Description

YSoft SafeQ gathers data for outputs produced by monitored printers, copiers and MFPs and presents them via a centralized Web interface. For large print environments, the system also supports integration with MS SQL OLAP Data Warehouse.

• see Web Interface - Reports for reporting system overview

• For various reasons YSoft SafeQ is typically able to address about 95-98 per cent of tracked pages to individual users or departments, the difference is caused by various service prints, system status prints, direct IP printing, server restarts, and limitations on the page meter handling by devices. for details, please see Print tracking methods and Available Copy Tracking Methods.

User Stories

1. Reporting - As a manager, I want to receive reports for the activity on controlled printers / MFPs so that I have information to optimize our printing environment.

2. CRS - As a manager, I want to be able to centrally store reporting data into data warehouse so that I can use business analysis tools to integrate the reporting data with our internal process tools.

Requirements

• YSoft SafeQ shall provide pre-defined addressed reports available via the YSoft SafeQ Web Interface:

  • User (name, login, ID), user department (if available in the Identity Database)

  • Originating workstation/server name

  • Output Device (name, location, evidence number, IP), device group, device cost center

  • Project code (if Project Print Tracking is enabled)

  • Output type (print, copy, scan)

  • Number of pages as per tracking method: total number of impressions, total number of BW/color impressions, total number of small (A5/A4/letter) and large (A3/legal/tabloid) pages, duplex usage

  • Estimated Page Coverage, and Estimated Toner Consumption Only available by print job data stream analysis, where configured and for Offline Print tracking methods

  • Calculated Job price based on Administrator-defined price list

  • Print Job file type (e.g. PDF, Outlook, Image, .... based on the print job title)

  • Date and time (tracking of whole hours), time interval

• YSoft SafeQ shall provide user definable addressed reports available via the YSoft SafeQ Web Interface.

• YSoft SafeQ shall provide user definable addressed reports via MS SQL Analysis Services (OLAP).

• YSoft SafeQ shall provide detailed job information and it's history via the YSoft SafeQ Web Interface** Job date and time (in case of batch accounting several jobs can be accounted as a single job)

  • Job name

  • User (name, login, ID)

  • Document name and type (depending on substring search, e.g. suffix)

  • Job list (history of operations with a job)

• YSoft SafeQ shall provide export data to XML, CSV, XLS, HTML, PDF from SafeQ web interface

• YSoft SafeQ shall provide scheduled data export to XML, CSV, XLS, HTML, PDF to specified folder or specified email addresses with periodicity: daily, weekly (for previous calendar week), monthly (for previous calendar month), monthly (for past monthly period)

• YSoft SafeQ shall support access restrictions based on YSoft SafeQ roles.

• YSoft SafeQ Web administration interface (4.0) shall displas information whether the report is up-to-data (e.g that all data has been collected and processed)

• YSoft SafeQ Web reports shall support configurable restrictions on display of user identity information (name, surname, login)

Dependencies / Non-functional requirements

• Print, copy or scan tracking must be configured (see details for tracking methods and tracked information in Print/copy/scan tracking feature description).

• Reporting interface has to be configured via YSoft SafeQ server deployment

The proccess of generating reports

• CSDMagerCML task generated all data for reports. This task run one hour after finish of previous one.

• CSDMagerCML task base steps:

  • Generate data for green reports (propertyenable-purge_reports).

  • Copy jobs into DWH.

  • Generate data for CRS reports (property cdc-sender or web-stats-enable).

  • Generate data for Web reports (property web-stats-enable). We recomended to use this in non CRS environment. For huge amount of pages, more then 2 milions per month, we strictly recomended to use CRS instead Web reports.

  • Generate data for user terminal reports (property displayPrintedPagesPricesOnTerminal and "CRS reports").

  • Generate data for dashboard (property web-stats-enable).

  • Delete old data from reports.

  • Update data in DWH based on late send data to YSoft SafeQ.

• CSDMagerCML task maintenance steps (run once per day):

  • Delete old data from database.

  • Run database optimalization.

• Properties cdc-sender and web-stats-enable should be enabled just at leading node.

• Generate data for CRS reports: newest data for reports are used after specified interval after saving this data into database. Data which was actualy printed will be in reports after specified interval, configuration property: printJobAgeForStats [minutes], default value 60, allow range 10 - 120. In one node environment is printJobAgeForStats property irelevant, interval is set to 0 minutes by aplication.

• Generate data for Web reports: for generate web reports are used data prepared for CRS reports.

Caveats

• Web reports can only handle millions of print job information, after reaching about 2 000 000 records (1 record ~= 1 user x one day x one device), the old data are being automatically deleted. For data storage over longer periods it is necessary to use OLAP data warehouse.

• Detailed job information are stored only for a pre-defined time (one month by default, max 3 months)

• Role based access is available for web reports only; OLAP reporting access is limited by SQL server access permissions

• Measure "Jobs - count" is inaccurate in case of accounting mixed job. Mixed job is job accounted to more counters (color+bw, duplex+simplex). Each job accounting is counted at least once.

Licensing

Usage and Cost Reporting feature is separated in a license where each license has specific limitation if license for the feature expires or is not available in a license. Without valid licence,

• Pre-defined addressed reports - None pre-defined report is available on web interface.

• Custom report definition - Web interface does not allow to create custom report. If also pre-defined reports are disabled, menu for web reports is not available on web interface.

• Export - Web interface does not allow export report to file.

• Automatic reporting - Web interface does not display menu for definition of automatic export and existing automatic report are disabled.

• CRS connector - Data is not reported in Central reporting system and menu with CRS reporting overview is not available.