Almost two years in, it’s hard to remember just how different school life was pre-COVID-19. We were a communal bunch, huddled in classrooms, focused on learning and collaborating with a limited range of tech (and non-tech) tools that were freely shared among pupils and teachers.
Teaching spaces today look very different. Chromebook sales surged during the pandemic – and now pupils, changed by months of home schooling and online learning, are re-entering the classroom and they’re bringing countless new devices with them. Students are using personal devices and they’re connecting them to the network, and that’s created a whole new headache for IT admins charged with effectively managing devices and juggling an uplift in print activity across their schools or district.
The print burden
Deploying the right printers to the right users has become an overly complex process as educators wrestle between per-user allocation, organizational unit, groups and devices, and the pros and cons of each. It doesn’t get much simpler from there. Once they’ve agreed on a deployment plan, IT have to enable access to selected printers as well as set print policies to control who can do what with what printers. Controlling whether users can print in color or black and white for example, or have access to advanced finishing options like hole punching and stapling, simply adds to the burden of managing print and keeping a lid on rising costs.
Mind the security gap
While technology proved its mettle in enabling remote learning, it also increased the attack surface making cyber-attacks a growing threat to schools across the US. According to a report by the K-12 Cybersecurity Resource Center, in 2020 alone, there were more than 400 cyber-attacks on schools.
Zero trust is fast becoming the de-facto standard within K-12 schools and districts but, when it comes down to the printing infrastructure it’s definitely not a case of one-size-fits-all.
Often within a Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) IT security solution, staff and student devices cannot connect to the same network as secured devices, which includes printers – so how can schools enable students and staff alike to print to devices that cannot be seen on the network they’re joining? Enter Edge Print – this nifty feature built into directprint.io enables users to securely print when they are not on the same network as the printer.
If you’ve read this far and your head is spinning at the thought of the almighty challenge of managing, protecting and simplifying print services in your school or district, worry not. Whether you’re looking to become a serverless print organization, reduce print costs, simplify print management or track print activity, directprint.io has you covered.
Put an end to printing pain points
From security concerns to costs and resources, printing privileges to remote deployment, we’re here to help you put an end to your printing pain points:
We offer seven deployment options for Google Workspace so you can meet your deployment strategy goals. Customers can deploy printers by groups, devices, users and more, and our universal print driver can even be installed through Google Workspace Admin to all devices.
It’s easy to ensure that your users are printing responsibly, and you don’t waste costly resources. For example, save paper and toner by allowing staff to print in color while making sure students only print in black and white, or limiting one group’s printing ability so they never over print.
Benefit from complete visibility of all print activity on your network and use those insights to identify where you’re wasting resources and enforce policies, such as restricted printing rights for specific users, to put an end to it.
Enable secure pin release on printers to ensure that students aren’t collecting staff prints and seeing something they shouldn’t. And, Edge Print technology allows you to control which users can print remotely through our Google Workspace integration.
Whether it’s a handful of teaching spaces or 1,000 classrooms across an entire district, we can help you revolutionize your school’s print management across Chromebook, Mac, and Windows devices. Enquire about a free trial or book a demo to see for yourself today.
