DM Jan-Feb 2021

CASE STUDY: WHEATLEY PARK SCHOOL Dm
running for four or five years. We
essentially pioneered that program in the
UK. We have people come and visit the
school from across the UK and also from
other countries - well, prior to COVID-19
we did! Our visitors see how we do things
with Google Workspace and Chromebook
and other integrations that we've built.
We also show them some of the things
we do with PaperCut as they are always
interested in printing solutions with
Chromebooks."
CHROMEBOOKS & PAPERCUT: THE
DEFAULT SOLUTION
Talking about why he choose PaperCut,
Roger explained: "We've been using
PaperCut for a decade or more. Prior to
that, there was no printing solution at the
schools. So when charming students
printed a hundred pictures and sent them
to a classroom printer you'd get all this
garbage appearing at the printer. Or you
would find piles of other people's printing
when you went to pick up your printing.
We thought there had to be a better way
of doing this and that was when we went
to PaperCut.
“Over the years we have developed and
built on our use of PaperCut especially as
we've had lots and lots more
Chromebooks. It's now the default print
solution that we roll out in schools."
Like many, Roger had to consider his
options when the time came to replace
Google Cloud Print. "We run a one-to-one
staff and students with Chromebook
program, so we needed something that
was quite robust printing-wise. We used
Google Cloud Print for a number of years
- it's been fine and had a lot of good
points but also had the occasional trip up
and failover which meant you needed to
restart stuff. Mobility Print is generally very
solid. Cloud Print is being killed off by
Google so it's really no longer an option.
In terms of a managed print solution for
Chromebook, Mobility Print is the obvious
choice. We have looked at other print
solutions but none of them work as well
as Mobility Print."
SIMPLIFYING THE TRANSITION
Making the transition from Google Cloud
Print to Mobility Print was made simple
by how easy it is to use, as Roger
explains: "You install it, pick your printers,
push it out on the Google console and
that's it. It takes minutes. There isn't
anything to it. It's one of the simplest
things I do. It just works. I have to deal
with lots of technology companies and I
have two categories of technology
companies - those that I can trust that
'just work' and are no hassle, then there
are those that I have to hassle all the
time to make things work. PaperCut,
fortunately, falls into the first category
where things generally just work and if
they don't, you fix it pretty quickly. We
do have some complicated deployments
at the bigger schools where you have a
gazillion accounts and it does take a bit
of set-up and management but even
then, it isn't that difficult to set up once
you've done it a couple of times."
RELIEVING THE PAIN OF PRINT
Like many in a similar professional
position to his, Roger has strong view on
IT: "From my perspective, printers are one
of the most hateful things in the known
universe - they are the bane of my life.
Mobility Print takes a little bit of that
hate of printers away."
He commented that printers are just
mechanical things that go wrong and
cause hassle. If there is anything that
can take some of that hassle away at
least in terms of deploying printers ,
then that simplifies his life considerably.
"That's what Mobility Print brings to the
table," Roger stated. "If I had to try and
deploy printers to lots of different
devices and we didn't use Mobility Print,
it would be a complicated technical
challenge and it would be different for
every site. Whereas with Mobility Print,
you just install and away you go. You
can be pretty much certain it's just going
to work."
Roger has been reassured by the
dependability of the Cloud Print feature,
knowing that "This comes down to the
simplicity of deployment, and just
knowing it's going to work - because at
the end of the day, people just want to
be able to print without any hassle."
He added that: "Mobility Print's Cloud
Print is really good because teachers can
send a load of print jobs at home the
night before and collect them in the
morning without having to spend time
in the day onsite doing it."
SATISFIED USERS
Roger is also encouraged by the
feedback from users; or, rather, the lack
of it: "You mainly hear when people can't
print. That's the way it goes with IT. If
everything is quiet that's a good thing,
you can sit back and have a cup of tea.
It's when printers don't work you have
endless issues. Sometimes we get some
feedback that it's nice to be able to scan
to Google drive which we put on the
copiers that support that and that works
really well. The school business manager
also wants to be able to follow up with
someone over why they've printed so
much. And they can do that because I
give them a login to the backend and
they can review the reports and cost
centres and they can actually see that."
The real proof, though, is whether
Roger would recommend PaperCut MF
and Mobility Print to other schools.
Already within the trust, it is the default
printing solution. For any site that gets
taken on, PaperCut is used. Only a
couple, with a very good reason not to,
don't have it - e.g. if a school doesn't
have a physical server or is very small.
"Whenever anyone asks me about print
management solutions, it's PaperCut I
would suggest. In education in the UK,
it's pretty much the go-to solution. If you
go on one of the forums like EduGeek
and you ask 'What print management
software should I use?' you will have
about 10 replies all saying PaperCut.
There may be some others that people
mention occasionally but generally
speaking, it's PaperCut that's
recommended."
And it looks like it will remain that
way for some time, thanks to PaperCut
having 'a product that just works', as
Roger concludes: "PaperCut is one of
the things that just does what it says
it does."
More info: www.papercut.com
www.document-manager.com
January/February 2021
@DMMagAndAwards
29