Microsofts new 'Universal Print' option on 365

[Mark Bbb]

Re: Microsofts new 'Universal Print' option on 365

If a printer is installed correctly on the customers network, any host (guest or employee with correct log in) on that network can easily - and fast - download the printer (add printer) to print.
In fact every network is a cloud (separated by routers). If the customer wants to connect to a specific cloud (outside his own network), he will use the internet to make the path to that router of the cloud.

So, i still do not understand the advantage of a universal printer.

[JayPaul]

Re: Microsofts new 'Universal Print' option on 365

In that scenario though if they were to go on holiday to another country then decided to just do a bit of work and print it out on any printer at any of their sites in their own country, just by logging into their 365 account, no vpn or anything, just a simple connection to wifi at their hotel. How would you go about setting that up for them?
I don't really get a say in it, this IT guy wants what he wants and if it is doable we are happy to try it and sell them some machines.
Incidentally we spoke to him this morning, told them that Ricoh have outright said to us that this is going live in December and Ricoh will also be releasing stuff to be compatible at the same time, so after probably numerous firmware updates and bugs being sorted it should be a working function in February.
On the plus side if people want to start doing this it makes my installations go quicker because all I can do is roll it in, setup IP address etc, setup scanning and the rest is up to their IT (in an ideal world)

[Mark Bbb]

Re: Microsofts new 'Universal Print' option on 365

In that scenario though if they were to go on holiday to another country then decided to just do a bit of work and print it out on any printer at any of their sites in their own country, just by logging into their 365 account, no vpn or anything, just a simple connection to wifi at their hotel. How would you go about setting that up for them?
I don't really get a say in it, this IT guy wants what he wants and if it is doable we are happy to try it and sell them some machines.
Incidentally we spoke to him this morning, told them that Ricoh have outright said to us that this is going live in December and Ricoh will also be releasing stuff to be compatible at the same time, so after probably numerous firmware updates and bugs being sorted it should be a working function in February.
On the plus side if people want to start doing this it makes my installations go quicker because all I can do is roll it in, setup IP address etc, setup scanning and the rest is up to their IT (in an ideal world)

IT'ers are a strange specie. They have the quality to make themselves indispensable. Isn't it?

[slimslob]

Re: Microsofts new 'Universal Print' option on 365

IT'ers are a strange specie. They have the quality to make themselves indispensable. Isn't it?

Not always. I have known good ones such as the one at Taft City Schools who would provide me with the IP address, mask, domain name, DNS servers and internet gateway to use for new installs. My boss would provide him with the driver disk and he would take care everything else.

I have known bad ones such as the one that was at the Bakersfield office of PCL. I got called out once when the warehouse supervisor was unable to print. I found the problem in a matter of minutes. I contacted the receptionist to have her get a hold of the IT for me so I could tell him what problem I had found. He told her he was too busy replacing gateway between the various buildings to talk to anyone. At that time he had been working on the network for over 4 hours. Since the receptionist had my mobile number about 5 minutes I got a call from the west coast IT supervisor who wanted to know what I had found. I told him that I found the DNS went down sometime during the night. Everything that had fixed IP addresses such as the printers and servers could talk to each other as could any computer that had been left on all night. Everyone who had to turn their computers on in the morning had no access to printers, servers and the internet.

[Jason Peterson]

Re: Microsofts new 'Universal Print' option on 365

Did you guys ever get this working for the RICOH copiers? I'm in the same boat, I have an install tomorrow with this requirement in order for the deal to stick.

This particular customer is currently migrating all of it to 365 with the Azure AD. So installing it normally will only work for a while then he will be wiping all of the legacy stuff away and they will only print via Universal Print afterwards.
Like the Toshibas you mentioned that also happens to Ricoh, if you let an IT guy or someone who wants to half arse an install set up new printers they will let Windows 10 find ti and add it on it's own. This will not only put it on the dreaded WSD port but also gives it the Ricoh Class Driver which is also dreadful. To combat that problem I turn off WSD - Device, on the IPv4 settings of the WIM of any machine before I install it. Then download the correct PCL 6 driver and install via IP address or more reliably the Hostname which won't change.
In this instance if a problem occured with printing I would direct the customer straight to their IT who would hold 99% control over it as I wouldn't really be able to do anything other than check network connections etc

mga - Yep that's me on there, a lot of those guys are still furloughed so I wasn't really expecting an answer. I spoke to a Ricoh support team and they all said 'no it will not be compatible' then I spoke to a guy that has done software installs for us and him and another guy he knows that works with Azure and 365 also said no.
I don't think anyone wants to say yes it will work because if it doesn't they will be held accountable, same way I can't tell this customer everything will be fine because i'll get slaughtered if it doesn't work (so glad we don't have some of our ex sales guys that just say 'yeh it will be fine' to every question they get asked, then left me to come up with miracles on install day)

[JayPaul]

[Jason Peterson]

Re: Microsofts new 'Universal Print' option on 365

RICOH SUPPORT UPDATE ON THIS NOW.

For the time being, our devices do not directly work with MS Universal Print. If the customer wants to use Universal Print, there is a helper app that goes on a computer in the network that publishes the Ricoh devices as printers to Universal Print. They could also use PaperCut to interface with Universal Print.

This is the same situation as when Google Cloud Print first launched. Our devices were not directly compatible, but needed the helper app to publish the printers to Google. Eventually, Ricoh launched an app that gave the devices a link directly to the Google Cloud.

We believe that Ricoh will, at some point, create an application that resides on the MFP to connect directly to MS Universal Print. But we have no time frame at all to even guess when that will happen.

[JayPaul]

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: Microsofts new 'Universal Print' option on 365

I doubt if Microsoft engineers are going to go out and purchase or even rent every make and model printer in existence just to test them for function with 365 cloud printing. Most likely Ricoh is not on their "list" is because no user has installed one there. They want you to subscribe to 365 and install one. Ricoh is not gong to do that unless there is sufficient demand for it. Contact Ricoh sales support team or install one from your own office to test/demo.

If Ricoh wants to be a certified Microsoft Universal print provider, it is up to Ricoh to invest their time, money and resources to develop a solution that will meet and pass Microsoft's quality control test procedures.

I think widespread adoption of MS Universal Print is years away and that OEM's will not be particularly thrilled at the idea of giving away control of their print drivers to Microsoft.

Certainly, it would be a mistake to assume that any future Ricoh solution would be at No charge.

If this customer wants to implement MS Universal Print on a wide scale they will quickly learn that there is likely a lot of pain to be first had with any new evolving technology.

Microsoft can publish a fancy website and make lots of promises but the reality is not the same. Should the customer want to pursue this technology, they need to know that it is outside the current feature set that Ricoh can offer at no charge and will be considered billable labour.

Customer's often send service techs on fanciful tasks until the mention of a pending invoice suddenly changes their priorities.

[slimslob]

Re: Microsofts new 'Universal Print' option on 365

If Ricoh wants to be a certified Microsoft Universal print provider, it is up to Ricoh to invest their time, money and resources to develop a solution that will meet and pass Microsoft's quality control test procedures.

I think widespread adoption of MS Universal Print is years away and that OEM's will not be particularly thrilled at the idea of giving away control of their print drivers to Microsoft.

Certainly, it would be a mistake to assume that any future Ricoh solution would be at No charge.

If this customer wants to implement MS Universal Print on a wide scale they will quickly learn that there is likely a lot of pain to be first had with any new evolving technology.

Microsoft can publish a fancy website and make lots of promises but the reality is not the same. Should the customer want to pursue this technology, they need to know that it is outside the current feature set that Ricoh can offer at no charge and will be considered billable labour.

Customer's often send service techs on fanciful tasks until the mention of a pending invoice suddenly changes their priorities.

And considering Microsoft's recent major update snafus, it would appear that it is Microsoft that needs to invest in some decent quality control.

[Jason Peterson]

Re: Microsofts new 'Universal Print' option on 365

Used the Connector and got it working, see link for info. It does not support Mac though of course. I got the deal to stick so that's good!

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/universal-print/connector-updates

[JayPaul]

Re: Microsofts new 'Universal Print' option on 365

Nice one.
How long did it take to setup, did their IT do most of it and how long did it take him?
When you said about the app the other day I completly forgot they called it that, clicking on that link just reminded me straight away.

[luca72]

Re: Microsofts new 'Universal Print' option on 365

No this is nothing to do with using universal drivers, it just happens to use the same name. Microsoft released something this year that when people use cloud based solutions like 365, they have an Azure AD, you install the printers onto them, share it out in some overly complicated way that the IT guy does to each persons laptop in that company, so as long as they have an internet connection anywhere in the world they just login to their 365 account, then can print to any of the printers in that company that has been shared out on Azure. Because of coronavirus, a lot of people will start using this in the future to work from home rather than using terminal servers, remote desktop connections and VPNs.
They have a list of brands that are already compatible with this but Ricoh is not on there. Other brands will be releasing firmware updates to make their latest machines compatible with it too.

practically, if I understand correctly it does the same things as a google account, in a version for "rich" .. LOL

[JayPaul]

Re: Microsofts new 'Universal Print' option on 365

Has anyone else had to install this yet? My one customer that we are doing it for has got in touch and wants it done very soon. Annoyingly to get the deal we had to ask Ricoh when this would all work and they told us January/February but now it sounds like it will be months away at the very earliest. The only way to do it is via the 'Universal Print Connector' which Jason Peterson said he had success with.
My biggest qualm with that is I had to go through a painstaking process to create a Ricoh PCL 6 based driver that has a pop up so whenever anyone clicks print, it pops up asking for their user code. This was so that any person can walk around and use any PC, click print, type in code, then get that print job later by typing the code into the copier. I couldn't just input their user code into the print driver because if someone else uses it 10 minutes later, it still has the same code in it.
So what I'm trying to say is... can they still use those drivers I made while also using the whole MS universal print connector app?? Feels like I'm about to jump from one problem straight into another with no answers waiting for me on the other side.

[slimslob]

Re: Microsofts new 'Universal Print' option on 365

My biggest qualm with that is I had to go through a painstaking process to create a Ricoh PCL 6 based driver that has a pop up so whenever anyone clicks print, it pops up asking for their user code. This was so that any person can walk around and use any PC, click print, type in code, then get that print job later by typing the code into the copier. I couldn't just input their user code into the print driver because if someone else uses it 10 minutes later, it still has the same code in it.

Ricoh's old Print Driver Editor will allow you to enable a pop up for User Code. Ricoh no longer provides it but it is available from Softpedia. It also works on Window 10. Download Ricoh Printer Driver Editor 1.0.1.2 for Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows Vista, Windows 2008, Windows 7