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How do you manage desktop printers that users set up without your buy-in?
We use Dell to supply our desktops here, and often as an incentive they will throw in a free printer. I only find out about them when I go into someone's office to fix a problem with their machine. To some degree, it cuts down on the wear and tear of our main printers, but it also presents a management issue in that my team can't support these printers. Anyone else in the same boat?
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3 Answers
David,
The issue you are describing is fairly common. I can tell you that from per-page cost perspective, desktop inkjet printers are far more expensive than corporate grade color and b&w laser jets.
The frequent excuse I used to hear from users wanting their own printers was the need for privacy. This usually came from HR and finance folks who claimed that the ability to print in their office or cubicle would offer additional level of protection of sensitive information these employee printed daily. Well, pretty much all printers now offer ’secure print’ feature allowing the employee to send the print job to the printer , take their time to walk down the hallway and then start the print job by entering their secret pass code.
At my previous company I had to get the buy-in from an executive to create new policy preventing individuals from having personal printers, justifying the change with excessive ink-jet per page costs as well as support issues. We then gave 30 days notice to users and trained them on using ‘secure print’.
Taking this a step further, you could restrict users from adding and sharing printers via Group Policy or DLP agent.
Hope this helps.
Jacek
LOL - common problem. DLP doesn't necessarily protect against someone adding a printer. Network Admission or Access Control will prevent networked printers, which can be achieved with RADIUS or some derivative thereof. For local printers I would agree with the GPO, but most printers these days offer wireless and network connectivity as a common implementation approach. If a GPO is effective for you environment, I would suggest not preventing printers from being installed but a policy extension on USB and Firewire connectivity that only allows specified devices to be plugged in. The solves the problem of both printers, USB Memory keys as well as things such as portable media and hard drives.
I'm not in the same boat now, but have ridden in it before...and it makes you understand the old saying, "there's no such thing as a free puppy!" :-)
I've seen a number of companies take a "supported/not supported" approach. Supported devices are allowed on the network and supported in a timely fashion by IT. Non-supported devices are allowed, but with restrictions and limited or no IT support. Users and their managers are allowed to decide if a non-supported device's functionality is worth risking limited or no IT support in the face of a problem.
At other companies I've seen, instead of permitting or forbidding specific products, IT issues a list of basic functionality, interoperability and manageability requirements. Any device that meets requirements is allowed and supported.
Each of these approaches offers a bit more latitude to users and team leaders than the issuance of Draconian "no-fly lists" by IT departments. The potential for higher user satisfaction with IT may be worth the extra effort required by IT to support either approach. Good luck, David, and please keep the Focus community apprised of what you do and what happens!
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