About PrintTracker™

What is PrintTracker™

Print Tracker™ is a non-invasive software solution for gathering meter reads from copiers and printers. In general, the installation requires little or no involvement from your onsite IT department. Meter data is passed securely through firewalls using the HTTPS protocol, similar to how a web browser communicates with a banking website. Print Tracker™ is proxy-compatible and does not create security vulnerabilities. It is used in banks, hospitals, schools- any place with high security needs.

Print Tracker™ has a very small impact on network performance. It runs as a service that is usually asleep, and wakes up a few times during the day to perform required tasks.

Why use PrintTracker™

  • Print Tracker™ automatically gathers the meters and emails them as an Excel spreadsheet attachment when scheduled.
  • Print Tracker™ 's installation program is under 4 MB in size.
  • Print Tracker™ has a very small impact on network performance. It runs as a service that is usually asleep, and wakes up a few times during the day to perform required tasks.
  • Print Tracker™ pulls the device description, IP address, serial number, location and page counts.
  • Device discovery is quick. A typical segment can be searched in just a couple of minutes.
  • Print Tracker™ does not rely on the email system of the end-customer to send meter data. It posts the data securely to a web server, from which the data is downloaded and sent via Print Tracker™ email.
  • Print Tracker™ can monitor locally installed printers as well as network devices, including copiers and MFPs.
  • You'll hardly know it's there, and if you do have a question, Print Tracker™ is unsurpassed in providing quality, timely support.

How PrintTracker™ works

Print Tracker™ discovers locally attached devices (printer, fax or scan ports that are managed by the Windows Spooler service) as well as network devices that respond to Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) requests. Print Tracker™ sends out a broadcast to the local network requesting that devices respond. It then queries the devices to determine whether or not they are printing devices. A list of nearby network segments is retrieved from the default gateway and is displayed so the user can tell Print Tracker™ which segments are to be searched for network devices. Only the segments selected will be searched. These same segments can be automatically searched periodically to determine if new devices have been installed on the customer's network.

Print Tracker™ can save you time, money, and hassles as it gathers the meters for you!

If a device is not discovered automatically during the network scan, it can be added manually by clicking on the "Add" button and entering either the Network Name or the IP address of the device. Alternatively, entire subnets or a range of subnets can be searched.

When devices are discovered that respond to the SNMP requests, the data is stored in a local database table. When it is time to send the data in a report, the data is sent to the web server using the HTTPS protocol, similar to how your browser communicates with banking websites. HTTPS is a secure protocol. All of the data is encrypted before it is sent.

The meter data is then pulled down from the web server in a separate process, put into an Excel spreadsheet, and emailed out to the email addresses entered in Print Tracker™. This process usually takes 1-2 minutes.

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