Feature List
User Mobility and Failover
Auto Server Switching
MyQ Desktop Client (MDC) provides enhanced mobility for users who need to commute between multiple locations within the enterprise and print with minimal effort.
MDC's automatic server-switching feature make this a breeze.
When the user moves between different work locations, MDC detects the change in the IP address and automatically connects to the appropriate MyQ X print server on that network.
Local Print Monitoring
Local Print Monitoring is designed for organizations with hybrid work environments where there are users who occasionally work from home and need to monitor and capture print activity from a locally connected printing device, such as a USB-connected desktop printer.
With MDC's local print monitoring feature, printed pages are extracted from the print spooler as they are processed by the printer driver and reported to the MyQ X print server, where they are attributed to the appropriate user. In addition, user policies, credits, quotas, and projects can be applied to locally connected devices.
Fallback Printing
MDC's fallback printing feature keeps users productive and printing during unexpected downtime or loss of connection to the server. MDC detects when the connection to the MyQ X print server is lost and automatically switches to fallback printing.
Users can conveniently select a fallback multifunction printer, for which 3 options are available; predefined by the administrator, manually specifying a device, or conveniently selecting from a list of previously used printers.
An additional benefit of the fallback printing feature is that all print jobs are fully accounted for once the connection to the MyQ X server is restored.
During the loss of connection with the MyQ X print server, users can select from a list of last used printing devices *Screenshot - MDC for Windows
Security and User Management
Users have the flexibility to use a PIN, username and password or ID card in Windows or macOS login as authentication methods. *Screenshot - MDC for macOS
Easy User Identification
Keep track of who prints what and secure confidential documents on a shared workstation.
Whether you are a university with hundreds of students sharing a single computer during their classes or a hotel with multiple employees working shifts, MDC has you covered.
We offer several login options to identify and authenticate users on a single workstation with MDC.
User Account Overview
Users can get a real-time view of their Credit, Quota and Cost Center account information directly from the MDC User Interface (UI).
It allows users to easily monitor print spending and manage their budget from the convenience of the MDC UI.
User quota balance overview *Screenshot - MDC for Windows
Secure Print (LPR over TLS)
Print jobs are sent from MDC to the MyQ X print server using a TLS security protocol.
This allows printing via MyQ X to be encrypted end-to-end, which is necessary for organizations that frequently handle sensitive data.
Offline operation
The system administrator can set up how MDC should behave when the connection to the MyQ Print Server is interrupted.
They can choose from the following three options:
Automatically let the user process all their jobs
regardless of restrictions;Stop the jobs if the user is not allowed to release
them due to limited rights or;Block all jobs sent in the offline mode altogether.
Advanced Print Processing
Interactive Job Processing
With this feature, users can be informed about important print job properties and prompted if they want to change some of them; for example, to print in two-sided or mono color.
A simple use case would be to promote responsible print behavior by setting up a dialog to recommend users to print two-sided when a print job exceeds a certain number of pages.
Reduce your carbon footprint and help our planet with a responsible approach to printing.
User interaction dialog *Screenshot - MDC for macOS
Integrated Job Parsing
With a traditional MyQ X setup, print job data is analyzed (parsed) on the MyQ X print server. With MDC's integrated job parser, print job data is analyzed on the local PC; this provides several benefits such as reduced resource usage on the print server as the local PC client does the processing.
Furthermore, user policies, quotas, or credits are maintained and accounted for via MDC during offline mode. This means that responsible print policies, credit, and quota will still be enforced during times of unexpected downtime, keeping users productive and preventing unwanted print spending.
Client Spooling
With the standard implementation of the Pull Print functionality, print jobs are routed to a print server where they are processed and stored until a user confirms print approval at the multifunction printer. This method of printing can place a load on the network and the print server’s computing resources.
With MDC's client spooling, print jobs are processed and stored locally on the user's workstation. Only the print job metadata, which is only a few KB (kilobytes) in size, is passed to the print server. When the user authenticates at the multifunction printer and releases the print job, it is sent directly from the workstations to the printer.
Client spooling drastically reduces the load on the network and computer resources of the print server. This can be beneficial for organizations that have remote offices with low bandwidth connections where it is not feasible to install print servers at every location.
Print Job Management
MDC simplifies the user experience when it comes to managing print jobs and interacting with several accounting methods that can accommodate your organizational requirements.
Cost Centers
With the Cost Center mode enabled, the user is prompted via the MDC UI to select a specific account where a print job should be charged (only the selected account will be charged). Each cost center can have an individual quota assigned to it. This is especially beneficial for organizations where users need to do printing and assign the cost to another department. Account options include credit, personal quota, and multiple shared quotas.
An example would be a printing room in a University with print operators that need to print batches of documents for several departments.
Users can assign print jobs to specific projects *Screenshot - MDC for macOS
Projects
When working with multiple projects users often need to allocate separate printing costs to each project. With MDC, project accounting becomes a simple matter. MDC automatically detects if a user has been assigned permission to use projects.
When printing, the MDC UI pops up and displays a list of projects available to the user. The user can then select a project from the list for which the print job should be accounted.
Using project accounting is especially useful for organizations that would like to offset and recover print-related costs for a project from the customer. Together with MyQ X reports and project accounting, organizations can easily invoice their customers and recover costs.
Read more…
Check the latest documentation regarding functions supported by MDC.