Printer Activity Monitor. System Administrator s Guide

Transcription

1 Printer Activity Monitor System Administrator s Guide

2 Contents INTRODUCTION... 5 PROGRAM FEATURES... 7 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS... 7 MANAGEMENT CONSOLE... 8 DATA CENTER... 9 AGENTS...12 Collecting Data on Workstations - Client Side Monitoring Collecting Data on Print Servers - Server Side Monitoring Comparing the Client Side Monitoring and Server Side Monitoring Modes AGENTS MANAGEMENT...15 Installing Agents Starting Agents Stopping Agents Uninstalling Agents Monitoring Agents Agent Settings Filtering Agent List Importing/Exporting Agents List General Settings Manual Agent Setup Using MSI File Agent Setup Using Microsoft Active Directory Services MANAGING VIRTUAL PRINTERS...40 Adding a virtual printer Editing a virtual printer

3 Deleting a virtual printer Virtual Printer Interface DATA CENTER CONFIGURATION...50 General Settings Data Storage SQLite Microsoft Access Microsoft SQL Server MySQL PostgreSQL Oracle Alias Management Converters Value lists Binary Objects Management License Management Licensing Schema License Activation Licensed Objects Licensing Restrictions MONITORING DOCUMENT IMAGES Document search Reports Report Generation Report Sections Repository Report Generator Task Bar Task Manager TROUBLESHOOTING Connection Check Problem of Incompatibility with Anti-virus Software Frequently asked questions GETTING STARTED

4 PRACTICAL RECOMMENDATIONS FOR SOFTWARE CONFIGURATION Terms Case 1: Case 2: Case 3: Case 4: Case 5: Case 6: Case 7: Case Case Case

5 Introduction Printer Activity Monitor is a software product for monitoring the efficiency of your company's printer usage. With Printer Activity Monitor you can find out which documents are printed on each of the selected printers, which employees use printers most often, the number of pages printed, the computer ordering the printing, etc. Printer Activity Monitor benefits: the software allows to control all the company's printers centrally; the software helps to detect and terminate the attempts of the employess to use office printers for personal reasons; the software really helps you to cut your expenses; the software runs automatically and doesn t need your interference; the software is extremely easy-to-use and allows to start controlling printers within a minute after installation; the software allows to make a large number of reports and charts that reflect printers usage efficiency; the software contains special tools to automate the process of creating and sending the printers usage reports to the designated staff; the software allows to browse the images of documents in print; the software specifies accurately the number of printed pages and the number of copies. No office can work without printers. The bigger the company is, the more printers it uses, and correspondingly the higher printing infrastructure costs are. The employees who use the office printers for personal needs form a considerable share of these costs. Printer Activity Monitor software is designed to help solving this problem. The software consists of three units: The Agent is a system service, which permanently runs in memory and collects the data on finished print jobs. The Agent is installed either to the print server or to the users workstations. Data Center is a system service, which receives data from the agents and accumulates it in the database. Management Console is a snap-in for Microsoft Management Console, designed to administrate the software and audit printing. 5

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7 Program features integration with Active Directory; compatibility with Citrix MetaFrame/Terminal Services; compatibility with Microsoft Cluster Server; managing all application modules remotely; working with an unlimited number of printers; installing all application modules separately; intercepting the images of printed documents; independent of printer types and their manufacturers; has task scheduler for automating the creation and delivery of reports. possibility to use SQLite, MS Access, MS SQL, MySQL or PostgreSQL as data storage; detecting exact print job properties: the number of copies, the number of printed pages and so on allows generating a great number of reports and diagrams reflecting the efficiency of your printer usage; reduces your printing expenses; monitoring printers in an organization in a centralized way; helps prevent attempts to use the office printers for employees' personal use; System Requirements These system requirements are valid for all computers application modules will be installed on: Windows 2003/2008/XP/Vista (32 bit) 512 MB RAM The software does not run under Linux, Windows NT 4.0 and the Windows 95/98 family 7

8 Management Console All operations related to configuring and monitoring the application are performed in the management console. It is implemented as a Microsoft Management Console snap-in most administrators are familiar with. You can install the console on any network computer. Two or more administrators can configure agents and the data center simultaneously from different computers. By default, the data center is not available for remote management for security reasons. To permit it, you should connect to the data center from the same computer where it is installed and enable remote management by specifying the security login and password. The console allows you to perform the following operations: installing/removing/starting/stopping agents on remote computers managing virtual printers on a certain computer monitoring the status of agents viewing information about events and errors occurring in every application module viewing the images of printed documents and print job properties. The computer must have some PDF Viewer installed on it for you to be able to view document images. configuring the data center backing up and restoring configuration 8

9 Data Center A data center is a system service that can be installed on any network computer. It is used to store the configuration of agents and the entire information received from them: document images, information about print jobs and so on. Also, this module is used to generate reports and add information about print jobs to the database. Since this module is supposed to manage large amounts of data (images, database), you should consider running it on a dedicated computer. However, it is not a requirement: the data center, the management console and the monitoring agent can run on one computer without any problems. Several data centers can be installed in one network, each of them can store a separate variant of configuration. Correspondingly, the console allows you to connect to any data center by the computer name it is running on or by its IP address. The address of the active data center is displayed in the tree in parentheses next to the Data Center label. If you need to connect to Data Center, you should click the «Connect to Data Center» task in the «Tasks» pane located on the main page of management console. The resulting window makes it possible for you to specify location of Data Center, as well as login and password if Data Center is located on the remote computer. 9

10 To disconnect from the current Data Center all you need to do is to check the «Disconnect from Data Center» checkbox in the «Tasks» pane of the main page of management console. After you connect to a data center, you can monitor the status of monitoring agents, view the images of printed documents and print job properties in the console. You should note one important thing: the management console cannot operate without a running data center. When you install monitoring agents from the console connected to a certain data center, agents are linked to the current data center. Therefore, they can send data and images only to it. To link an agent to another data canter, you should first remove it (agent) and install it again while being connected to the new data center. After that the agent acquires a new host and starts sending documents to it. Since part of functionality is executed on the computer running Data Center, the program provides special tools that allow you to configure its settings. 10

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12 Agents The principle of data collection has been modified most of all. In the previous versions of the program data collection was based on notifications received from the print spooler and also on the SPL files of images it creates. This mechanism has a considerable advantage: there is no need to configure anything. It is enough just to install the program, select a printer and data will be collected. At least, that's the way it is supposed to be. However, life is known for making its corrections. The same happened to Printer Activity Monitor. In real life, the program started to experience problems getting valid data from the print spooler. The print spooler supplied invalid information. As a result, reports could seriously differ from actual data: copies did not coincide, zero or enormously large number of printed pages could appear, the names of printed documents were not what they actually were and, finally, document images were not visible. Of course, all that occurred far from all the time, but as soon as the problems emerged, it was impossible to solve them because very often it was the printer driver developers' fault they just ignored the driver specifications. All that made us revise our approach to data collection and implement mechanisms that make it possible to get 100% precise information about print jobs. We came down to two methods: collecting data directly on the user computer and virtual printers. Collecting Data on Workstations - Client Side Monitoring This mode implies installing the agent on the user computer print jobs are directly sent from. In this case, it does not matter what printers are used for printing: local, shared (printers physically located on another computer but having a shared access), network (connected directly to the local area network of the organization). The agent intercepts information about the print job directly from the application it is sent from. It allows us to rest assured that all job properties will be always detected correctly and the document image will be always correctly intercepted and saved. Besides, this method makes it possible to get additional job properties, such as the process name of the application the print job was created in: Microsoft Word, Excel, Internet Explorer and so on. So, the Client Side Monitoring mode must be activated on those agents that are installed on computers users physically sit at and print documents from. 12

13 Collecting Data on Print Servers - Server Side Monitoring If it does not make sense to install agents on client computers or it is impossible for some reason, you can install the agent on the print server and activate the Server Side Monitoring mode. This mode has been designed for those cases when the program is installed on print servers where shared printers used by all network users are installed, but from which no printing is done. That is, the user neither sits at this computer nor generates print jobs from it. Unfortunately, it is not enough just to activate this mode. The agent does not monitor any printers installed on the print server. It monitors only virtual printers created by it. A virtual printer is a regular Windows printer whose main purpose is to intercept a print job sent by the user and redirect this job to the physical printer. This printer differs from a regular one in no other way. You can use it for printing, you can share it on the network, you can publish it in the Active Directory, you can assign access rights to it and so on. Thus, to be able to control a printer installed on the server, you have to create a virtual duplicate printer for it and make users use it for printing instead of the original physical printer. After receiving a print job, the virtual printer automatically generates a job and directs it to the physical printer. Of course, it saves the image of the document and all job properties before that. You should follow these rules while creating virtual printers: create a virtual printer from the management console using a special wizard edit the parameters of virtual printers and delete them also using this wizard before you remove an agent from the print server, delete all virtual printers created with it and restore the status of physical printers. You should use the same virtual printer wizard for that one virtual printer can direct print jobs to one printer only several virtual printers can direct jobs to one and the same printer a virtual printer can direct jobs to another virtual printer created earlier a virtual printer completely copies the properties of its printer and supports all its features if the agent switches to the Stopped status or the Server Side Monitoring mode is disabled in its settings, virtual printers will continue to exist and to operate. But data and document images will not be collected in this case. Physical printers continue printing in the regular way and the office continues its work. 13

14 Comparing the Client Side Monitoring and Server Side Monitoring Modes Client Side Monitoring Server Side Monitoring Print job interception Client computer Print server Installing the monitoring agent on every client computer Yes No Reconfiguring the existing printing infrastructure No Yes Getting document images Yes Yes Getting the name of the process the print job was created in Exact information about the number of printed pages and other job properties Yes Yes Yes Yes You can see from the table that both modes are the same concerning the features and differ only in the way they are installed, configured and run. Each administrator must choose the variant that suits his network best. Keep in mind that you can combine both methods for a more flexible approach to the problem of the application configuration. 14

15 Agents Management All operations of installation, deleting and configuring the agents may be performed remotely in Agents Management console section. To start working with the section you should specify the list of computers, to which the agents are to be installed. To do it, select «Add Computers». 15

16 The pop-up dialog will help make several simple steps and set the range of addresses of the local area network, to which the agents will be installed later. To successfully install the agent on a remote computer, the program administrator should have local administrative privileges on the remote computer. If a domain network is used, that is usually a Domain Administrator. If no domains are used, then logins and passwords for access to each remote computer are required. The Accounts dialog is designed for this purpose. 16

17 As is seen from the figure, it is possible to specify a single master login and password as well as several additional accounts, which will be used to install the agents on the corresponding computers. 17

18 Installing Agents To install the agent select the list of computers, on which you want to install the agent, and click «Install Agents». In the pop-up dialog choose modes, in which the agent will run. To choose the right mode, you should have a look at them first. 18

19 The next step is the installation of agents. During the installation you may see different information messages, which allow to identify problems and bugs. If no errors occur during the installation, the process finishes with starting the agents and putting them to work. 19

20 Starting Agents The dialog is designed to start one or several agents, stopped before: 20

21 Stopping Agents The dialog is designed to stop one or several agents, started before: Uninstalling Agents The dialog is designed to uninstall the agent from computer. While uninstalling the agent all binary and configuration files are deleted from the computer, the agent was running on. Attention! If the virtual printers were created on the computer, the agent was running on, they should be deleted before uninstalling the agent. Monitoring Agents While running, each agent regularly reports on its current status. To see these messages, you should select one or more agents and click «Agent Events». This command opens separate tabs for each agent in the Monitoring\Event Viewer section, which displays the events or errors that occurred on each agent. This mechanism is rather useful for debugging the agents. 21

22 Agent Settings Each agent has its custom settings. They are: operation modes list of printers under control list of virtual printers different optional settings To view or edit the agent settings double click on the list element. You may also adjust settings of several agents at a time. To do it, select one or more agents you need and click «Agent Settings». 22

23 Filtering Agent List If the number of agents is high, then the list element filtering feature may be useful. This dialog will help forming the list of rules, according to which various list elements will be displayed or hidden. Importing/Exporting Agents List The «Agents Management» module can save agent list to XML file and recover it later. It is convenient if you recover the program from the back up copy. 23

24 General Settings The program has a number of settings that affect work of all the agents at a time if changed. This dialog allows setting the quality of created images and compression quality of JPEG pictures that form pages of the document. Use the following rule when adjusting this setting: the better the image quality is, the bigger is its size and vice versa. 24

25 This dialog helps to specify the accuracy of calculation of the «Document Coverage Ratio». Since the images do not come out «perfect white» or «perfect black», you should specify black color threshold value (in percentage terms) so that the algorithm could work correctly. Therefore, this option allows, for example, to adjust the calculation of coating coefficient correctly for printing on gray paper. 25

26 This dialog box allows you to adjust the performance of the system. The higher this value is, the faster documents are printed and the images of printed documents are saved, but also the heavier the load on the CPU of the computer where the agent is running is. 26

27 This dialog box allows you to specify conditions for saving images. There are following options for image filtering: All snapshots Only snapshots that meet the following conditions Only snapshots that do not meet the following conditions If you have the first option enabled the program will save all images of printed documents. In case you select second or third option the program will allows you to specify additional filtering conditions using the «Filter Conditions» button. For instance, with the help of this feature you can configure the program so that it will only save images of those printed documents that were retrieved from certain applications or users. 27

28 Manual Agent Setup Using MSI File The distribution package of Printer Activity Monitor includes a special setup file which allows manual installation of the monitoring agent. This setup file may be used if a remote installation of the agent through the management console is impossible for some reason. It may also be used if administrator wants to automate installation of agents using Microsoft Active Directory services. A step-by-step instruction with comments is given below. 1. Run pamagent.msi file on the computer on which you want to install Printer Activity Monitor Agent. It will open a common software setup wizard. 2. The first step window reports on the version of software being installed. Click Next if you want to install this version of Printer Activity Monitor Agent. 3. At the second step of setup wizard enter IP address or NetBios name of the Data Center on which you want to run Printer Activity Monitor Agent. At the second step you may also enable an option which allows running Printer Activity Monitor Agent in debugging mode. To make Printer Activity Monitor Agent save the images of printed documents you should select the option «Enable creation of printed documents images». All options may be changed later. 28

29 4. At the third step the setup wizard allows to select the Printer Activity Monitor Agent operating mode: Client Side Monitoring Server Side Monitoring 5. In the next step the setup wizard will offer you to enter the password for the user IUSR_PAM_COMMBRIDGE that is used for connection between software components. 29

30 6. After the installation settings have been adjusted the program will display a warning message about the beginning of installation. If you don t want to edit the data you entered at the previous steps, click Install button. After that the program will start copying Printer Activity Monitor Agent executable files and creating additional data that the software needs to run properly. The current status of installation process is displayed in the setup wizard window. 7. At the last step of installation the setup wizard will display a window confirming successful finishing of the installation. Click Finish button. The setup wizard will finish its work. 30

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32 Agent Setup Using Microsoft Active Directory Services One more method to install the monitoring agents is given below. This method allows mass installation of agents using Active Directory services. A step-by-step instruction with comments is given below. Creating «.MST» file with registry settings 1. Download and install Microsoft Office Resource Pakage: ccc3016a296a/ork.exe 2. Run Custom Installation Wizard 3. Select pamagent.msi setup file 32

33 4. Choose «Yes», if a warning message appears 5. Then create a new «.MST» file 33

34 6. Click «Next» several times until the «Modify Setup Properties» window shows up. Using «Add» button add the following variables: PASSWORD password of the IUSR_PAM_COMMBRIDGE user CSM -Client Side Monitoring SSM -Server Side Monitoring DCIP -IP address of Data Center DEBUG debug mode IMAGES saving of images The CSM, SSM, DEBUG and IMAGES variables can be set to 1(enabled) or 0(disabled). IP address or NetBIOS of Data Center can be used as a value of the DCIP variable. 34

35 7. Make sure the properties have been applied: 8. Click Next several times. Click Finish at the last step. 35

36 To check up the created «.MST» file you may try the test installation of Printer Activity Monitor Agent on a test computer. To do it, run msiexec with the following parameters in the command line (change the paths, given in this example, to names and paths to your.msi and.mst files): msiexec /i "C:\MSI file location\pamagent.msi" TRANSFORMS="C:\MST file location\pamagent.mst" 9. Check if the settings have been applied correctly Installation with help of Microsoft Active Directory service Microsoft Active Directory service allows automatic installation of Printer Activity Monitor Agent on a group of computers. To perform the installation the user should have administrative privileges in a domain that contains computers, to which Printer Activity Monitor Agent is to be installed. The user should also have a network resource with granted read access (Shared Folder). A step-by-step instruction with comments is given below. 1. Copy pamagent.msi package and previously created «.MST» file in a publicly accessible folder, e. g.: \\SERVER\Install\ PamAgent.msi 2. Run MMC «Active Directory Users and Computers» snap-in. You may run this snap-in from Start \ Programs \ Administering 3. Create a new organizational unit (Organizational Unit, OU) or select the existing one, for which Printer Activity Monitor Agent has to be installed. To create a new organizational unit select New \ Organizational Unit in Actions menu of the snap-in 4. Select the computers on which Printer Activity Monitor Agent is to be installed, select Move in Actions menu and move the computers to the selected organizational unit 5. Open the properties of the selected organizational unit. To do it, right-click on the organizational unit and select Properties in the contextual menu. 36

37 6. Go to the Group Policy tab of organizational unit properties 7. Create a new Group Policy Object, GPO by clicking on New button. Give any appropriate name to the object, e. g. pamagentgpo 8. Go to edit mode of the group policy object, created at the previous step. Select the object and click Edit. 9. In the opened snap-in go to Computer Configuration \ Software Settings \ Software Installation section 37

38 10. Add pamagent.msi installation package to the list of programs you install. Select Actions \ New \ Package: and type network path to pamagent.msi package in Open file dialog, in File name line. E. g: \\SERVER\Install\ pamagent.msi. Then you should select a method of delivering the software to users. Select Advanced. 11. Open properties of the installation package created at the previous step and specify path to previously created «.MST» file in Modifications tab: 38

39 If you did everything correctly, after the next reboot Printer Activity Monitor Agent will be installed and configured on computers, you've added to the organizational unit. 39

40 Managing Virtual Printers The most complicated module in the new version is the Virtual Printer Management Wizard. It is used to perform all operations with virtual printers: creating, editing and deleting. The wizard first gets operations together. It means that you specify the operations that should be performed with printers while working with the wizard, but all the operations are actually performed in the final step. You can also see the progress of each operation in the final step as well. The wizard can work with several printers at once, i.e. you can use the mouse to select several physical printers and create for each of them a virtual printer at once. And you will not have to configure each printer separately you can specify a special template the entire group of printers will be configured according to. Of course, you will be able to fine-tune each of the printers after that. The wizard is designed in such a way that makes adding a virtual printer as easy as possible. The default parameters are specified so that the new virtual printer was as similar to the physical printer it is created for as possible. 40

41 Adding a virtual printer When you click the Add button, you can see the list of all printers existing on the computer the agent runs on. You should select one or several printers virtual printers should be created for. On the next page the program offers you to choose the method of configuring the virtual printers. There are two options to choose from: Configure each printer manually Configure the printers according to one template The second option allows you to specify rules according to which these or those properties of the virtual or physical printer should be changed. 41

42 The next page shows the final set of properties for each of the new virtual printers. It is possible to change the properties in this step. The properties of each virtual printer are grouped into the following categories: Virtual Printer Properties Here you can see all settings defining the properties of the new virtual printer: o its future name o whether it is necessary to provide shared access to it. If the access is provided, specify the shared name to publish it under in Active Directory. o whether to copy the access permissions for the printer from the access properties of the physical printer o redirection account credentials: the login and password that will be used to establish a connection to the physical printer if it is not a local, but shared one. It is important to specify the correct login and password because otherwise the print job will not be redirected. Physical printer properties Here you can see all settings defining the properties of the physical printer the virtual one is created for: o its name after the virtual printer is created. For example, you can rename it. o whether it is necessary to provide shared access to it. If the access is provided, specify the shared name to publish it under in Active Directory. 42

43 Options Here you specify what printer name should be shown in statistics: the name of the virtual printer or the name of the physical printer the virtual one is created for. Also, this section allows to create the default settings which will be used when redirecting a print job to the real printer. Clicking on Select button opens a dialog window which allows to adjust settings of a real printing unit. While adding a virtual printer, you should stick to the following rule: create the virtual printer so that it does not differ from the physical printer visually. In its turn, the physical printer must be as hidden from the end user as possible. As you can see in the picture above, the wizard offers you to create a virtual printer with the same name as that of the physical printer and rename the latter to avoid discrepancies. At the same time, you are offered to close shared access to the physical printer and copy its access permissions to the properties of the virtual printer. Editing a virtual printer When you click the Edit button, you can see the list of the current properties of the virtual printer. You can change any of these properties. The set of properties is identical to the one described above. 43

44 Deleting a virtual printer If you change in the properties of the physical printer while creating a virtual printer, it is recommended to restore the old properties if you delete the virtual printer. It will allow you to quickly restore the initial printing infrastructure. However, the administrator has to decide whether to do it himself. After you click the Delete button, the program will ask you whether the properties of the physical printers the virtual printers are deleted for should be restored and, if you confirm it, the program will prepare a set of operations that will be applied to the physical printers in order to restore their initial status. Virtual Printer Interface To get access to print settings of virtual printer you should select it in print settings configuration dialog box and click «Properties». Attention! Access to print settings dialog box of virtual printer can vary depending on the application used for printing. The «Preferences» tab allows you to specify basic printing settings: Orientation (Portrait or Landscape) Paper size Print color (True color, Monochrome or Black and White) Copies In case you have the «Collate» option enabled, multi-page document for printing will be collated. It means that the required number of copies of the first page of the document will be first printed, then the same procedure will apply to the second page and so on. The «Pages Range» box allows you to specify the range of pages that need to be printed. Using the «Pages» option you can specify one of the following values: All Even Odd Custom In case you set the «Pages» option to «Custom», you should enter number of all pages that need to be printed into the «Numbers of pages» text box. Numbers of pages can be specified in the form of a list (1,2,3,5) or in the form of a range (1-5). The «Back to front print» option is used for printing of documents in reversed order (from the last page to the first one). Using slide bar in the «Scale» section you can change image scale. You can enter scale value in percents into the «Value» textbox. 44

45 Image in the upper right-hand corner of the window shows a preview of a printed page. In the «Page Layout» tab you can specify page layout using following settings: Layout allows you to select one of the following print layouts: o Pages per sheet allows you to put several pages on one sheet o Poster allows you to separate the page into several sheets o Booklet allows you to put four pages on one sheet (for book file). This feature is only available for printers that support duplex. Duplex print allows you to select the order of duplex (horizontal or vertical) Page print direction allows you to specify order of page printing (from the left to the right, from top to bottom or from bottom to top) In case you have the «Draw borders» option enabled, each page on the sheet will be framed. The «Binding Edge» section allows you to specify the following indent settings for the binder: Position position of the binder Width width of indent for binder in millimeters Booklet type order of page sequence (only for booklets) 45

46 The «Paper Output» tab is used to specify the following paper settings: Paper source using this setting you can choose a tray the paper for print will be taken from. Paper type allows you to specify paper type used for printing. The «Paper Output» is used for configuration of quality and resolution of printed document. This section contains the following settings: Quality allows you to configure quality of printed document. Using this option you can set speed of document print and toner consumption. Resolution this option makes it possible to configure resolution of printed document. Resolution of the document is measured in number of dots per inch. The higher the resolution, the higher the quality of the printed image. Print output allows selection of document output method (print or preview) 46

47 When you make any of the aforementioned settings the picture in the right side of the window will display the preview of the document In the «About» tab you will find general information about virtual printer. Besides, you can change language for the interface of print settings dialog box here. 47

48 After you have specified all necessary settings, you can print your document using standard printing tools. In case you choose preview as an output method, then after you send your document to print the window of printed document preview will open up. 48

49 The button with printer image on it in the taskbar of the preview window allows you to quickly print previewed document using the printer a user specified earlier. 49

50 Data center configuration Since some operations are performed on the computer where the data center is running, the program has special tools allowing you to configure it. 50

51 General Settings This dialog box allows you to specify various settings that are necessary for the data center to run normally. Active Directory The program is closely integrated with Active Directory and allows you to automatically convert user logins who print documents into their full names. It happens when you show the list of printed documents and also during report generation. To enable this feature, you should specify the account that will be used to connect to Active Directory. It is important to specify the correct account data because no conversion will be done otherwise. Attention! If you specify incorrect data or the account does not have enough permissions to access Active Directory, an error will occur during the conversion process and it will considerably slow down the performance of the program. So if you feel a considerable delay in displaying the list of the images of printed documents, make sure that the parameters of access to Active Directory are specified correctly. 51

52 The application modules use these settings to send reports. Remote Management The program allows you to remotely manage the data center. You should specify the login and password that technical specialists will have to enter to be able to connect to the active data center from other computers. 52

53 Also, you may select the user s profile type at the specified page. 53

54 Possible variants: 1. Administrator. The user has access to all functions of the program. 2. Security Officer. The user has access only to activity viewing functions. 54

55 Data Storage These settings allow to specify the type and parameters of the database, which will be used to store the collected data. Printer Activity Monitor allows to store the data of the printed documents in the following database formats: SQLite MS Access MySQL Oracle PostgreSQL MS SQL By default, the data is stored in SQLite format but the database format can be changed to any other. You should specify the data storage name, the database type and its optional description in the dialog, specially designed for this purpose. Attention! Before adjusting the connection settings you should create and configure the database BY YOURSELF using DBMS tools as it is shown in one of the chapters of this help section. 55

56 After you have chosen the data storage name and the database format you should specify the database connection settings, the program uses to gain access to the database. The content of the Connection Settings tab may change depending on the selected database format. As you click on Test Connection button the program tests connection with database and if all settings are adjusted correctly it informs you about it in a message. If it is impossible to connect to the database the program displays an error report on invalid input data. 56

57 The Statistics tab shows information about the data storage. This tab shows such information as: the storage size on the disk the names and versions of all data schemas present in the storage the number of records in each data schema the date of the earliest record in the data schema the date of the most recent record in the data schema 57

58 The Maintenance tab allows you to limit the storage size and the time to store information for. Delete records older than (days) - this setting allows you to specify the number of days after which a record will be considered outdated and deleted from the data storage. Limit data storage size (GB) - this setting allows you to limit the data storage size. In case the data storage size limit is exceeded, the program can do the following: Deleting older records as necessary Discarding new entries The program allows you to delete records from the data storage for a certain time period manually. To delete records for a certain time period, click the «Delete old records...» button, specify the time period and click «OK». All records for the specified time period will be deleted from all data schemas after that. The Drop all tables... button allows you to instantly delete all tables in the data storage and thus completely clear it. 58

59 SQLite Setup features No particular operations needed. Creating database The database is created automatically on the first access. Connect string You should specify a full path to the DB file. If the file does not exist it will be created automatically. You may use macros when specifying a file path: %INSTALLFOLDER% - path to a folder, to which the Data Center is installed By default, the value %INSTALLFOLDER%\DB\Activity.dat is used 59

60 Microsoft Access Microsoft Access is an RDBMS by the Microsoft Corporation. It has a wide range of functions, including related searches, sorting by multiple fields, and links to external tables and databases. Thanks to the built-in VBA language, it allows you to create applications to work with your databases. Versions of Microsoft Access: Access 2.0 for Windows (Office 4.3) Access 7 for Windows 95 (Office 95) Access 97 (Office 97) Access 2000 (Office 2000) Access 2002 (Office XP) Access 2003 (Microsoft Office 2003) Microsoft Office Access 2007 (Microsoft Office 2007) Microsoft Office Access 2010 (Microsoft Office 2010 TP) Microsoft Access Setup Microsoft Office Access 2007 part of the Microsoft Office 2007 package, is used as a DBMS. The first step is to create the database. The database must be created on the computer where the Data Center component is set up and used. Accordingly, Microsoft Access must also be set up on this computer. To create a new database, open the «File» menu (in Microsoft Office Access 2007 and later a round icon with an image of the Microsoft Office symbol is used instead of the «File» menu) and select «New». The main program window is shown in Figure 1. 60

61 Figure 1. On the right-hand side of the program window, the database create window will appear (Figure 2). You must choose a path for the new database, enter a name, then click «Create». It is recommended that you choose something simple and intuitive as the database name, for example, «Activity». 61

62 Figure 2. Once the new database is created, a table edit menu will appear, as shown in Figure 3. 62

63 Figure 3. You can close this menu, since Data Center creates all necessary tables itself on first access of the database. After this, Microsoft Access setup is complete. Data Center Configuration Once the new database is created, Data Center should be set up in order to work with it. For this, you must open the program s management console, go to the «Configuration» page shown in Figure 4, and select «Data Storage Settings». 63

64 Figure 4. In the dialog that opens, choose the database type (in this case, Microsoft Access). 64

65 Figure 5. On the second tab, specify the parameters for connecting to the database (Figure 6). To avoid the need to enter the connection string manually, the program has a special tool, to use which you simply click the button by the connection string field. 65

66 Figure 6. The dialog that opens, shown in Figure 7, allows you to choose the type of OLE DB provider, through which the connection should be set up. Choose Microsoft Office 12.0 Access Database Engine OLE DB Provider and click «Next». If another version of Microsoft Access is being used, then the name of the OLE DB provider may differ. 66

67 Figure 7. On the second tab, enter the connection parameters, as shown in Figure 8, where, C:\Users\Admnistrator\Documents\Activity.accdb name of database file created earlier. Attention! It is important to understand that since the connection parameters will be used in Data Center, all paths are displayed in relation to the computer on which Data Center is being used. This is especially important if Data Center and the management console are set up and used on different computers on the network. User name the user whose name will be used to connect to the database. Attention! In Microsoft Office Access 2007, protection for new file formats is not supported at user level, therefore «Admin» should be entered as the username. Password password of the user whose name will be used to access the database. Blank password means that a blank password is used to access the database (if you wish, you can protect the database with a password; in this case you should disable this option). 67

68 Figure 8. Click «OK» to continue. Once you have entered all the necessary connection parameters, a connection string will be generated automatically, as shown in Figure 9. The contents of the string may change depending on the information entered earlier. To test the connection string, click «Test Connection». 68

69 Figure 9. Once you have pressed «Test Connection» the program will attempt to connect to the database, and if the connection settings have been specified correctly, the message shown in Figure 10 will appear. Figure 10. When the connection testing is complete, click «OK». A message will appear notifying you that Data Center must be restarted for the new parameters to be applied (Figure 11). 69

70 Figure 11. Click «Yes», and Data Center will restart automatically. Once Data Center is restarted, all changes will take effect and the program will begin using the new database to store information. To test the efficiency of the new database, simply print any document so that it prints to the database (on a virtual printer, or from a computer with an agent working in Client Side Monitoring mode installed). If the actions described above have been carried out correctly, the program will allow you to format a report displaying information about the printed text document. The status of the database can be viewed on the «Statistics» tab of the data storage management dialog (Figure 12). Conclusion: Figure 12. On the one hand, Microsoft Access DBMS is the simplest system in terms of setup, whereas on the other, it is not recommended for use by medium and large-sized companies, since it is a desktop product and is unable to store and process data satisfactorily once the database reaches a certain size (comparatively small). 70

71 Microsoft SQL Server Microsoft SQL Server is a system for managing relational databases (DBMS), developed by the Microsoft Corporation. The main query language used is Transact-SQL, created by Microsoft and Sybase together. Transact-SQL is an ANSI/ISO-standard realization of a Structured Query Language (SQL), with some expansions. It is used for small and medium-sized databases, and in the last five years has started to be used for large databases on an enterprise scale, competing with other DBMS in this segment of the market. Microsoft SQL Server Express is a freely distributed version of SQL Server. This version has several technical limitations, making it unsuitable for building large databases. However, it is perfectly suited for running software on a small-company scale. Microsoft SQL Desktop Edition is another freely distributed version of SQL Server. This version is designed for small user databases. This DBMS is not recommended for storing large volumes of data. Configuring Microsoft SQL Server Installation and customization of the Microsoft SQL Server must be carried out by the administrator themselves. All the operations described in this article were carried out under Microsoft SQL Server 2005 with the help of the freely distributed application for database management Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio Express. Settings for other versions of DBMS (SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2008) are analogous to those presented here and do not differ significantly. Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio Express can be downloaded from the official Microsoft website: Before you start, you should enable the deleted connection to the database server. For this, you will need to use the SQL Server Configuration Manager application. You can find SQL Server Configuration Manager here: Start->Programs->Microsoft SQL Server 2005->Configuration Tools-> SQL Server Configuration Manager In the open window, go to the Protocols for MSSQLSERVER tab (Figure 1). By default, the Named Pipes and TCP/IP protocols are disabled; therefore you will need to enable them by right-clicking and selecting Enable from the menu that appears. 71

72 Figure 1. Next, start Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio Express and connect to the database server, using the special icon in the top left corner. In the window that appears, select the database server you need to connect to, and choose the type of authorization. It is recommended that you use Windows authentication, as this method of authentication is more reliable than the built-in Microsoft SQL Server. (Figure 2) 72

73 Figure 2. Figure 3 shows the main program window. In the left-hand part of the window there is an object browser, in which a list is displayed of all the servers the program is connected to at that moment. The Databases container shows a list of databases located on the server. To create a new database, right click the Databases container and select «New Database». Figure 3. In the window that appears, you will need to set the name of the database being created, as shown in Figure 4. In this window you can also set the name of the database owner and the path of the database files, and configure the function to automatically increase the size of the database file. 73

74 Figure 4. On the «Options» tab, you will need to select the sort parameters. It is recommended that you use as a sort parameter SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CL_AS, as shown in Figure 5. 74

75 Figure 5. Once you have set all the required parameters, click OK to start creating the database. If errors arise during the process of creating the database, the program will bring up a message with a detailed description. To fix any errors that arise, you must follow the directions given in these messages. If the database is created successfully, a new database icon will appear in the Databases container, as shown in Figure 6. The actions described above are completely sufficient for the Printer Activity Monitor to operate normally with the new database, although you may set additional parameters if you wish. 75

76 Figure 6. The procedure for creating a new Microsoft SQL Server database is now complete. In case you cannot use Windows Authentication for some reason, you can enable integrated authorization of Microsoft SQL Server. To use integrated authorization of Microsoft SQL Server you simply enable the «SQL Server and Windows Authentication mode» option, as depicted in Figure 7. 76

77 Figure 7. Data Center Configuration Once the new database is created, Data Center should be set up in order to work with it. For this, you must open the program s management console, go to the «Configuration» page shown in Figure 8, and select «Data Storage Settings». 77

78 Figure 8. In the open window, select the database type (in this case, MS SQL). 78

79 Figure 9. On the second tab, specify the parameters for connecting to the database (Figure 10). To avoid the need to enter the connection string manually, the program has a special tool, to use which you simply click the button by the connection string field. 79

80 Figure 10. The dialog that opens, shown in Figure 11, allows you to select the type of OLE DB provider, through which the connection should be set up. Select Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server and click «Next». 80

81 Figure 11. On the second tab, you will need to enter the connection parameters, as shown in Figure 12, where, WIN2003 name of MS SQL server Activity name of database created earlier, to which the connection will be made Attention! To link to the database server, it is recommended that you use the Windows tools for authorization. If MS SQL tools are used for authorization, the login and password of a user with the necessary privileges to work with the database must be entered in the Username and Password fields, and the «Allow saving password» option must be enabled. Blank password means that a blank password is used to access the database (you can protect the database with a password if you wish; in this case, this option should be disabled). 81

82 Figure 12. To test whether the connection parameters are correct, click «Test Connection». Once you have pressed «Test Connection», the program will attempt to connect to the database, and if the connection settings have been specified correctly, the message shown in Figure 13 will appear. Next, click «OK». Figure 13. Once you have entered all the required parameters, a connection string will be generated automatically, as shown in Figure 14. The contents of the string may change, depending upon the information entered earlier. To test the connection string, click «Test Connection». 82

83 Figure 14. After you click «Test Connection», the program will attempt to connect to the database, and if the connection settings have been specified correctly, the message shown in Figure 14 will appear. Figure 15. When the connection testing is complete, click «OK». A message will appear notifying you that Data Center must be restarted for the new parameters to be applied (Figure 16). 83

84 Figure 16. Click «Yes», and Data Center will restart automatically. Once Data Center is restarted, all changes will take effect and the program will begin using the new database to store information. To test the efficiency of the new database, simply print any document so that it prints to the database (on a virtual printer, or from a computer with an agent working in Client Side Monitoring mode installed). If the actions described above have been carried out correctly, the program will allow you to format a report displaying information about the printed text document. The status of the database can be viewed on the «Statistics» tab of the data storage management dialog (Figure 17). Conclusion: Figure 17. Microsoft SQL Server is a reliable and relatively straightforward DBMS. Microsoft SQL Server DBMS is recommended for use in medium and large-sized companies. 84

85 MySQL MySQL is a free database management system. It is characterized by high speed, stability, and ease of use. It is the ideal solution for small and medium-sized companies. Configuring MySQL Installation and configuration of the MySQL server should be carried out by the administrator themselves. All the operations described in this article to set up MySQL were carried out with the help of free web application phpmyadmin. Official phpmyadmin website: Detailed instructions on how to install and configure this application can be found on the website. To start phpmyadmin, open your browser and enter the following address in the address bar: where, computer_name is the name of the computer on which phpmyadmin is installed. In the browser window, the main page will load, shown in Figure 1. 85

86 Figure 1. First of all, you need to create a database. For this, you must choose a name for the database and enter it on the main page, select a method for the lines to be sorted and click Create. The database creation form is shown in Figure 2. Activity - name of database being created utf8_unicode_ci - method for sorting lines It is recommended that you choose a simple and intuitive name for the database, for example, «Activity». 86

87 Figure 2. On selecting Create a message will appear, notifying you that the database was created successfully. Figure 3. The next step is to create a database user and assign them the privilege to manage the database. To go to the edit users and privileges pages, you will need to return to the main page and select «Privileges». 87

88 Figure 4. On the page that opens, a list of existing users will appear (Figure 5). The properties of any of these users can be edited as you like, but we recommend you create a new user to manage the database you have just created. Creating a new user may increase the security of the database significantly, and also make accessing it simpler. On the page that is open, select the «Add a new user» link. Figure 5. On the form that follows, you must choose and enter a username, the IP address of the computer from which you will be connecting, and a password. 88

89 Figure 6. The following should be taken into account: Data Center and the MySQL server may be installed on different computers. In the Host field you must specify the IP address of the computer on which Data Center is installed. It is from this computer that connections to the MySQL server will be initialized. If the connection to the database will be made from a local computer, you may enter «localhost» in the Host field. If you need to allow access to the database to all users from a given computer, simply specify «Any user» as the «Username» value and give the IP address of the computer in the «Host» field. The user password may be left blank, but we strongly recommend for security reasons NOT to use a blank password. Besides completing the fields mentioned above, on this page you must select the privileges to be assigned to the user you are creating. We recommend you select all privileges by clicking «Check All». Once you have completed the form, click «GO». 89

90 A message will appear, notifying you that the SQL request to create a user was completed successfully. Figure 7. Data Center Configuration Once the new database is created, Data Center should be set up in order to work with it. For this, you must open the program s management console, go to the «Configuration» page shown in Figure 8, and select «Data Storage Settings». Figure 8. In the window that opens, you will need to select a database type (in our case, MySQL). 90

91 Figure 9. On the second tab, you must specify the parameters for connecting to the database (Figure 10). 91

92 Figure 10. Here: IP address of MySQL server 3306 port through which the connection will be made (3306 used by default) User1 name of the user created earlier with the help of phpmyadmin Password password of the user created earlier with the help of phpmyadmin Activity name of the database created earlier, to which the connection will be made To test that the parameters are correct, click «Test Connection». Once you click «Test Connection», the program will attempt to connect to the database, and if the connection settings have been specified correctly, the message shown in Figure 11 will appear. 92

93 Figure 11. Next, click «OK». A message will appear notifying you that Data Center must be restarted for the new parameters to be applied (Figure 12). Figure 12. Click «Yes», and Data Center will restart automatically. Once Data Center is restarted, all changes will take effect and the program will begin using the new database to store information. To test the efficiency of the new database, simply print any document so that it prints to the database (on a virtual printer, or from a computer with an agent working in Client Side Monitoring mode installed). If the actions described above have been carried out correctly, the program will allow you to format a report displaying information about the printed text document. The status of the database can be viewed on the «Statistics» tab of the data storage management dialog (Figure 13). 93

94 Figure 13. Conclusion: MySQL is the optimal solution for the majority of companies for a whole list of reasons: it is free of charge. the server is very simple to set up. setting up the program to store information in the MySQL DBMS may significantly speed up the process of writing and accessing data, and also increase reliability. 94

95 PostgreSQL PostgreSQL is a free alternative to commercial DBMS (such as Oracle, MsSQL Server, IBM DB2, Informix and DBMS manufactured by Sybase), like other free DBMS (such as MySQL and Firebird). PostgreSQL is based on the SQL language and supports many of the capabilities of the SQL:2003 standard (ISO/IEC 9075). At this moment in time, PostgreSQL (version 8.4.0) has the following limitations: A maximum database size A maximum table size A maximum entry size A maximum field size A maximum number of entries in a table A maximum number of fields in a table A maximum number of indexes in a table no limitations 32 Tb 1,6 Tb 1 Gb no limitations , relating to field types no limitations The strong points of PostgreSQL are considered to be: support for databases of practically unlimited size; powerful and reliable transaction and replication mechanisms; inheritance; simple expandability. Configuring PostgreSQL Installation of PostgreSQL is relatively straightforward simply download the distribution kit from the official website: and launch the installation process. During the installation process, you will be required to enter the password of the database administrator (the user with login «postgres»). In cases where the database will be accessed from a deleted machine, you will need to enable the deleted connections in the DBMS settings. Step-by-step instructions are presented below: You will need to edit the file C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\8.3\data\postgresql.conf, as shown in Figure 1, specifying as the value for the listen_addresses parameter the IP address from which the DBMS will listen and expect an incoming connection (By default, «*» is entered, meaning «All addresses». You may leave this value and not change anything if you wish). 95

96 Figure 1. Once you have edited the postgresql.conf file, save it under the same name. You will need to configure access permission from specific deleted computers. For this, you will need to open the file C:\Program Files\PGSQL\8.3\data\pg_hba.conf in any text editor and find in it the following line: # Ipv4 local connections: In the list located below this line, add an entry corresponding with the range of IP addresses of the computers from which connections will be initialized. For example: host all all /32 md5 where, host signifies authorization at host level all signifies that access will be enabled to all databases for all users /32 range of IP addresses, from which a connection will be made (in the format IP/Mask) md5 defines the type of encryption for the information being transmitted An example of the contents of file pg_hba.confis shown in Figure 2. 96

97 Figure 2. Once you have edited and saved files postgresql.conf and pg_hba.conf you will need to restart the database server. To do this, simply restart the PostgreSQL Server service. Changes will be applied only once PostgreSQL is restarted. The next step is creating the database. To create a database, launch the PostgreSQL console (script C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\8.3\scripts\runpsql.bat) and run the following command: CREATE DATABASE "Activity" WITH OWNER = postgres ENCODING = 'UTF8'; where, Activity - name of database being created postgres - name of database manager utf8 text encoding used to store data in the database. The result of the executed command is shown in Figure 3. 97

98 Figure 3. Data Center Configuration Once the new database is created, Data Center should be set up in order to work with it. For this, you must open the program s management console, go to the «Configuration» page shown in Figure 4, and select «Data Storage Settings». 98

99 Figure 4. In the dialog that opens, select a database type (in our case, PostgreSQL). 99

100 Figure 5. On the second tab, enter the connection parameters as shown in Figure 6, where, IP address of PostgreSQL port through which the connection will be made (5432 used by default) User name - name of user with privileges to connect to the database (all necessary privileges assigned to user «postgres» earlier) Password - password for user «postgres», chosen on installation of PostgreSQL 100

101 Figure 6. To test whether the connection parameters have been entered correctly, click «Test Connection». After you press «Test Connection», the program will attempt to connect to the database, and if the connection settings were specified correctly, the message shown in Figure 7 will appear. Next, click «OK». Figure 7. A message will appear notifying you that Data Center must be restarted for the new parameters to be applied (Figure 8). 101

102 Figure 8. Click «Yes», and Data Center will restart automatically. Once Data Center is restarted, all changes will take effect and the program will begin using the new database to store information. To test the efficiency of the new database, simply print any document so that it prints to the database (on a virtual printer, or from a computer with an agent working in Client Side Monitoring mode installed). If the actions described above have been carried out correctly, the program will allow you to format a report displaying information about the printed text document. The status of the database can be viewed on the «Statistics» tab of the data storage management dialog (Figure 9). Conclusion: Figure 9. PostgreSQL - is a freely-distributed object-relational database management system (ORDBMS), the most developed open-source DBMS in the world, and is a real alternative to commercial databases. 102

103 PostgreSQL is considered the best for a number of reasons: support for databases of practically unlimited size; powerful and reliable transaction and replication mechanisms; inheritance; simple expandability. 103

104 Oracle Oracle is a DBMS designed to be incorporated into corporate distributed data processing networks (Enterprise Grid). It allows you to reduce IT expenses thanks to automated management, the use of inexpensive modular components and clustered servers, with the aim of using resources as efficiently as possible. The Oracle architecture is designed to work with large volumes of data and huge teams of users; it demonstrates unrivalled capabilities to provide high reliability, efficiency, scalability, security and self-management. This DBMS can be implemented effectively on any platform, from small blade servers to large symmetrical multiprocessor servers and multisite clusters of any size. The Oracle DBMS is supplied in four different versions, designed for different working scenarios and deployment of applications (and also differing in price). Edition Rastriction OS Enterprise Edition Standard Edition Standard Edition One Personal Edition Lite Express Edition cannot be installed on systems with more than four processor sockets cannot be installed on systems with more than two processor sockets one user for mobile and built-in devices free version; physical working memory 1 Gb, maximum volume of user data 4 Gb Windows 32-bit Linux x86 Configuring Oracle Installation and configuration of the Oracle server should be carried out by the administrator themselves. All described operations were carried out in Oracle Database 10g Express Edition. Oracle Database 10g Express Edition can be downloaded from the official Oracle site: During installation, you must enter the system administrator password (the user with login «system»). Immediately after installation, the program will launch the database homepage. On the authorization page, you must enter login «system» and the password chosen during installation, as shown in Figure

105 On the page that is open, select «Administration» Figure

106 On the page that is open, select «Database Users» Figure

107 Figure 3. On the «Database Users» page, shown in Figure 4, a list of all existing users is displayed. To find a user by name, simply enter the name in the «Search Username» field and click «Go». You can adjust the view of the user list by using the View, Show and Display settings. View users displayed in icon or list view Show show all users, only database users, only external users Display maximum number of users displayed in the list To create a new user, click «Create>». 107

108 Figure 4. On the create new user page that opens, you must complete all fields, as specified in Figure 5. You will need to enter a name for the new user, a password, and confirm the password. Besides this, you will need to assign the user all the required privileges. To assign the user the required privileges, simply click «Check All» in the select privileges section. If the «Expire Password» option is set up, this user s password will have a time limit. Once the time limit has expired, the user will need to change their password. The «Account Status» option allows you to set the status of an account (blocked/unblocked). By using this option, you can temporarily disable unused accounts. Once you have entered all the required information, click «Create» to begin the user creation procedure. 108

109 Figure 5. On completion of the user creation procedure, the page shown in Figure 6 will open. If everything has been done correctly, and the user was created successfully, their name will appear in the list. 109

110 Figure 6. On the computer with Data Center, you will need to set up Oracle Database Instant Client. Oracle Database Instant Client can be downloaded here: To provide access to the database, simply download the Instant Client Package - Basic Lite package. Once it has downloaded, unzip the contents of the package to any folder, for example C:\Oracle\InstantClient. Next, copy the file tnsnames.ora from the c:\oraclexe\app\oracle\product\10.2.0\server\network\admin\ folder of the computer where the Oracle database server is installed to the C:\Oracle\InstantClient folder of the client s computer. 110

111 Data Center Configuration Once the new database is created, Data Center should be set up in order to work with it. For this, you must open the program s management console, go to the «Configuration» page shown in Figure 7, and select «Data Storage Settings». Figure 7. In the window that opens, you will need to select a database type (in our case, Oracle). 111

112 Figure 8. On the second tab, you must specify the parameters for connecting to the database (Figure 9), where, IP address of Oracle server User name - name of user with privileges to connect to the database (all necessary privileges assigned to user «Activity» earlier) Password - password for user «Activity» C:\Oracle\InstantClient\ -Oracle Instant Client install directory 112

113 Figure 9. Once you have pressed «Test Connection» the program will attempt to connect to the database, and if the connection settings have been specified correctly, the message shown in Figure 10. Next, click «OK». Figure 10. A message will appear notifying you that Data Center must be restarted for the new parameters to be applied (Figure 11). 113

114 Figure 11. Click «Yes», and Data Center will restart automatically. Once Data Center is restarted, all changes will take effect and the program will begin using the new database to store information. To test the efficiency of the new database, simply print any document so that it prints to the database (on a virtual printer, or from a computer with an agent working in Client Side Monitoring mode installed). If the actions described above have been carried out correctly, the program will allow you to format a report displaying information about the printed text document. The status of the database can be viewed on the «Statistics» tab of the data storage management dialog (Figure 12). Conclusion: Figure 12. Oracle is the largest professional DBMS with a multitude of options and settings. This DBMS is designed to be incorporated into corporate distributed data processing networks. 114

115 The Oracle architecture is designed to work with large volumes of data. Due to its complex setup and high price, this DBMS is not recommended for use on smaller networks. 115

116 Alias Management Another new interesting feature in the program is the support of aliases. Aliases are used to convert information from one view to another. For example, the login of a user is converted into its full name with the help of the alias. Or, for example, paper orientation is converted from values 1 and 2 into the words Portrait and Landscape with the help of aliases as well. The program is distributed with a ready set of aliases: There are two types of aliases: Converters Value lists Converters Converters allow you to use small subroutines in the Pascal language to convert the source value into the one you need. 116

117 To do it, you should implement the function named Convert that gets the source string as its input and returns the string converted according to your idea. For example, you can see in the picture above how to convert the initial paper size into a string with the «mm» characters at the end. If several aliases use the same constants, variables and functions, you can group them into a special global module that is available for all active scripts. Value lists Value lists are used in case you need to convert some values known beforehand into other values known beforehand. For example, the example with the Orientation field converts the source value equal to 1 into the Portrait value, and the value equal to 2 into Landscape: 117

118 The list of values allows you to combine several source values into one group. It is convenient if you have several different values meaning the same. In order to correctly interpret the source data, the value list has the Values type property that can take the following values: string the source data are interpreted as is wildcard the source value is interpreted as a string that may contain wildcards. It is possible to use the special characters * and? regular expression the source value is interpreted as a string that may contain Perl-style regular expressions custom function the source value is interpreted as an expression in the Pascal language that should return True. This expression may contain the predefined variable Source initialized by the source value that is converted by this alias. Also, any functions that you define in the global module can be used in this expression. Example: 118

119 The area an alias is applied to is defined by the type of the field it is used for. For example, the Paper Dimensions alias is used for all values of the Paper Width and Paper Length fields and the Orientation alias is used for all values of the Orientation field. That is, this parameter allows you to specify what values will be passed to the alias as its input. Every alias can be linked to its parent alias that can be linked to another alias in its turn. In case there is a link to the parent alias, the source value will be passed to the parent alias first and the result of this conversion will be passed to the initial alias as the input value. 119

120 Binary Objects Management Printed documents image files may be rather big. For this reason the program has tools to control the total space, occupied by the image files. Binary objects folder is the path to the folder in which document images will be saved. Attention! This path is specified with reference to the computer on which Data Center works and cannot be networked. 120

121 In the Management tab you can specify the action which should be performed over the legacy image files. Possible alternatives: delete move into another folder move into archive Attention! All paths are specified with reference to the computer on which Data Center works and cannot be networked. 121

122 License Management Any actions regarding license management of the program such as activation or management of licensed object list are performed with the use of the license management wizard that can be accessed in the «Data Center/Configuration» section. Licensing Schema Domain users and computers are subjects to licensing. Licenses are required for all printing users. Unique «Computer + DomainName\UserName» combinations are taken into account. Therefore, if the same user is printing from two computers, this will have to be registered as two licensed objects. If the number of objects is exceeded, the data will not be recorded in reports and the print log. Licenses are issued on the Data Center level. The number of agents sending data to the Data Center is not limited. If there is another Data Center in the network, it requires an additional license. A single management console allows you to manage an unlimited number of Data Centers (except for Personal Edition). 122

123 123

124 License Activation To activate the software you need the internet connection on the computer, on which the management console runs. Activation is a simple process during which the program connects to the activation server with the activation key and registers the program copy. In return, the activation server sends the registration key, which is stored on the local disk as a file. 124

125 Please specify valid address. This address will be used for important notifications only: free updates period completion, new product releases, etc. Generally, the activation is performed automatically without crashes. However, if connection fails during the activation, the program suggests manual activation. Click on the special «Activation» link to activate manually. 125

126 After that the program starts your Web browser and redirects it to the special page of the activation server. Finally, you will see the registration key in the browser window. Copy this key to the clipboard, go back to the program, paste it to the proper field of the dialog window and click Next. 126

127 Licensed Objects The list of licensed objects is filled automatically during the generation of reports and viewing the history of printed documents. The size of the list is regulated by the license capacity. When this capacity is exceeded, the objects are placed into the list of non-licensed objects. You can move the objects from one list to another with «Add», «Delete» and «Clear» buttons. Attention! If you have made changes in the objects list and the license capacity is still not exceeded, then the new objects will be automatically added to the list on the next report building. Licensing Restrictions If the user is not on the list of licensed objects, the user s data do not get into the reports If the user is not on the list of licensed objects, the data in the history of printed documents is displayed in limited mode Unregistered version does not allow to export reports Unregistered version does not allow to print reports Unregistered version does not allow to send reports with task scheduler 127

128 Monitoring Document Images One of the important components of the application is the module that is used to view the images of printed documents. All images are stored in the data center as PDF files and sent to the console on request. To view the documents you are interested in, you should select them with the mouse and execute the Open Documents command (or just double-click the document you need). The document will be downloaded to the console in the background and then opened. Since document images are stored in the PDF format, you must have some software for viewing PDF documents in order to view them. For example, Adobe PDF Reader. The module consists of a table with the list of all printed documents sorted chronologically. Table columns contain such print job properties as: username, host name, printer name and so on. Data in the table are grouped by date. Besides, it can be filtered by various criteria if you use the Edit Filter dialog box. The module allows you to perform the following operations: View and filter data Open documents Save documents to the local computer Delete all documents. Attention! Documents are physically deleted from the data center and cannot be recovered Save the list of documents Print the list of documents 128

129 View the download status of a document. A special panel labeled Downloads is used to view the document download status. This panel shows the name of the document being downloaded, the download rate, the amount of already downloaded data and percentage. Also, you can cancel the download by clicking the Cancel button. Not more than 5 documents can be downloaded at a time, the rest of documents are queued. Besides viewing a document in a separate window, it is also possible to preview it directly in the program window. Click the «Show Preview» button to do it. Right after that you will see the area for previewing the images of printed documents at the bottom of the window. Attention! This feature works only if you have Adobe Acrobat Reader v7 or higher installed. 129

130 Document search Printer Activity Monitor allows you to search the contents of printed documents. To start searching for the necessary document, click the Search Documents button on the Task panel in the list of printed documents. Specify the word or phrase to search for in the new window and click the Search button. As a result, the program will show the list of all documents that have the search phrase in their text. You can view the selected document in a separate window or save it. If you click the Parent Frame button, the program opens the list of printed documents filtered by the search phrase. To open additional search options, click the arrow to the right from the Search button. The program offers the following additional search options: Case Sensitive Whole Words Only 130

131 Reports Reports are the distinctive characteristic of the Red Line Software products. All company s products are supplied with powerful report generators that allow to analyze the activity in one or another cut set. Report Generation Report generation has three steps: Preparing a report generation request (Console) Report generation (Data Center) Report viewing (Console) The report preparation step includes specifying report options, making up filtering rules for elements that are to be included into the set, selecting the range of report dates, etc.. To start preparing a new report select «Generate a New Report». 131

132 Welcome page. Selecting the data storage and schema. 132

133 Selecting the report type: Comparison reports (Vertical, Sections) displays information grouped in different sections. Report can be one-level or multilevel. Comparison reports (Horizontal, Columns) displays information grouped in columns. Allows you to create plane reports that present information in the form of columns. 133

134 Optional filter of entries which should be included into the final set. Report options: Report Style single-level or multi-level Percentage Column the column used for percentage calculation Sort column the column used for data sorting 134

135 Report section options. A report consists of one or more sections. Each section can be configured individually. If it hasn't been configured, the above-stated options will be used. Show in section what to show in section: elements, charts or both. Apply aliases to section items Apply or not apply aliases to items in the specified section. Maximum items number the maximum number of items to be shown in section. Filter1, Filter2 optional filters which can be used to exclude the elements, meeting certain conditions, from the generated report. Unlike the page with optional filters (see above), here the final and already grouped data is analyzed and filtered. Report sections. Here you can make a list of sections, which should be included in the report, their order and optional settings for each section. You can override the default values for each section: the chart properties, aliases etc. 135

136 Columns included in the report. Here you can adjust width, positions and visibility of columns. To make it easier you may use a special visual editor which allows to adjust the columns using the mouse: Simply adjust width, positions and visibility and click OK. 136

137 Report building dates range. 137

138 Report name and optional description. These settings are important if you plan to add the created report to the report repository for further use. Final step. After clicking on Finish button the console sends a request to generate a report for the Data Center. 138

139 Report Sections When the process of report generation is performed Printer Activity Monitor allows you to add different types of sections. The list given below describes each section: Application shows the application name used for printing. Collate shows the state of the «Collate» option (available for the documents printed in several copies only). Color shows the color of printed documents (Color/Monochrome). Data Storage shows the data storage name where the information about printed document is stored. Date shows the date of printing. Day of Week shows the day of the week, when the document was printed. Document Title shows document title (usually the document title is displayed in the title section of the application window used for printing. For example: «Microsoft Word Document 1»). Duplex in case the document was printed in the duplex print mode, this field will contain «Yes». Otherwise it will read «No». This field is very useful for tracing the number of printed pages with the printer supporting duplex print functionality. Host Name shows the computer name used for printing. Hour shows time, when the document was printed (hour). IP Address shows computer IP address used for printing. Month shows month, when the document was printed. Orientation shows paper orientation (Portrait/Landscape). Paper Length shows paper length value (in mm). Paper Name shows paper format name (A1, A2, A3, A4, Letter, etc.). Paper Width shows paper width value (in mm). PIN shows the name or ID of the project the printed document belongs to (not supported in the current version of the program). Print Server shows print server name the printer used for print is connected to. Printer Model shows printer model name used for print. Printer Name shows the printer name used for print (name unlike the model is assigned by the user during printer installation). Printer UNC Name shows full network name of the printer. The network name has the following format \\PrintServerName\Printer Name and is used to access the printer from the network. Resolution shows document resolution value (dots per inch). Username shows the name of the user that printed the document. Username can be either presented in the form of login or in the form of full user name from Active Directory. Workgroups shows workgroup the user that printed the document belongs to. Year shows the year, when the document was printed. 139

140 Repository Repository is designed to store frequently used reports. Repository is a common folder with free structure of subfolders, which contain files with reports settings. The report can be relocated, renamed, edited or generated any time. To make file and folder migration easier, Drug'n'Drop feature is suported. 140

141 Report Generator Task Bar Generate a New Report activates a new report wizard Generate a Predefined Report activates the report repository. After one or more reports have been selected they are sent to generation. Print Report activates a report print preparation dialog. This feature is available only in the registered version. Report activates a report preparation dialog. This feature is available only in the registered version. Export Report activates a dialog of saving the report on the disk. This feature is available only in the registered version. Edit Report Settings activates a report settings editing dialog. After clicking OK the report with edited settings is sent to generation again Save Report Settings activates a dialog of selecting the existing report the settings of which are to be replaced with the settings of the current report. Save Report Settings As activates a dialog of selecting a new report name and its location in the report repository. After that the report is saved to the repository. 141

142 Toggle Report Style toggles the report style from Single Level to Multi Level. When clicking on the button the program sends a request to the Data Center to generate one more report with edited settings. View Printed Documents switches to the printed documents viewing mode. A filter similar to the active report is applied to the list of images. Hence, you can view the images which correspond to the filtering rules of the current report. Find Text activates a dialog of searching the substring in the report text. Show/Hide Charts shows/hides the charts. Configure Settings activates a report generator appearance configuring dialog. Manage Scheduled Tasks activates a scheduled tasks list managing dialog. Show/Hide Status Bar shows/hides the status bar. 142

143 Task Manager Any report stored in the report repository may be used for automatic scheduled generation. Each scheduled task can build reports with unrestricted number of templates. Each report can be sent by , printed or saved into a folder on the disk or in LAN (e. g. on SharePoint server). 143

144 To start creating a scheduled task click on Add button. The reports are selected from the report repository which will be used as generation templates. Multiselect is supported. 144

145 Specify delivery ways. Three ways are currently supported: Send by Save into a folder Send to a printer The delivery ways can be combined. If you select «Send by » you can also configure message settings: message subject and body. In both fields you can use different macro objects which are replaced with real values on execution of the scheduled task. 145

146 Configure delivery settings. You can configure the identical settings for several simultaneously selected reports at a time. Each delivery way has its individual settings. Moreover, these settings are individual for every report template. 146

147 Report file name template a template used to form a report file name when saving it on the disk. It can be either a common string, e. g. «somefile.doc», or a combination of one or more macro objects which will be replaced with real values during the report generation. Possible values: o %REPORTNAME% - report name o %TASKNAME% - scheduled task name o %DATE% - report generation date o %UNIQUEID% - unique number o %DATEFROM% - beginning of the report generation dates range o %DATEFROM(mm/dd/yyyy hh/mm)% - beginning of the report generation dates range adjusted to the specified format o %DATETO% - end of the report generation dates range o %DATETO(mm/dd/yyyy hh/mm)% - end of the report generation dates range adjusted to the specified format Report format the format in which the report will be built Pack report into a zip archive the indicator showing that the report should be packed into the zip archive before sending. 147

148 If «Send by » is selected as the delivery way you should specify message recipients. Attention! The message will be sent from the computer where the Data Center is installed. Correspondingly, you should properly configure the settings of SMTP server which will be used for message delivery, so that the message could be delivered successfully. 148

149 If «Save into a Folder»» is selected as the delivery way you should specify the name of existing folder into which the file will be saved. If the specified folder is networked you should specify the properties of the user account which will be used for access to the network resource. If you specify incorrect properties, saving to the network folder will finish with an error. Saving is made from computer on which the Data Center is installed. 149

150 If «Send to a Printer» is selected as the delivery way you should specify the printer name (on computer where the Data Center is installed) and paper layout. If the specified printer is a network accessible one, you should specify the properties of the user account which will be used for access to the network printer. If you specify incorrect properties, printing to the network printer will finish with an error. Printing is made from computer on which the Data Center is installed. 150

151 Specify the dates range for scheduled reports. The ranges are relative (to the task execution date) and are calculated upon executing the scheduled task. You can also specify the fixed absolute dates range. Configure task schedule. 151

152 Configure task repetition. Specify name and optional description of scheduled task. 152

153 The final step of creating the scheduled task. After the task has been created, it will start executing in the scheduled time. During task execution the reports will be built by the specified templates within the specified dates range, and the result will be delivered in the specified way to the specified addresses. Troubleshooting The program has a special built-in tool for detecting errors occurring in each of the application modules and also for all kinds of information messages Event Viewer. If an error occurs in the management console, you should check Event Viewer in the first place and find out the type of the occurred error, its code and message text. It allows you to quickly solve the problem in most cases. 153

154 Actually, this tool similar to the standard Windows Event Viewer, except that all events shown here are related only to Printer Activity Monitor. You can see the following information in the table: Event type, date and time (error, warning or information) Category Event source: data center, agent or console The computer name where the event occurred Message text You can configure the way events are logged. Use the following dialog box for that: 154

155 There are 4 logging modes available: Do not log anything Log all events immediately after they occur Log unique events only. An event is not considered unique if there is an event with the same properties, but it occurred at a different time. Therefore, if you delete all events, new events will start appearing as they occur Log subsequent duplicate events only if number of minutes since last occurrence is more than the specified value. This mode is recommended and allows you to protect the event log against an overflow. After you select the logging mode, the changes will be applied to all application modules: agents, console and data center. We would like to explain the Communication Error separately. This error occurs when one module cannot connect to another module running on the same computer or on another network computer. Usually, the message text looks like this: Communication error: Connect: service is not available. Destination: Data Center(LOCALHOST). To get it right what this error means, you should pay attention to the event parameters in Event Viewer. In particular, you should find out on what computer and in what module the event occurred. After you find it out, you can interpret the error text in the following way: The console on computer XXXX failed to connect to the data center running on computer YYYY. Service is not available it means that the data center service is not running. 155

156 After you learn what the error means, make sure that all required services are running and the specified computers are available on the network. Connection Check The application modules communicate with each other all the time. That is why you need all modules to be connected for the application to run normally. The required condition that would be enough for the module to run normally is the accessibility of the computer it is running on with the command: Start -> Run -> \\ComputerName If the computer is accessible, it will be accessible from the program as well. Otherwise, the program will not be able to connect to it. Problem of Incompatibility with Anti-virus Software If the installed agent activates Client Side Monitoring mode, then the anti-virus software installed on computer can start displaying warning messages. These warning messages are false and must not confuse the program administrator. The best decision is to add binary files, which place the warning messages to the exceptions list. The warning messages appear because of the agent s working mode. The agent embeds into every process running on computer and picks up the information about print jobs. This process causes suspicions of the antivirus. 156

157 Frequently asked questions Question: During the agent setup, the manager shows the following error: «Multiple connections to a server or shared resource by the same user, using more than one user name, are not allowed. Disconnect all previous connection to the server or shared resource and try again». Answer: It is a Windows limitation, this operating system allows only one connection between computers. Please do the following: Execute the net use command Delete all network connections using the following command: for example: net use "Connection name" /delete net use \\server\sharedfolder /delete And then try to install the remote agent again. If it does not help, check you computer. 3. It does not work in Windows XP Home Edition. This operating system has limitations regarding some features necessary to install agents. 4. Whether the «Workstation» service is running (you can check it using services.msc). 5. Whether the «Server» service is running (you can check it using services.msc). 6. Whether other computers, printers, shared folders are available on the network. 7. Whether network users confirm that you are available. Question: It is impossible to access a remote network computer from the Agent Management Console Answer: There can be several possible reasons for this problem: 1. An incorrect login or password for access to the REMOTE computer is specified. 2. The remote computer is running under Windows developed for home use. It is impossible to fix this problem. 3. The remote computer is running under Windows developed for office use (for example, WinXP Prof), but the «Simple File Sharing» checkbox is selected in the «Folder Properties» dialog box of the Windows Explorer settings. You should clear this checkbox. 157

158 Question: While printing a document in MS Word, I select the «Collate» checkbox, but PAM shows «No» in this column anyway. What's the problem? Answer: It means that the «Collate» option has been cancelled. The following reasons are possible: There is only one page in the document and this option does not change anything so MS Word cancels it. Your printer does not support the «Collate» feature. Question: While printing a document in MS Word, I select the «Landscape» orientation in the printer properties, but PAM shows «Portrait» in this column anyway. What's the problem? Answer: The orientation option specified in the printer properties does not influence anything. To print a document in MS Word with the «Landscape» orientation, you should specify page layout in the document itself. In MS Word 2003 these options are available on the «Page Layout\Orientation» menu. Question: I print a two-page document in MS Word, set the number of copies to 10, PAM shows the following data: Copies - 1; Pages - 20; Printed Pages - 20; though I thought it would be like this: Copies - 10; Pages - 2; Printed Pages - 20; What's the problem? Answer: If your printer can create additional copies for documents, MS Word prints one copy of the document and informs the printer that it is necessary to create several copies for it. PAM will show the following data in this case: Copies - 10 Pages - 2 Printed Pages - 20 However, if your printer does not support additional copies, MS Word is responsible for copying the document. In this case, it sends several copies of each page in the document to the printer at once. Therefore, in this case the document where each page is repeated 10 times will be sent to the printer. If there are 2 pages in the document, MS Word makes a document with 20 pages out of it and sends it to the printer. Hence is the result: Copies - 1 Pages - 20 Printed Pages

159 Question: The program creates a new account during the installation (IUSR_ХХХ_COMMBRIDGE). What is it for? Answer: Some of our products use the account IUSR_XXX_COMMBRIDGE for connection between various components. This account is created on all computers during the installation of the product components. This account is completely safe and you can trust it. Some of our products use the named pipes protocol for connection between all their components. It is a native Windows method based on files system drivers. The main advantage of this method is its independency of firewalls installed on client computers. The main disadvantage of this method is the necessity to perform authentication on the remote computer using an existing account. We solved this problem by creating an account with the name IUSR_XXX_COMMBRIDGE on all computers there is connection between. 159

160 Getting started Below you can see the step-by-step instruction with comments: 1. Decide where you will install your data center The computer must be capable of storing a large amount of data. It will accumulate the images of printed documents. 2. Install the data center and the management console on one computer Later you will be able to configure the data center for remote management, but both components must be installed on one computer for the application to be run for the first time. 3. Decide in what mode the agents will be running Make sure you go through the description and characteristics of either mode once again 4. Select the Configuration\Agents Management item. Click Add Computers on the right panel The new dialog box will allow you to add those computers where you will install agents later to the list. You can edit this list at any moment. Adding a computer to the list or removing a computer from it does not affect the status of the agent running on this computer. 5. Click Accounts Since all operations with agents are performed remotely, the console must contain the list of logins and passwords for accessing each of the computers. If domains are used in the network, you can specify one master login/password that will work for all computers. Usually, it is the Domain Administrator's login and password. If you try to install the agent on a computer with XP Home Edition, Vista Home Edition or if domains are not used in your network, you should specify separate logins and passwords for each computer where you are going to install the agent. If access errors occur during the installation process, see a separate manual describing typical problems and troubleshooting methods. 6. Use the mouse to select one or several computers where you want to install agents and click Install Agents The new dialog box will help you install agents on the selected computers. 160