HP Managed Printing Administration-
overview and features

Create a customized print environment that makes the most of your printing resources. Just group users with similar requirements and define which printers they can access. That helps ensure their needs are met and printer usage is evenly balanced.

•  Create and modify user groups based on similar printing requirements.

•  Create managed printer lists (MPLs), add or import printers to existing MPLs, and establish associations with MPPs and user groups. MPLs provide a simple method for users to locate and use HP printing devices. An MPL defines groupings of printers based on various attributes and controls features at both the group and individual printer levels when associated with a managed printer policy. Administrators can also use MPA to customize HTML views of MPLs to assist users in locating printers.

•  Automatically create XML files based on managed print policies and printer lists. An intuitive graphical user interface allows IT administrators to create XML files quickly and easily instead of investing the additional time and energy writing XML on their own.

MPA lets you create managed print policies that describe user capabilities (such as color access, search capabilities, or online supplies ordering) user groups can access. That way, multiple groups can use the same printer to meet different needs.

•  Create managed print policies (MPP) to manage user access to printer features (such as color and status notification) and control users printer search capabilities. For example, if IT determines that users should always print in black and white, the MPP ensures that users cannot change that setting.

•  HP's Color Access Control makes color printing and copying affordable by providing you the tools to control who uses color. Assign color access by user group, application or time of day. Color Access Control ensures that the people in your company who truly need to leverage color—such as your sales team and marketing department—can, while those who don't need it automatically default to mono printing.

•  HP's Universal Print Drivers come with the ability to notify end-users about job, device, and supplies status. MPA allows you to customize those notifications to fit the needs of your company. So, if you deem it appropriate, notifications may include links that allow the end-user to contact support or shop online for supplies—or they may not. It's all up to you and what you feel will work best in your unique printing environment.

MPA comes with an array of thoughtful features that help you manage the print environment more efficiently. From a choice of user interfaces to the ability to automatically create XML files, MPA is designed to save time and make your job easier.

•  Automatically create XML files based on managed print policies and printer lists. An intuitive graphical user interface allows IT administrators to create XML files quickly and easily instead of investing the additional time and energy writing XML on their own.

•  MPA provides a choice of two different interfaces for IT administrators—a Classic interface, which features the same left-hand navigation typically found on Web sites, and a Graph interface, which provides a graphical relationship of user groups, MPLs, and MPPs.

•  Import managed printer lists from HP Web Jetadmin and Novell print shares. If you use either of these tools to manage printers, the MPA can use the managed printer lists from these tools, saving you the time it would take to re-create the lists manually.