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Printing in shared government buildings
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Common Technology Services (CTS)

DRAFT

Printing in shared government buildings

When government organisations share buildings they need to share services like networks and printing. Design print services for shared environments to future-proof your service.

Read this guidance from Common Technology Services to find out how your organisation can:

Pre-built internet-based print services are becoming more widely-available. They:

Use cloud-based services

Multi-tenant platforms provide an easy way to install and manage a secure print service. The infrastructure is already set up, so you can consume what you need and scale it easily for each new site. Where organisations procure a service from scratch, they should opt for solutions that can be shared to allow all building users to print. This model provides a way of printing where:

The following diagram shows how a print job is created, securely sent to the print server and released for printing.

  1. The user creates a print job.
  2. The user sends the job from their device to the cloud, via web-to-print, email-to-print or using drivers. The cloud print solution manages queue and release.
  3. The user receives a release code.
  4. The user releases the job at the printer with the release code.
  5. The cloud solution sends the job to the printer once the user inputs their release code.

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Consider your transition and legacy equipment

Currently, organisations work hard to deliver print services to their corporate users. New technology means this can now be opened up to other users, and provides a way for those without drivers to print as part of a transition. Consider this if your organisation already shares a building and you want to increase access across teams.

You can transition to a shared platform without disrupting your current service. Running a shared platform in parallel to your existing network mitigates the risk of service disruption during a move, and allows you to integrate the old and new systems. Users also quickly gain familiarity with the new service. You can integrate better user journeys and open up your service, where:

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Choose your print solution

New technology provides ways to reach a wider audience, to include, for example:

Consider all the people that need to print in your building when you design your print solution.

Consider how users print

Choose one or more of these solutions, based on what user needs you’ve identified.

Print using drivers

In this solution:

Web-to-print

In this solution users print via a web portal. It uses an email address to validate users when they submit a print job. Administrators create rules so the service accepts or rejects users with certain email addresses. The print server converts documents into print jobs.

To print via a web portal, a user:

Email-to-print

This solution uses email addresses to validate users when they submit a print job. Administrators create rules so the service accepts or rejects users with certain email addresses. The print server converts documents into print jobs. To use this solution, users:

Other features to consider

In addition to printing, think about what other functionality your users need.

Scanning

Multi-function devices (MFDs) can help organisations use digital processes and reduce printing. MFDs should include scanning functionality like scan-to-email and scan-to-a shared drive functionality. When you deploy this function consider auditing and controlling who has access to the scanning functions.

Faxing

Where organisations still use fax, they should consider implementing online fax services that integrate faxing with your email service - sometimes called a fax-to-email gateway. This reduces the cost and administrative overhead of installing and managing telephone lines and fax machines, and means that users can send and receive faxes directly from their computer.

Accessibility

Your service should work for all your users. Look for features that make this possible such as voice control and adjustable touch screen keypads.

Use the digital accessibility standards and the ETSI standards to make sure the services you buy are accessible to all users and compliant with public procurement.

Decide how users enrol with the print server

Consider how much cost and effort is required by your users and your local IT team when choosing how users will enrol with the print server.

Option 1: use existing credentials

Use email addresses to create per job release codes. Organisations can set rules to limit trusted addresses, for example @*.gov.uk, to control user access.

Alternatively, authenticate users to your print server using common tools like:

Option 2: use permanent identifiers

Before linking user accounts to a release token, like a radio-frequency identification (RFID) card, you should consider:

As long as the identifier ties the print job to the user, organisations should permit a range of possible identifiers. Users could provide their own token if it meets the criteria above.

Make sure your print data is secure

To make printing secure, protect print job data on its way to the printer and release print jobs only to the person that printed them. Make sure your supplier is able to do this. Your secure print platform must meet the following security requirements.

Data in transit

To protect your network and your data in transit, you and your solution provider should:

Print job security

To protect your print job data you should:

To protect your print release process you should:

Print server security

To protect data at rest, ensure your solution provider has proper management processes in place, like an updating and patching schedule. Your solution provider should:

Printer security

To protect your hardware, you should:

Your solution provider should:

Report on service management

Organisations should capture:

Maintain your print service

This should be automated and easy. Users might not know IT help desk contact details so you should automatically and proactively manage error reports, faults and paper and ink shortages. You need:

Consider how to integrate monitoring of systems and printers into your organisation’s system monitoring tools.

Comply with environmental policy

Often, new technology allows staff to work more efficiently without printing. To reduce printing and comply with greening government ICT strategy consider:

If you capture this data you can provide information to your organisation’s environmental group to help reduce printing. They need to identify individuals and groups that print a lot so that they can develop digital processes to reduce printing.

Buy the solution

Organisations can structure their commercial model to fit their needs. They could contract a cloud service and printers from one provider. Alternatively, they could chose different suppliers, and integrate them. When you procure print services, consider:

Multi-function devices

Buyers should:

Software

Buyers should:

Commercial model

Whether you chose to buy printers and a shared platform in several parts, or as one block, you must understand how you will use your service to decide which commercial model to use. Read more information on commercial models for printing infrastructure in the Lot 2 and Lot 3 specification documents for CCS framework RM1599. Consider:

  1. Leasing printers - organisations can:

  1. Cost per page: this will be fixed for the contract length, so organisations will benefit from reducing the volume of printing over the life of the contract.

  1. Buy-back arrangements: organisations can use capital expenditure (capex) budget with a contracted buy-back price to reduce monthly fees.

  1. Managed service - organisations should consider:

  1. Licenses - SaaS providers often charge per license, so organisations need to manage how they consume the service to pay the correct amount.

  1. Consumables - organisations should:

E​mail contact.cts@digital.cabinet-office.gov.uk to​:

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