APPLICATIONSUSER & COST

MANAGEMENT

USER & COST MANAGEMENT

Characteristics

– Centralised user and role management– Cost assignment and chargeback– Budget and quota management– Detailed output and cost reporting– Panel personalisation

Modern printing environments offer a whole host of possibilities, and this fact raises the question of whether all users should have access to all functions.. If printing activities are not kept in check, the resulting volumes and costs can quickly exceed budgets. User & Cost Management proposes professional solutions for monitoring, control and reporting.

Printing is generally required throughout a company by most employees; sometimes even on behalf of third parties. Without a tool to track the print costs, accurate charging back to the originators is almost impossible. Especially in public environments, printing should only be possible as long as users pay for the prints. In corporate environments, defining, assigning and managing user roles and access rights for printing, copying and scanning can be an extremely time-consuming task. Administrators are at a loss without an accurate and efficient means to track, collect, summarise and visualise where printing activities take place.

– You expect detailed information on where your corporate print costs occur, and want to allocate this information to cost centres, user groups, devices, locations, and types of printing. Only this enables you to maintain a large corporate printing fleet and ensure that devices are used as intended within your corporate budget.

– You want to centrally control devices and their users in conjunction with existing user management directories.

FOCUS ON ENHANCEDPRINT COST TRANSPARENCY

– You depend on easily defining and enforcing user roles and quickly enabling access to the print fleet with appropriate usage rights for new users.

– You expect to automate user, device and usage analysis with intelligent software applications that instantly visualise all print activity, providing accurate and easily understandable usage reports.

Variable Data Printing

Security

DeviceManagement

PrintAutomation

Connectivity

Cloud & MobilePrinting

ColourManagement

Make-Ready

User & Cost Management

Web-to-Print

Document Capture & Management

OutputManagement

The comprehensive User & Cost Management functionality extends to centralised user and role management, provides cost assignment and chargeback capabilities, includes budget and quota management, and offers detailed output & cost reporting possibilities. You will see that benefits are manifold and that suitable functionalities can fulfil even the most diverse require-ments of a complex corporate printing environment like yours.

Detailed output and cost reporting

One of the classic questions in print management is “Who printed what, when and how much of it?” A disparate fleet, equipment in more than one location and output devices from several vendors make data collection an overwhelm-ing task. On top, copying, printing from USB sticks, and prints of documents stored on MFP hard drives also generate costs. The visualisation of collected data must be flexible and possible from various angles. Also required is the fast creation of quick executive reports as well as extensive output reports that contain all details.

With a proper output and cost reporting functionality, administrators and users benefit from generating comprehensive information at the push of a button, avoiding lengthy and tiresome manual collecting.

Panel personalisation

As users are different, their workflows are likely to differ as well: instead of large corporate address books, users want their own personalised versions. Very helpful are also individualised panels with the user’s own start screen after login and his personal shortcuts to frequently used functions – especially if after defining his panel once, this is automatically available on all networked devices.

These functionalities enhance the overall productivity right across the whole MFP infrastructure. Obtaining the desired print, scan and copy jobs is faster and does not take longer than it should.

TYPICAL CAPABILITIES ANDWHAT THEY MEAN FOR YOU

With professional User & Cost Management software, you achieve transparency of all printing activity and related costs, keep extensive print volumes in check, and put an end to unnecessary printing. The proper software applica-tions facilitate the definition and maintenance of user roles and quotas as well as the analysis and visualisation of print activity. Konica Minolta’s extensive software application portfolio includes a wide choice of suitable User & Cost Management applications for the most diverse requirements.

APPLICATIONS USER & COST MANAGEMENT

Centralised user and role management

Administrators need to be able to control printer users remotely and allocate access rights flexibly from a central workplace, taking into account different job requirements and appropriate restrictions such as not permitting colour printing. User roles must be easy to maintain and instant checking of access levels possible.

Easy-to-apply templates facilitate and speed up the definition and setting up of user roles and access rights. Automated processes enable the administrator to concentrate on important tasks.

Cost assignment and chargeback

To be efficient, print cost allocation should be automated as much as possible but leave sufficient flexibility for cases where costs need to be charged to other accounts or external customers. Enterprises with extensive customer dealings depend especially on a reliable overview of all print costs to ensure accurate and transparent invoicing to each client.

Efficient cost assignment ensures that all cost origina-tors are recognised and do not vanish in a vast pool of “general printing costs” that invariably inflates budgets. Costs are correctly allocated to their originators and can be reliably invoiced. Administrators benefit from a high degree of automation, which also ensures minimal interruption to users’ workflows.

Budget and quota management

Print activities can easily raise corporate costs, which is why print quotas should be easy to set up and simple to manage for individuals, work groups, departments, accounts and projects. Organisations in public environments have to provide chargeable printing facilities for visitors, customers, and guests. Versatile recharging mechanisms should offer users self-maintenance of their accounts. Flexible payment systems are expected to include modern options like debit and credit cards as well as online cashless accounts (PayPal).

Whether in a corporate or public environment, proper mechanisms for budget allocation and account recharg-ing allow for the right balance between central control and individual flexibility.

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Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe GmbH Europaallee 17 30855 Langenhagen Germany www.konicaminolta.eu

Cost allocation to projects and clients

1 For a large customer project, the project manager prints the latest development proposal documents in full colour. Collecting the job from the output device, she assigns the cost to the project to be invoiced to the client later.

Management of print budgets

2 An employee wants to print a 200-page colour document. As it’s almost the end of the month, this will overextend his budget. He receives a message from the system to print the job in black & white or get his manager’s approval to print in colour.

Detailed cost analysis

3 The manager reviews the latest report on consolidated printing costs, split by division. The comprehensive charts show him that 42% of all printing costs are generated in the marketing division and that 90% of these costs are based on colour printing.

Assignment of print permission to new employees

4 The IT administrator is informed that several employees new to the company have to be registered on the system before next month. He creates their accounts in the company’s user directory; this means that the new users are automatically granted access to printers with the access rights defined for their respective job roles.

APPLICATIONS USER & COST MANAGEMENT

MEETING ROOM

OFFICE

IT MANAGER

Some examples for typical workflow scenarios

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OFFICE