Pharos Cloud Platform Update: June 2022 Release Notes

This release represents the latest version of Pharos Cloud and Secure Release. This update includes several important new features including:

• Delegate Print

• Direct Print: Restrict Access to a Direct Printer by group

• Policy Print Reporting

• MFP New Features and Improvement:

  • Logout on the second card swipe (HP)

  • Renamed the Home Screen button (from HP Secure Print to Secure Release)

• Other Improvements and Bug Fixes

  • Guest Print: Increased Maximum File Size

  • Security Improvement: Improve the Web Console’s session management

  • Single Sign-On Improvements

    • Support for linked users

    • Return to the SSO login screen

  • Data Privacy and Document Storage: IPP Print jobs apply the correct user-level Data Privacy Region

  • Mobile Release QR Code Improvement: Provides Paper Size selection (A4/Letter)

  • Data Import: Ability to remove the user group or Data Privacy Region assigned to a user

  • Microsoft Universal Print Queue improvements

• Print Scout Improvements and New Features

  • Support for Delegate Print

  • Support for Direct Printer Access Restriction by Group

Delegate pRINT

This release introduces the new Delegate Print feature which enables users to release print documents on behalf of someone else. With Delegate Print, a job owner can designate another user or users (known as delegates) to release their jobs from any Sentry Print-capable device. For example, a manager can ask their office assistant to release and collect printed documents on their behalf.

Note: To access delegated documents at all times, system administrators will need to enable Cloud Storage in the Document Handling section of the Secure > Settings tab in the web console. This is to ensure that delegates can release a document even when the job owner’s machine is not available.     

Pharos Sentry Print Desktop App

The Pharos Sentry Print Desktop App provides users access to Delegate Print. The Print Scout component installs this app on user workstations. The following images show the Sentry Print Desktop app with Delegate Print.

Using the Sentry Print Desktop app, a delegate (the employee chosen to print on behalf of another user) can do the following tasks:

• Delete documents that have been delegated to them

• View who sent the delegated job

Using the Sentry Print Desktop app, a job owner (the employee who has given the authority to print on their behalf) can:

• Add delegates

• View delegates

• Remove delegates

• Delete their documents, including jobs they've been delegated

Delegate Print Basic Workflow

Note: It is assumed that users are already registered into Pharos Secure Release.

1. An IT administrator enables Delegate Print on the web console (Secure > Settings tab).

2. The IT administrator installs or upgrades Windows Print Scout on user workstations.

3. The job owner launches the Pharos Sentry Print Desktop app.

4. The job owner submits documents to the Pharos Secure Printer.

5. The job owner assigns print jobs to delegates. There are two ways to assign jobs to delegates:

   • Auto Delegate - The job owner enables Auto Delegate (if not already enabled) and adds users to assign as delegates. All the added delegates are automatically assigned as delegates to every print job submitted by the job owner.

     Note: If the job owner wants to print confidential documents, they will need to disable Auto Delegate before submitting their job. If job owner has already submitted the document, they also have the option to delete the job.

   • Manually assign delegates – The job owner submits a job and assigns delegates on a per-job basis.

6. The job owner requests one of the delegates to release print jobs.

7. The delegate walks up to any printer to authenticate. The delegate sees a list of their documents and the documents that have been delegated to them.

   • Delegates can release documents that have been delegated to them.

   • Job owners can release their documents, including the jobs that they’ve delegated

Notes:

• Once a document has been released by either the job owner or the delegate, the delegated documents are no longer available to either user unless the user selects Print and Retain at the printer.

• Only one level of delegation is involved – Delegates cannot delegate documents that had been delegated to them.

• When a delegate releases a document, they are reported against the job owner (the one who submitted the job).

• Documents submitted from the Mobile app or the Chrome extension will be available for a delegate to release at a Secure Print printer or their mobile device.

New Delegate Print Section in the Web Console

To support Delegate Print, a new section called Delegate Print has been added to the Secure > Settings tab of the web console. This is where system administrators can enable the Delegate Print feature.

Configuring Delegate Print

Note: It is assumed that users are already registered into Pharos Secure Release.

1. An IT administrator navigates to the Secure > Settings tab in the web portal and enables Delegate Print.

2. The IT administrator installs or updates existing Print Scout on user workstations with Delegate Print functionality.

Supported Clients

Delegate Print requires the Print Scout component to be installed on user workstations. This version of Delegate Print supports installation on the following clients:

1. Microsoft Windows 10

2. Microsoft Windows 11

3. MacOS 10.14 - 10.15

4. macOS Big Sur(version 11)

5. macOS Monterey(version 12) as well as the new Apple M1 CPU

Supported Customer Configurations

Delegate Print applies to Pharos Secure Release only, and supports all three Authentication Providers: Email Authentication, OpenID, and Active Directory.

Limitations

• Delegate Print does not support Guest Print users.

• Delegate management (e.g. adding, removing delegates) is not supported in mobile or Chrome.

• Email notifications are not supported (e.g. When a job owner sends a print job, an email notification is sent to delegates letting them know a job has been delegated to them).

• If your site is using macOS Print Scouts with Active Directory Authentication Provider, you will need to import users’ email addresses to use Delegate Print.

DIRECT PRINT: RESTRICT ACCESS TO A DIRECT PRINTER BY GROUP

In March 2021, Pharos introduced Direct Print, the cloud-based solution enabling employees to send their print jobs directly to a printer. An employee can add a direct printer via the Chrome extension or the Pharos Sentry Print desktop app.

Previously, an employee could search for and add any Direct Print-enabled printer. In this release, the ability for administrators to assign a direct printer to one or more groups was added. When a direct printer has been assigned to a group, it is only available to the users in the assigned group. If there are no group assignments, all direct printers are available to all users by default.

Changes to the Web Console

1. The Edit button dialog for a direct printer (in the Direct > Direct Printers tab) now includes a Permission Groups section where IT administrators can assign one or more groups to a direct printer. You can also remove group assignments using the Edit dialog box.

2. The Import Printers option (in the Direct Print tab) now includes a Permission Groups column. Admins can add one or more groups that match existing groups in Pharos Cloud.

3. The Direct Printers screen now includes a Permission Groups column.

Note: Groups are only available for selection when they have been imported or populated by the Print Scout. You will need to import groups (for Email Auth and OpenID) using the existing user import in the Advanced > Settings tab in the web console. If using Active Directory, users must have printed at least one document.

POLICY PRINT: REPORTS IN PRINT EXPLORER

Policy Print was first introduced in Preview mode in the November 2021 release. This licensable feature encourages responsible printing by raising awareness of optimal printing choices and reducing print costs by enforcing print policies. It aims to help change user behavior by communicating proper print resource usage to employees.

This release introduces Policy Print reporting and includes these two reports:

• Policy Savings

• Policy Overrides

Policy Savings Report

The Policy Savings report in the Explorer view shows cost savings due to print jobs being cancelled via Policy Print. These print jobs are cancelled either through the Deny action or Warn action in Policy Print. Print jobs that trigger a Deny action are automatically canceled. Print jobs that trigger a Warn action give users the option to continue printing or to cancel the job. If a user cancels a print job when presented with a Warn dialog, the document is not printed and is recorded as a policy saving.

• Cost –This shows the amount saved due to denied or canceled jobs.

• Volume – This shows how many pages have been submitted from a user workstation but have not been released to a printer because they were denied or were canceled by a user due to Policy.

  

Policy Overrides Report

The Policy Overrides report in the Explorer view shows the cost and volume for jobs that trigger a Warn action. Print jobs that trigger a Warn action provide users the option to continue printing or to cancel the job. If the user continues to print a job when presented with a Warn notification, it is recorded as a policy override.

• Cost – This shows the cost incurred due to printing jobs that triggered a Warn action.

• Volume – This shows the number of pages printed that triggered a Warn action.

You can further drill down into Policy report data using the Explorer view. For example, if you’re looking at policy savings in a specific region, you can click any category shown within that view such as Department, Employee, Device, and so on. The following image shows data drilled down into the employee level.

New Policies Violated column to the Employee Documents list

A new column called Policies Violated has been added to the Employees Documents list in the Explorer view. This column shows the name of the policy that a user’s document has violated.

SUPPORT FOR DELETING DEVICES FROM THE WEB CONSOLE

Previously, you had to request the Pharos Operations team to delete devices from the web console. This release provides system administrators the ability to delete devices from the web console without reaching out to Pharos. A new Delete button has been added to the Discover > Device Inventory tab of the web console.

When deleting a device, you will be presented with this dialog box showing that the device will be permanently deleted and cannot be retrieved again. All historical data will be lost.

Note: You can only delete devices that have been marked as Out of Service. This is available only for users with System Administrator roles.

MFP NEW FEATURES AND IMPROVEMENTS

Logout on the second card swipe (Canon, HP, KM, Lexmark, Ricoh, Toshiba, Xerox)

In addition to our existing touchless printing workflows, users can now tap their ID proximity card/badge to log out, instead of touching the printer's user interface. It takes about 60 seconds for the printer to automatically log a user out after printing. To immediately log out of the printer session, users can now simply swipe their card again.

This feature is now available for HP devices (in addition to Canon, Konica Minolta, Lexmark, Ricoh, Toshiba, and Xerox), providing users with a consistent logout experience across print manufacturers.

Renamed the Home Screen button to Secure Release

The Home Screen button has been renamed from HP Secure Print to Secure Release. Pharos Sentry Print has been rebranded to Pharos Secure Release.

Note: This change applies to newly provisioned customers only. It does not apply to existing customers.

OTHER IMPROVEMENTS AND BUG FIXES

Guest Print: Increased Maximum File Size

Previously, the maximum file size allowed for PDF and MS Office docs (.doc, .docx, .xls, .xlxs, .ppt, .pptx) was 60MB and for JPEG, BMP, PNG, and TXT file formats was 5MB. In this release, the maximum file size allowed for Guest Print is as follows:

• TXT: 10 MB

• JPEG, BMP, PNG: 50MB

• MS Office Docs (.doc, .docx, .xls, .xlxs, .ppt, .pptx) : 60MB

• PDF: 250MB

Security Improvement: Improve the Web Console’s session management

For improved security, various changes have been implemented to how the web client handles cookies.

Single Sign-on (SSO) Improvements

• Support for linked users. Single Sign-on (SSO) support for logging into the web console was introduced in August 2021. This feature has been updated to support linked users and customers with multiple tenants (accounts).

• Return to the SSO login screen. The issue where a user logs in via SSO to the web console and when the session expires, the login screen returns to the built-in login screen is now fixed. It now returns to the SSO login screen during auto-logout.

Data Import: Ability to remove the user group or Data Privacy Region assigned to a user

Pharos has added the ability for IT administrators to remove group assignments via CSV import file. To remove a group or a Data Privacy region assigned to a user, you’ll need to add a dash/hyphen in the CSV file (in place of the group name or Data Privacy Region) and then import the file (using the Import button in the Secure > Advanced tab). This removes the group details or Data Privacy region assigned to a user.

Examples:

Show Deployment Connector for both on-prem and Cloud Site Service

Previously, the Select Deployment Connector dropdown on the Secure Printers dialog box was available only for pure cloud customers. In this release, the Select Deployment Connector is now available for on-premises sites too. This way, both on-premises, and pure cloud sites can select which Device Scout or Device Discovery and Deployment Utility (DDU) to secure their printers with.

Note: With cloud sites, you can select either a Device Scout or DDU. With On-premises sites, only Device Scouts are available.

Mobile Release QR Code Improvement

Generating QR Codes for Mobile Release has been updated to allow users to select A4 or Letter when downloading QR codes for Mobile Release. Previously, they were rendered in A4, but the Avery labels were Letter size.

Note: When printing labels, we recommend using Avery 8163 for Letter and Avery 3425 for A4. For best results, print with ‘Actual Size’.

Data Privacy: IPP Print Jobs applies the correct user-level Data Privacy Region

An issue in the previous release where the user’s data privacy setting wasn’t applied after changing it via the Print Scout Configuration tool was fixed. When a user changes their user-level data privacy setting, the correct setting is now applied immediately.

Microsoft Universal Print Queue Improvements

• When printing duplex, results are no longer in reverse-order pages.

• Added finishing options that are supported by Microsoft Universal Print. Refer to this Microsoft document to see supported finishing options.

Notes:

• To use these finishing options, the administrator must disconnect and reconnect the queue from the web console (in the Universal Print tab).

• The successful application of these settings will rely on the printer that the job is printed to.

• Support is available for Portrait-mode only. Landscape is not yet supported.

PRINT SCOUT IMPROVEMENTS

The Sentry Print Desktop application has been updated to support Delegate Print

Delegate Print requires the Print Scout component to be installed on user workstations. It is responsible for installing the Pharos Sentry Print Desktop app which provides the user interface for Delegate Print. The Print Scout in this version has been updated to support Delegate Print.

Support for Direct Printer Access Restriction by Group

The Print Scout component has been updated to support restricting access to a Direct Printer by group. When a user searches for a Direct Printer to add using the Pharos Sentry Print desktop application, the Print Scout now checks if the user has access to the Direct Printer via the user’s group membership.

Other Print Scout updates and bug fixes

• The Print Scout no longer supports Microsoft Windows 7

• The /reinstall option was removed from the Print Scout command line installer

• Improved PCL printer driver installation to detect a corrupted installation

• The following issues were fixed:

  • Users were unable to release documents when using network segments

  • Missing network information on macOS Print Scout caused job delivery failures

  • macOS Print Scout connected over VPN required user registration on every print job

COMPONENT RELEASE VERSIONS

This release includes the following software components and release versions.