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 12:32:00 GMT

Have you ever noticed how a printer can take on a personality all its own? It can be whiny, “I'm out of ink”, it can be ill-tempered, “I'm jammed”, and it can even outright refuse to work, “Printer error”.

We’ve all been there – frustrated to no end and stressed to the max by the wonders of uncooperative technology that often leaves you feeling like this...

But wait before putting that printer or copier out of its misery. Enter the power of predictive software like Flo-Tech’s AMS™.

Consider the following and see if doesn’t leave you wanting to give your service tech a hug or at least a handshake and maybe losing the bat!

The Surprise Unjamming  You've been there, or someplace very similar. A large law firm (but it could be any organization). A big court case. And lots of evidentiary documents. All needing to be ready to go by 9:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. That’s 100’s and 100’s of pages that need to be printed and bound.

You're two thirds of your way done when you can hear that the printer has stopped. You walk over to see that inevitable message, “paper jam”. You remove the offending sheet and resume printing. Minutes later, again, “paper jam”. You once again remove the jam, this time more curtly than the first. You get 90% through the job and another jam and another jam and another. By now it's after 5pm and there is no one available to fix it, so in the printer's best interest of not being beaten with its own print tray—you head home and cross your fingers that somehow, miraculously, you’ll have better luck tomorrow.

After a very sleepless night you head to the office early to try and sort out the issue—prepared to be David fighting Goliath in an epic printer vs man battle. As you walk in you're greeted by your Flo-Tech Service Technician who is on his way out, and he greets you with a morning-making greeting, “Good Morning. Your printer is back up and running and you shouldn’t see any more jamming issues”. You stammer out “but...how?...I didn't even make a service call yet”.    

He is pleased to share with you that they have predictive software monitoring your printers and that the software automatically alerted them that your machine was jamming repeatedly. “After I got the alert last night I put your call first in my queue for today to get it taken care of.”

This is a true customer story from one of our techs who understood exactly how personal this was when he could see the stress draining off the customers face and she gave him a gratitude-infused hug.

Whether its court documents, a career changing sales proposal, loan documents for a first time home buyer or engineering drawings for an innovative new product – those documents can create personal, sometimes life changing experiences. Make sure they are available when you need them.

Find out more about Flo-Tech’s automated service delivery and what it can do for you.

Troubleshooting Paper-Related Printer and Copier Issues

Frank Davis — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 15:13:00 GMT

  If you're reading this then you're likely the one in charge of paper-related printer and copier issues. You poor soul. These issues are likely the bane of your corporate existence, with event after paper-jamming event.   While we can't come unjam the printer for you—well, we could but that would cost you money (try the free advice below first)—we CAN advise you on the four most common paper-related printer and copier issues, and their relatively simple causes and solutions:

Jamming:

1. The Excessive Curl Conundrum  Launching paper through a tight path at high speeds with at least one 180 degree turn creates several issues, one of the more common ones being paper curl. When a paper curls too much the edges drag during feeding and/or transport, an problem that jams the sensors (which need to be regularly actuated and de-actuated in a timed sequence). The sensor jam occurs because the curl's drag interrupts the machine's timing. In severe cases the curl is great enough to cause a physical jam. A physical jam is the easier of the two to diagnose and remove because you can recognize it immediately—it causes an accordion-like paper shape.

2. The Thick Paper Predicament  Thicker and heavier weighted paper cause similar problems to paper with too much curl and like curly paper, they cause jams. To avoid this problem you should choose the straightest paper path, which is most often the “manual feed tray”. Try to avoid two-sided printing on heavier media since the sharp turns needed for duplexing can cause problems.

Paper Issues:

3. The Poor-Paper-Quality Quandary  Low-quality paper use causes feed rollers to erode overtime from pre-mature wear n' tear, which can cause dust accumulation in the paper path. Once feed rollers are eroded to the point of no return (which is easier than you think) the rollers can no longer push the paper along the path as they can no longer properly grip the paper. Low-quality paper, and the endemic issue of paper roughness, also causes issues with the separation of pages in the paper tray, causing feed rollers and separation mechanisms to work harder—ultimately causing even more jams.   Low-quality paper also tends to be rougher thanks to improper processing, which is akin to rubbing sandpaper on the rollers  . Paper dust is another unwanted attribute of low-quality paper, as it sheds more dust than higher grades of paper. Paper dust not only has a negative effect on image quality but also causes papers to jam. In severe cases the dust can be visible on the black rubber of the transport rollers, turning them a grayish-white color, which makes the rollers harder and slicker, which also causes paper jams.

4.The Rough/Thick Paper Plague  Rough and/or thick paper wreaks havoc on toners, causing them to fuse improperly to paper. And without proper fusing, the freshly-laid ink cannot 'melt' onto the paper—all because the paper is too think or rough to diffuse the heat. The heat can be adjusted for thick paper, envelopes and labels to help with the fusing process, but there are limits to these adjustments and their effectiveness.

Before you go stark raving mad dealing with your paper-related printer and copier issues, check to ensure that the quality and thickness is inline with manufacturer recommendations. Also check the curl amount of the paper and adjust the settings accordingly. And if all else fails, call a professional.

Further Reading:

Rating Your MFP/Printer Service Provider’s Effectiveness

Click here to:

Rating Your MFP/Printer Service Provider’s Effectiveness

Mike Assunto — Thu, 24 May 2012 12:29:00 GMT

What is the most critical measurement(s) for customers to look at in quarterly reviews with their MFP/Printer service provider to measure their service department’s effectiveness?

Many service providers try to make an “Uptime Guarantee” the number one measurement and focus for many customers. But what is really in the calculation of this so called critical measurement? Is Uptime the best indicator of how well a service provider is supporting your fleet? Or are there a couple other indicators that are far better measurements of how well they are delivering on their promises? Do these measurements actually tie into end-user satisfaction levels? Do they have any real teeth to them? What do they really measure? Below is an example of a 98% uptime guarantee I found searching the web. Let’s do the math, does it really mean anything to your business or your end-users? To me it is all “smoke and mirrors”

“With a guaranteed 98 percent equipment uptime under the Net Call Incentive and Measurement system for technicians, if your copier is inoperative for more than 2 percent of the regular business hours in a year, XXXServiceProvider will provide a $500 credit.”

Okay the average regular business hours used here are “9”. The average work days in a month are “21”, 12 month in a year. (9X21) X (12) = total available “uptime” or 2,268 available hours. Uptime % in most cases does not even include waiting for parts calls, or exclude calls where the device needs a part but is kind of still running (except for the jamming issue or the big black line down the page). They may actually only report the response time hours as the actual downtime. At any rate, it is a fuzzy number with fuzzy parameters.

To exceed their goal, they only need to keep your device from being down 45.36 hours!!! Yes 2% downtime is 2,268 x 2% = 45.36 hours “device not running” hours. That equals over 5 business days. How can you run a business with mission critical output devices being down for such a long period? How happy can the end-users be with the performance of the device and service provider? The 98% uptime guarantee is not worth the $.02 paper that it is printed on!

My opinion is that your service provider should be providing you with several key measurements. First Call Effectiveness, Onsite average Response time, and output pages between service calls are the top three in my opinion.

First Call Effectiveness (FCE%) is measurement of your service provider’s ability to “fix it right the first time” It is total service calls minus calls incomplete for parts (requiring a 2^nd or 3^rd trip from the technician) giving you the net calls. Take the net calls divided by the total calls and a good provider should be greater than 90% FCE. Example: 10 calls for the month on your fleet, 2 requiring a second trip because the technician did not have the right parts with them. Now you have an 80% FCE % for the month.
Onsite average response time is the time it takes in business hours for your service provider’s technician to arrive onsite to repair the device. I use the term Onsite as many service providers today are trying to cut more and more cost and provide less and less service. Many try to have a triage department walk the end-user through further troubleshooting processes. Do you really want your end-users becoming technicians so your provider can squeeze out more profit? Your good service providers can and will deliver an average response time of 4 hours to 6 hours depending on your contract service levels. Example: 10 calls for the month on your fleet, 4 calls took 5 hours each to respond (20), 4 calls took 3 hours each to respond (12), 2 took 2 hours each to respond (4). 20+12+4=36 for an average of 3.6 hours.
Output pages between service calls uses industry metrics at the device level to measure how well a device is performing in printed/copies/output pages between service needs. Each device and device segment will have different metrics. Good service providers have industry accepted standards to utilize as a measuring stick. Using these statistics, the service provider could show you how your devices are performing against these industry benchmarks.
Example: Larger 80 page per minute MFP may average 80,000 pages between service calls. Based on a monthly page volume of 40,000 pages, you should see your technician about once every 8 weeks.

So I would throw “uptime guarantees” written like the one above out the door and ask my service provider to show me the top three. If they can’t, then I would look for one that does.

10 Essentials of a Document Management System

Nancy Bauer — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:19:00 GMT

Research groups like the Gartner and IDC have found that 10% of all business processes revolve around searching for information and/or documentation, 86% of invoices are still printed on paper and 95% of company information is on paper. And the average worker prints out 45 sheets of paper daily. These staggering numbers clearly demonstrate the importance of proper document management.

Choosing the right tools for the task of document management can be difficult given all the options available today. So, we've broken down the available options into the 10 essentials of document management. After going through the list of the 10 most important aspects you will be able to choose a system that is right for you, given your budget and needs.

Drum roll please....

Essential #1: Single Repository
Your document management system should act as a single repository. This means that it should accommodate: paper documents, Microsoft Office documents, photos, audio files, videos, emails, faxes, reports and other printable material.

Essential #2: Integration
In order to increase efficiency your system needs to integrate with your existing applications so that the exchange of information is automatic. Having an integrated document management system will ensure that you: avoid dual data entry, eliminate indexing errors and achieve single-key document retrieval.

Essential #3: Workflow
A document management system should improve on existing workflows by helping to monitor, route, locate and control documents throughout your business processes. It should provide for automatic routing of documents and parallel processing, allowing more than one person to work on a document at time.

Essential #4: Scalability
Your system should to be able to grow with your organization so it needs to be scalable in terms of functionality and number of users it can support across additional departments and/or locations.

Essential #5: Remote Access
As companies adapt to a more mobile work environment their data, documents and workflows must adapt with them. Remote access with your system will allow employees, users and even customers to access documents as easily from home or remote locations as they can when working in the office.

Essential #6: Security
Document management systems hold far more information than ever before which is why security is more important than ever. Layered security systems are needed to ensure that confidential information doesn't fall into the wrong hands. This can include user access controls establishing or restricting access by function like viewing, printing or emailing in addition to password protection and remote access security.

Essential #7: Efficiency Tools
Efficiency of your system will be determined by how easily your users can access processes and documentation that were previously paper-based. Efficiency and usability can also be enhanced with features like document assembly capabilities, forms recognition, OCR and annotation and redaction.

Essential #8: Accountability & Auditing

A document management system should provide a complete record of every action performed across the enterprise. Each document should have its own record of actions The log should include the date and time, user, activity, detail, network address, and workstation.

Essential #9: Disaster Recovery
Disaster recovery is important to consider when implementing a document management system. Backing up your data to an off-site, secure location will minimize disruption in the event of a physical disaster, hardware/software failure, power interruptions or viruses. You need to assess how soon after a disaster or interruption you would be able to access your information and resume business.

Essential #10: Compliance
Your industry likely has regulation and legal standards that you are required to comply with, especially when it comes to documentation and data management. Acquiring a compliant system will ensure you remain in the green with Sarbanes Oxley, HIPAA, FDA and other relevant government regulations.

Final Advice
Use the above 10 commandments of document management to help you decide which aspects are the most critical to your business. Involve colleagues and user group members in the process to ensure that everyone's critical needs are covered. Vendors will likely try to sell you the entire kit and caboodle but keep in mind that not every feature will be essential for your business and scalable solutions will allow you to add on as you go. Discuss with your potential vendor(s) your needs assessment and then find out what their product road map will be and what their service, help sites and users groups are like.

Download your free e-book: 6 Step Security Plan for Enterprise Imaging and Printing

Streamlining Faculty Printing, Google Docs and Mobile Printing: Webinar

Nancy Bauer — Tue, 08 May 2012 16:00:00 GMT

Flo-Tech invites you to attend a Canon USA Education Webinar with Guest Speakers from IDC

Emerging Technology Trends and Solutions to Maximize Productivity for Your Education Institution

In today’s economy, education institutions are faced with the challenge of providing high quality academics despite budget constraints. The growing expectations to reduce the cost of operations and improve services with limited resources are the key drivers behind education IT investment and management decisions.

Join our education webinar hosted by Canon U.S.A. with guest speakers Thom Rubel and Keith Kmetz from IDC to:

Learn to successfully manage the constrained education industry
Find out about solutions to help oversee department printing budgets
Explore methods to encourage cost savings by printing and scanning from Cloud Services
Discover how to easily access, print and share course materials on GoogleDocs

Date and Time: Friday, May 11, 2012 2:00 pm (Duration 1 hour)

Eastern Daylight Time (New York, GMT-04:00)

Register Here

Flo-tech is a Managed Print Services provider with expertise in the Education sector. Flo-Tech has offices in Hartford, New York City, Boston and Philadelphia.

Does your organization have a Mobile Print Strategy? Download your free Mobile Print Strategy e-book today.

Thoughts on ITEX 2012: Mobile Print Solutions the Next Wave

Joe Miller — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 13:42:00 GMT

Last week several members of the Flo-Tech management team attended the 2012 ITEX Show in Las Vegas, NV to see what others in our industry have to offer, attend training and information sessions and network with peers. The ITEX show is a gathering of manufacturers, vendors and dealers in the Managed Print Services and Office Equipment Industry.

A recurring theme throughout every conference session and on the expo floor was the ever increasing trend towards leveraging software solutions to better serve our customer needs. From cost containment to rules based printing, document management and workflow to mobile printing; it was all there in force which makes us even more excited about the future. Flo-Tech has been readying to expand our software offerings in several of these categories and bring to market solutions for our customers in the second quarter of 2012.

In particular, many of our clients have been asking about mobile print solutions. Look for us to be rolling out a mobile print solution that makes it easy and simple to access and print documents across an enterprise while on the go and allows users to print presentations, reports, photos, and more from their smartphone to any registered printer on the network.

Emerging technology and providing great service to keep that technology at peak operational efficiency were also strong themes at ITEX. Remote field and monitoring applications for print and copy devices are expanding capabilities at an amazing rate and are now rivaling the levels of sophistication that IT departments have enjoyed for years in the server and network infrastructure space. The rest of 2012 will see many new products come to market that will allow us and more importantly our customers to "do more with less".

In this arena, Flo-Tech is will be rolling out a new program for more comprehensive fleet management. This new solution enables management of printing and imaging assets at a much more detailed level than previously available and with more flexibility to look at different fleet configurations. More information will be coming soon.

Another highlight of the ITEX show was the presentation of the imageSource Magazine Perfect Image Awards. Flo-Tech was pleased to be included for the 2^nd year among the winners receiving the 2012 Award for Outstanding Sales Program.

In the next few weeks look for more information as we conduct more in-depth research on new offerings and bring you our findings.

Download your free Mobile Printing Strategy e-book: Increasing Productivity Across Today's Mobile Enterprise

Office Printing Facts That May Surprise You On Earth Day

Nancy Bauer — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 13:06:00 GMT

With the approach of the 42nd annual Earth Day, a day dedicated to appreciating, celebrating and working to protect the earth, it’s a good time to contemplate the effects that office printing has on the environment. What steps can you take on April 22nd and beyond to create a green print atmosphere for your organization? If you aren’t sure about how office printing effects the environment, consider these eye-opening facts.

Paper Consumption

The typical office employee in North America prints 10,000 pages each year. This statistic estimates the printing undertaken by one single clerk in any office gives a very real picture of the excessive amount of printing that takes place in offices each year.

What is even more concerning is the life span of the printed page. While it is easy to think that some printed pages don’t last a full month in the office and that others may not survive an entire day, it is staggering to know that, according to MPS Insights, a page printed in a typical office environment has an average life span of less than five minutes. While it is hoped that these pages are recycled, the question is whether there was truly a need to print them at all?

Energy Costs

Another important consideration regarding office printing practices is the energy used by the printing devices. The Environmental Protection Agency indicates that the average cost for the energy required to operate a single laser printer adds up to $225 over a one year period.

You may think that’s just part of the cost of doing business, but it doesn’t need to be. By simply reducing or optimizing your print fleet by eliminating just one laser printer for a more effective device, you could save up to $18.75 in costs each month.

Waste

The obvious result of the constant producing and discarding of printed documents is waste, but paper isn’t the only waste produced by office printing practices. Considering the use of paper, packaging and print consumables, the weight of waste created by the typical use of one single laser printer is 100 pounds. Count up how many laser printers are in your office, and then do the math. How many pounds of waste does your office create?

Create Reduction

Instead of creating waste, there is a simple way you can reduce the amount of unnecessary printing in your organization. Print Audit, a company that provides print monitoring software, estimates that on average, the volume of printed materials is reduced by 10 percent when office employees believe that their printing habits are being monitored. A simple indication that others will be aware of their printing habits is enough to cause employees to think twice before clicking the print button.

You can further reduce costs and minimize your impact on our planet by optimizing your office print environment. Use of appropriate hardware and the implementation of a Managed Print strategy are useful ways to achieve greener office printing practices. An environmental print assessment is an excellent way to determine the best solution that fits your organization’s unique needs. Information about what is involved in the assessment process can be found here. What better time to start being kinder to your office and the environment than as the world comes together to appreciate planet earth?

What does your office do to celebrate Earth Day? Are you concerned about how your printing practices impact the environment? We would love to hear about your organization's innovative sustainable office printing practices.

Flo-Tech is a managed print services provider with offices in Boston, Hartford, Philadelphia and New York City. Flo-Tech has been a strong proponent of the Green Office for many years with it's Envision Program Environmental Program.

More Information

Greening STEM: The Environment as Inspiration for 21st Century Learning

National Environmental Education Week [Infographic] STEM and Out Planet

How to Effectively Manage the Transition to Electronic Health Records: Webinar

Nancy Bauer — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 12:37:00 GMT

A common concern for those who work in the health care industry is the proper use and maintenance of health records. The highly personal and confidential nature of the information included in the records, in addition to the need to comply with HIPAA regulations, creates the need for reliable practices that protect the documents.

Any failure to comply with HIPAA legislation and demonstrate meaningful use of health care records is a constant concern that can threaten the success and reputation of your organization. Ineffective management can result in a costly breach of compliance or protected health information (PHI) could be inadvertently lost, stolen or disclosed to inappropriate individuals. Learning to prevent these issues and how to effectively transition your records into EHRs, or electronic health records, can greatly improve your current records management practices.

Valuable strategies and tips to effectively manage the change to electronic health records in your organization will be provided during a webinar sponsored by Canon featuring industry experts from IDC on Friday April 20th from 2:00-3:00pm.

Register here and save the date in your calendar so you don’t miss out on the valuable information that will be shared by our experts during this webinar. In only one hour, you will learn:

Strategies to improve and maintain your HIPAA compliance

How to achieve Meaningful Use and successful management practices

Solutions to efficiently manage paper-heavy processes

How to transfer paper documents into EHRs

Hosted by Canon USA, guest speakers from IDC will share their comprehensive knowledge of specific applications and practices that facilitate the implementation and use of electronic records keeping in the health care industry. The speakers who will share their expertise are:

Judy Hanover, IDC Health Insights

Keith Kmetz, Vice President of IDC’s Hardcopy Peripherals Solutions and Services Programs

Join in on this hour of pointed discussion about the importance of records maintenance in the often-turbulent health care industry to help your organization increase efficiency and document security.

We would love to know how your organization has approached records management. Please share your tips or concerns in the comments below!

Flo-Tech is a national Managed Print Services provider specializing in the healthcare sector with offices in Boston, Philadelphia, Hartford and New York City

Workflow and Security Requirements for Legal Practices : Webinar

Nancy Bauer — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 20:14:00 GMT

It’s something that happens day-in and day-out at your legal firm: document processing. Paper documents are constantly received, printed, signed, copied, scanned, emailed, archived, filed and submitted to the courts each day.

Pleadings, interrogations and depositions are only a small portion of the legal documentation that is processed within your firm on a daily basis; additionally, invoices, payments, and other correspondence are sorted, handled and delivered throughout the organization. Most of these documents contain confidential information that must be protected to ensure the integrity of your accounts, the outcome for your client and your firm’s reputation.

It’s a large, important and encompassing task. But tips and tricks to help manage this and other challenges will be shared during a webinar being Sponsored by Canon featuring industry analysts from IDC from 2:00-3:00pm on April 13.

How to Increase Revenue

How to Create Compelling Case Files for Your Clients

How to Effectively Contain Costs

Guest speakers from IDC will share their extensive knowledge of the industry and specific applications for workflow and security requirements for legal practices to help you achieve the desired results. Speakers confirmed for the webinar include:

Keith Kmentz, Vice President of IDC’s Hardcopy Peripherals Solutions and Services Programs

Ruthbea Clarke, Research Director, Smart Cities Strategies

Join in the discussion about new and continuing challenges facing the legal industry, as well as current and upcoming trends to help propel your practice toward increased success.

Let us know about the issues you feel are most threatening to your legal firm by leaving a comment below!

Register Now

Flo-Tech is a national Managed Print Services provider specializing in the legal sector with offices in Boston, Philadelphia, Hartford and New York City

My users want Mobile & Cloud Printing... Help!

Joe Miller — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 16:11:00 GMT

You don’t have to be an IT professional to know that mobile devices are taking over as the preferred way for people to stay connected and do their work on the road (and even at home). One aspect of mobility that many organizations are struggling with is requests for the ability to print wirelessly from smartphones and tablets and trying to understand all the options available solutions that fill those requests are not well understood. There is no universal “standard” for enabling printing from mobile devices and there are many ways to tackle the problem. This post will help you start to understand the myriad of mobile printing options available.

There two basic strategies that are employed for enabling mobile printing and the differences between the various products in the marketplace lie in the strategy chosen and the steps taken getting the job from the mobile device and ultimately to the printer itself. The two strategies we will discuss are Cloud Based Services and Direct Print Services.

Cloud Based Services

How They Work

In this type of solution there is a server that accepts the print job from the mobile device. This server is typically located on the internet, but can also be inside a corporate network and reachable from the internet. When a print job is received; the server stores the job and then connects with the printer directly or through another piece of software on a computer that connects with the printer directly.

Sending the Job

There are two main methods of getting the print job from the mobile device; email and apps.

Email

The email method allows any mobile device that can send an email to print either the email or any attachments that are recognized by the cloud print server. The user sends an email to a dedicated email address for the printer. This method is the easiest to implement, but doesn’t allow for much (if any) control over printing options for the job (e.g. copies, duplex, finishing, etc…).

App

The app method involves a dedicated app that gets installed on the device or is integrated into the mobile device’s Operating System (OS). This app then allows the user to select a document, select a printer, specify printing options and send the job to the server. Apps offer more security, control and flexibility, but they also must be developed, installed and may be limited in terms of what content can be printed due to limitations of the mobile device’s OS.

Printing the Job

So now that we’ve gotten the print job from the user on the server we need to get the job to the printer. There are two basic methods for achieving this which we will call “push” and “pull”.

Push

The push method is where the cloud based server that received the job sends (or “pushes”) the print job to the printer directly or via software within the corporate firewall, which in turn sends the job to the printer. This is akin to how a traditional “print server” or “print queue” works.

Pull

The pull method is where software within the corporate firewall or the printer itself is configured to check with the cloud based service and when a job is waiting, it is downloaded (or “pulled”) and printed.

Pros & Cons

Pro: Allows printing from mobile devices outside the firewall to printers inside the firewall

Pro: Allows printing to more device models due to the server component

Pro: Allows more security options due to the server component

Con: More components and capabilities require some additional considerations for installation and management.

Con: If/when utilizing the public cloud based service (vs. the internal server option), the print job goes through someone else’s server which may be of concern to some for privacy or compliance reasons

Sampling of Products Using This Strategy

HP ePrint Enterprise, HP ePrint, EFI PrintMe Mobile, Google Cloud Print

Direct Print Services

How it Works

This type of solution is best thought of as “peer to peer” printing meaning that the mobile device prints directly to the printer. These types of products are usually limited in their capabilities because they are typically driverless and rely on a standard set of basic print functions. Many products exist in this space that are provided by the printer manufacturer (e.g. Lexmark, Xerox) for the print devices they manufacture, but some are 3^rd party with support for multiple manufacturers; Apple AirPrint for iOS devices probably being the most well-known.

Sending & Printing the Job

Implementation of direct print services typically involves an app or a built-in mobile OS capability that allows specifying what to print, selecting a printer and then sending the job. The mobile device itself then connects over the network directly to the printer to hand the job off for printing.

Pros & Cons

Pro: Easy to implement

Pro: Simplified capabilities make training minimal

Pro: Many solutions are free or of nominal cost

Con: Many of these products have less print functions than a full print driver provides

Con: Some products require that the printer itself have built-in support for the app in question or the print standard that the app utilizes

Con: Not as many security options

Con: Typically requires the user that is printing to be on the same network as the print device

Sampling of Products Using This Strategy

HP ePrint Home & Biz, EFI PrintMe Mobile, Apple AirPrint

Note: Inclusion of products on this page does not necessarily signify an endorsement by Flo-Tech, LLC. Please call your Flo-Tech Sales Representative if you are interested in learning more about these technologies.

Flo-Tech is a managed print services provider with offices in Boston, Philadelphia, Hartford and New York City. Flo-Tech's customers include Healthcare, Legal, Financial Services and Educational organizations.

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With an increasing focus on reducing costs and environmental impact, more businesses are investigating how their printers, multifunction devices and overall document output help – or hinder – those goals.

With this in mind, businesses and health care organizations are implementing managed print solutions to help achieve their goals in relation to streamlined costs and alleviating the burden on their IT employees. One of the country’s top generic pharmaceutical companies are now enjoying measurable benefits from the use of a managed print solution (MPS) that was sought by the company after they made numerous acquisitions and were experiencing continued rapid growth.

The company Director explained, “…we had multiple locations supported by multiple groups (in-house IT and outside vendors), and each group doing their own thing. IT had little control over printer purchases and deployments and little visibility into the actual costs of our printing environment.” But based on increasing support requirements and demands on his IT organization, the Director knew there were issues that needed to be addressed and he needed to find a more unified approach to managing and supporting his print infrastructure and his end users. With the realization that the internal IT department spent 15% of their time supporting printers and copiers, it was clear a change needed to be made to eliminate this burden.

Once issues were recognized and identified, the company was able to set goals for their print environment. These included:

Reducing escalating printing and copying costs
Preparing for large printing projects
Eliminating the existing incessant bottlenecks in end-user printing.

The goals were met by implementing an MPS strategy that provided immediate results for the company.

Some results you could enjoy by managing your print environment:

Freeing up IT resources
Decrease in the number of printers deployed
Improved user satisfaction
Use of appropriate devices for specific printing and copying jobs
Reduction in paper usage
Cost savings by retiring printers at end-of-life stage

More questions? Other issues with printing, copying, document management, workflow or support and maintenance your organization is trying to solve? We would like to hear from you.

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How to Reduce the IT Burden of Printer and Copier Support

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