Print Management and Security

The Sentinel system is an innovative solution designed to give companies maximum control over their printing array. The system is designed for management , supervision, security and reducing the amount of print jobs within the organisation.

Security:

Printing is considered today to be one of the weakest links in information security chain. Many companies have hundreds of printers scattered in different locations in the organisation, serving departments or areas within the company. A high percentage of printouts sent to the printers remain there and are not collected by the person that has printed it.
Some of the printouts contain sensitive information, which others could see that are not authorised to do so.

Economy:

Printing is associated with high expenses to the organisation (paper, toner, maintenance and printer life span). Researches show that up to 20% of printouts sent to a shared central printer are either not picked up, or picked up by a different person than the one sent it. Moreover, the recent improvements in colour printing, results in a massive penetration of colour laser printers to organisations, along with that, raised the usage of those printers for employee’s personal needs. The costs of printing on these printers are obviously much higher than on black and white printers.

Management:

The system manages the entire print process. After a document is sent to a printer by a user, the print server locks the document until the user identifies himself in the device near the printer, and than the server releases the printout to the printer. The system administrator receives a complete report of all printout that was preformed in the organisation, and can assign printing resources according to the needs of the organisation.

Main Features:

• Printing will only be possible after identification of the user by placing a card, typing a code or releasing the print job from a web interface.

• Count and control the number of pages printed by each user, and optionally type a billing code in addition to the user name (For customers billing purposes).

• Transfer a print job automatically from one printer to another (print to printer A and pass a card at the device near printer B will cause the print job to be automatically print in printer B, next to the user).

• Set a print quote for each user, this denies printing from users who have used their black/white or colour quote.

• Ability to define a printer that will be accessible to specific users or groups only.

• Complete web interface, which enables the user control over the print jobs they submit but haven’t released yet, including the ability to cancel, delay and release print jobs.

• Issue different reports, based on different intersections such as how many pages each user printed, how many pages were printed in a specific printer, etc…

• Send on-line warnings and error events to the system administrator by email in cases when certain events occur, such as an unlisted card being used.

• Send personal messages to a user's web console, such as quote issues, printing to an unauthorised printer etc…