The fourth question to ask when considering cloud-based print management is, can you integrate with my other cloud services?
Having a print management system in the cloud is great but not if it does not play nice with your other cloud-based systems. Here are two important cloud-based systems categories that need to be integrated with your printing and scanning processes:
Document repositories
Like many organizations, you may be
turning away from scan to email for collaboration and storage of documents. Its why third-party cloud document repositories are on the rise. Examples include Dropbox, SharePoint and OneDrive. Most print management software solutions offer scan workflows that automatically route the documents and notify users that documents have arrived.
Really good print management software sends notifications to the people waiting for those documents and allow the employee to input content at the printer – perhaps what kind of document it is or some other important metadata.
Universal Print feature in Microsoft 365
With Microsoft’s announcement of
Universal Print, a new feature coming to Microsoft 365 subscribers, moving to the cloud is even easier. With Universal Print, print servers and print drivers are eliminated. Of course, this is possible with printers that are Universal Print compatible – and few are available on the market today.
Therefore, a good question to ask cloud-based print management suppliers is if they are integrated natively with Universal Print or if they are using the software connector that Microsoft provides (which requires a Windows print server thereby decreasing the ‘no on premise server’ benefit of cloud printing).
And what if you have users on non-Microsoft platforms? Will the cloud-based print management only work seamless on Windows OS or can it support a good user experience on Chrome OS, MacOS and Linux as well?
Related to Universal Print, is the question about high availability (both failover and load balancing). Today, Universal Print cannot support high availability on its own. Does the cloud-based print management have the right architecture to support high availability without being cost-prohibitive? Do you need high availability in every location, or can it be in only the offices you need it?
YSoft SAFEQ Cloud & other cloud systems
YSoft SAFEQ Cloud services are based on our on-premises solution, YSoft SAFEQ. While it brings a rich legacy of proven print management and document capture technology, it’s not just SAFEQ moved to the cloud; it’s totally rewritten for the cloud. (I think I could write an entirely new article just on that topic!)
Since 2016, we have been providing integration with cloud-based document repositories with connectors that are developed by our R&D team, so they work seamlessly. The tradition lives on with SAFEQ Cloud services which consists of YSoft SAFEQ Breeze and YSoft SAFEQ CloudPro. You can see our library of connectors here.
SAEFQ Cloud services are also natively integrated with the Universal Print feature in Microsoft 365. While Universal Print is still under public preview (e.g. not generally available) our integration is also under public preview for customers to try out. Want to get involved?
With cloud-based repositories and Universal Print, there are a lot of details to uncover to ensure your choice will serve your company well today and in the future. This makes it worthwhile to dig into these questions with your potential providers.
Will cloud print management integrate with other cloud services such as cloud-based repositories? The answer from Y Soft is yes.
Will it also work natively with Universal Print? The answer from Y Soft is also yes.
Learn more about how YSoft SAFEQ Cloud services can solve your cloud-based print management requirements.
Other articles in this series looking at what to ask when moving your printing into the cloud:
Question 1: How much should I pay?
Question 2: How can I ensure my print services will always be available?
Question 3: How can you ensure cloud-based print management/infrastructure can scale without your costs increasing astronomically?
Question 5: How do I manage printing with multiple platforms?