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Print.IT Reseller
Robert Newry, co-founder of
NewField IT, is a great advocate of
end user data in MPS engagements
involving fleet optimisation.
“Eight times out of 10, looking only
at device data and the location of
printers will be sufficient to make
savings and efficiencies. But two
times out of 10, you will end up
getting it wrong and that will impact
suppliers’ profits and the efficiency
of users,” he said.
Newry argues that any analysis based
purely on printer page counts has to make
assumptions about end user printing habits
that in some cases will be flawed.
“MPS is all about providing a more
efficient and value added service around
printing. The way this has been achieved
to date is to look at data from devices. You
see a hardware device doing 5,000 pages
a month, you look at where it is located
and you assess whether you can get rid of
it and consolidate it with another device
nearby. That approach delivers savings, but
it has limitations,” he said.
“If you see a heavily used device, the
tendency is to assume that everyone is
printing to that device and that if you
move it and change the configuration of
the fleet, the print volume will simply move
to the next nearest device and people’s
printing habits will stay the same. The
reality is people’s printing choices aren’t
based on where the nearest device is;
they’re based on their needs – does it have
A4 or A3?; does it have letterhead paper?;
does it have stapling?.
“When you overlay user data on a floor
plan, and not just device data, you see the
other half of the picture: you see where
people really are doing their printing. If
a machine is doing 40,000 prints, the
assumption is that it is being used by the
whole floor, but that volume could be
coming from just two users,” he said.
Better decision-making
At the beginning of last year, NewField IT
introduced a new module for its AssetDB
printer fleet visualisation software that
allows users to view end user and device
data on office floorplans. The new feature
lets an MPS consultant drop a person onto
an office floor plan to see what machines
they print to, when and in what volumes.
It can also be used to show how many
people use a particular device.
The potential of this software to
improve decision-making is obvious, but so
far its take-up has been disappointing. This,
Newry explains, is due to the complexity
of combining data sets from end users and
devices.
“There hasn’t been an easy way to link
the two up,” he said. “An SNMP tool is
used to retrieve page counts from devices,
while end user data comes from an agent
on the user’s PC or server. The reason you
can’t pull data together is that one set
comes from a device with a serial number
and IP address and the other from a print
queue. If you have 100 devices, you get
100 page counts. But assuming you have
a user to device ratio of 5:1, those devices
will serve 500 users, and if they print
100 pages a month, you suddenly have
50,000 lines in a .csv file. That’s a massive
challenge in terms of data and to date no
one has really tackled that.”
In order to overcome this limitation,
four MPS players in the US – FM Audit
(SNMP device management); Preo
Software (end user monitoring); NewField
IT (fleet visualisation); and Supplies
Network (MPS programmes for the
channel) – have formed a coalition to put
end user data alongside device data at the
heart of every MPS.
Already, this has made it easier and
cheaper for the channel to integrate and
make use of both data sets:
1.
Preo has unbundled its product set
and is now offering a data-only SKU that
gives MPS providers end user data and
reporting at price levels comparable to
device management software;
2.
FMAudit is using Deployer software
to enable resellers to install both FMAudit
and Preo in customer environments via a
single user interface, making device and
end user data more accessible for fleet
assessment and management. For ease of
deployment, a single install process pushes
the dealers’ suite of MPS tools to the end
users’ desktops; and
3.
Supplies Network has integrated
its 360 Plus Database with NewField
IT’s AssetDB solution so that device and
end user data from FM Audit and Preo
applications can be imported in one .csv
file. This will enable resellers to monitor
network and local devices, end user
printing behaviour and the relationship
between the two in a visually compelling
way.
So far, these developments are only
available to resellers in the US, but by
demonstrating how the channel can cost-
effectively make better use of both data
sets, they make it more likely that MPS
providers on this side of the Atlantic will
soon be given the tools they need to gain
a complete view of customers’ printing
activities.
www.newfieldit.com
21
mps
The whole picture
Leading players in the MPS ecosystem are working
together to make it easier for MPS providers to analyse
end user data. So far, the results are only available in
the US, but the initiative does set a precedent that could
inspire players on this side of the Atlantic.
MPS is
all about
providing a
more efficient
and value
added service
around
printing.
Screenshot taken
from Asset DB
displaying a visual
representation
of user/device
data