Printer Activity Monitor. System Administrator s Guide

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Printer Activity Monitor

System Administrator’s Guide

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2 INTRODUCTION ... 5

PROGRAM FEATURES ... 7

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS ... 7

MANAGEMENT CONSOLE ... 8

DATA CENTER ... 9

AGENTS ...12

Collecting Data on Workstations - Client Side Monitoring ... 12

Collecting Data on Print Servers - Server Side Monitoring ... 13

Comparing the Client Side Monitoring and Server Side Monitoring Modes ... 14

AGENTS MANAGEMENT ...15

Installing Agents ... 18

Starting Agents ... 20

Stopping Agents ... 21

Uninstalling Agents ... 21

Monitoring Agents ... 21

Agent Settings ... 22

Filtering Agent List ... 23

Importing/Exporting Agents List ... 23

General Settings ... 24

Manual Agent Setup Using MSI File ... 28

Agent Setup Using Microsoft Active Directory Services ... 32

MANAGING VIRTUAL PRINTERS ...40

Adding a virtual printer ... 41

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Deleting a virtual printer... 44

Virtual Printer Interface ... 44

DATA CENTER CONFIGURATION ...50

General Settings ... 51

Data Storage ... 55

SQLite ... 59

Microsoft Access ... 60

Microsoft SQL Server ... 71

MySQL ... 85

PostgreSQL ... 95

Oracle ... 104

Alias Management ... 116

Converters ... 116

Value lists ... 117

Binary Objects Management ... 120

License Management ... 122

Licensing Schema ... 122

License Activation ... 124

Licensed Objects ... 127

Licensing Restrictions ... 127

MONITORING ... 128

DOCUMENT IMAGES ... 128

Document search ... 130

Reports ... 131

Report Generation ... 131

Report Sections ... 139

Repository ... 140

Report Generator Task Bar ... 141

Task Manager ... 143

TROUBLESHOOTING ... 153

Connection Check ... 156

Problem of Incompatibility with Anti-virus Software ... 156

Frequently asked questions ... 157

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4 PRACTICAL RECOMMENDATIONS FOR SOFTWARE CONFIGURATION ... 162

Terms ... 162

Case 1: ... 162

Case 2: ... 164

Case 3: ... 166

Case 4: ... 168

Case 5: ... 170

Case 6: ... 172

Case 7: ... 173

Case 8 ... 174

Case 9 ... 175

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

Yes Yes

Exact information about the number of printed pages and other job properties

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.

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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».

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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20 Starting Agents

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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.

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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».

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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».

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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.

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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.

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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.

Creating «.MST» file with registry settings

1. Download and install Microsoft Office Resource Pakage:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/0/e/d/0eda9ae6-f5c9-44be-98c7-ccc3016a296a/ork.exe

2. Run Custom Installation Wizard

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4. Choose «Yes», if a warning message appears

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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.

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7. Make sure the properties have been applied:

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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).

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.

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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

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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:

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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 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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Email

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.

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

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Possible variants:

1. Administrator. The user has access to all functions of the program.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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:

1993. Access 2.0 for Windows (Office 4.3) 1995. Access 7 for Windows 95 (Office 95) 1997. Access 97 (Office 97)

1999. Access 2000 (Office 2000) 2001. Access 2002 (Office XP)

2003. Access 2003 (Microsoft Office 2003)

2007. Microsoft Office Access 2007 (Microsoft Office 2007) 2010. 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.

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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».

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Figure 2.

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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».

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Figure 4.

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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).

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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).

Figure 12. Conclusion:

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).

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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:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=C243A5AE-4BD1-4E3D-94B8-5A0F62BF7796&displaylang=en

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.

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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)

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Figure 7.

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Figure 8.

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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.

Figure 13. Next, click «OK».

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.

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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».

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Figure 16.

Microsoft SQL Server is a reliable and relatively straightforward DBMS. Microsoft SQL Server DBMS is recommended for use in medium and large-sized companies.

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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:

http://www.phpmyadmin.net/home_page/index.php

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: http://computer_name/Tools/phpMyAdmin/

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.

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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».

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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».

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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.

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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».

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A message will appear, notifying you that the SQL request to create a user was completed successfully.

Figure 7.

Figure 8.

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Figure 9.

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Figure 10. Here:

192.168.0.166 – 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.

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Figure 11. Next, click «OK».

Figure 12.

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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.

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95 PostgreSQL

PostgreSQLis 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 no limitations

A maximum table size 32 Tb

A maximum entry size 1,6 Tb

A maximum field size 1 Gb

A maximum number of entries in a table no limitations

A maximum number of fields in a table 250—1600, relating to field types A maximum number of indexes in a table 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: http://www.postgresql.org/download/windows/ 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).

Printer Activity Monitor. System Administrator s Guide