Introduction

Dispatcher Paragon is capable to periodically check a status of printers and MFPs and evaluate it continuously. If the MFP is not ready (ie. due to a paper jam, the printer is out of paper, a cover door is opened, etc.) for print for defined time, the jobs spooled in the MFP are automatically deleted. This feature the improves security of the documents to be printed, as it prevents another user to print the documents while their owner left the MFP to obtain new paper sheets or to contact the administrator to solve the incident preventing the MFP to print.

How it works

Dispatcher Paragon follows RFC about IPP to obtain the current status of the MFP and to evaluate it. Therefore, this feature should be enabled only on the MFPs supporting IPP and having it enabled and available via the network (ipp://MFP_ADDRESS/ipp or https://MFP_ADDRESS:443/ipp). Dispatcher Paragon Spooler Controller periodically obtains the current state of printer/MFP via IPP attributes "printer-state" and "printer-state-reasons". RFC is followed in sense of evaluation of the values of these attributes. So the accuracy of status evaluation depends on printer/MFP capabilities to report values of these attributes correctly.

By default Dispatcher Paragon evaluates the only value of "printer-state" IPP attribute, administrator of Dispatcher Paragon can improve accuracy of the evaluation by enabling checking value(s) of "printer-state-reasons".

If the status of the printer is consequently evaluated as NOT READY for (at least) defined time, Dispatcher Paragon initializes deletion of jobs spooled in the printer/MFP. The deletion itself is done via SNMP, therefore, it must be enabled and correctly configured on the printer/MFP. The administrator can also set individual periods of status checks based on the last known state of the printer - typically the printers that are offline (switched off) are not required to be monitored as often as the printers being ready.

If there is Near Roaming Group of several Dispatcher Paragon Spooler Controllers, the status of each printer/MFP is monitored by just one Spooler Controller.

Licensing

There is no special/separate license required.

Configuration

Administrator of Dispatcher Paragon can enable this feature for individual printers via Dispatcher Paragon management interface. There is a drop-down menu in Miscellaneous part of the screen for adding or editing printers named Monitor ready state. The drop-down is displayed only for printers with Dispatcher Paragon Embedded Terminal for Konica Minolta, Olivetti, Develop or Aurora and contains following values 'Disabled', 'Enable via IPP' and 'Enable via IPP over SSL'. As default it's set to 'Disabled'. If administrator select one of 'Enabled via IPP ...' values and saves the printer in the web interface, the state of the printer is started to be monitored periodically in secure mode if SSL is selected or in plain non-secure mode. The printer has to be correctly configured for SSL or non-SSL mode depending on value selected. If 'Disabled' value is selected and the printer is saved again, the state of the printer is not monitored anymore. The state is monitored only for printers/MFPs having the Terminal Embedded installed (if the status of the terminal installation is Change in progress or Installation failed the status of the printer/MFP is not monitored).

There are several configuration properties for the SafeQ administrator to fine tune the feature in the environment, all the properties are available in Dispatcher Paragon management interface > System > Configuration, and all of them could be set individually for each tenant in multi-tenant environment.

Name of the Property	Description	Default value
mfpStatusMonitorEvaluateIppPrinterStateReasons	Evaluate the value of the "printer-state-reasons" IPP attribute for MFP status detection. If enabled, the value of the "printer-state-reasons" IPP attribute is evaluated during regular the monitoring of MFP status. If disabled, the value of this attribute is ignored and only the value of the "printer-state" IPP attribute is evaluated.	disabled
mfpStatusMonitorPeriodForReadyDevices	The period to monitor the state of the MFP for when its last known state was Ready. After how long the status of the device should be detected again if the last check evaluated the state as Ready. The value is defined in seconds. It is not recommended to use values lower than 60 seconds.	120 seconds
mfpStatusMonitorPeriodForNotReadyDevices	The period to monitor the state of the MFP for when its last known state was Not Ready. After how long the status of the device should be detected again if the last check evaluated the state as Not Ready. The value is defined in seconds. It is not recommended to use values lower than 30 seconds.	60 seconds
mfpStatusMonitorPeriodForOfflineDevices	The period to monitor the state of the MFP for when its last known state was Unknown/Offline. After how long the status of the device should be detected again if the last check evaluated the state as Unknown/Offline. The value is defined in seconds. It is not recommended to use values lower than 120 seconds.	240 seconds
mfpStatusMonitorThreadsMinimum	The minimum number of threads used for monitoring the state of the MFPs. The minimum number of parallel threads used for monitoring the state of the MFPs installed in the Dispatcher Paragon environment. The total number of threads running is changed dynamically based on the number of MFPs with Dispatcher Paragon Embedded Terminal installed and on configuration properties mfpStatusMonitorThreadsMaximum and mfpStatusMonitorThreadsRatio. It is highly recommended not to use values lower than 2 and higher than 10.	2
mfpStatusMonitorThreadsMaximum	The maximum number of threads used for monitoring the state of the MFPs. The maximum number of parallel threads used for monitoring the state of the MFPs installed in the Dispatcher Paragon environment. The total number of threads running is changed dynamically based on the number of MFPs with Dispatcher Paragon Embedded Terminal installed and on configuration properties mfpStatusMonitorThreadsMinimum and mfpStatusMonitorThreadsRatio. It is highly recommended not to use values lower than mfpStatusMonitorThreadsMinimum and higher than 30.	20
mfpStatusMonitorThreadsRatio	The ratio of the MFPs being monitored and the threads performing the detection of the state of the MFPs. Up to how many MFPs should be monitored by one thread. The real number of threads running in parallel never drops below the value of mfpStatusMonitorThreadsMinimum, and never goes higher than the value of mfpStatusMonitorThreadsMaximum. The real value is changed dynamically based on the on the number of MFPs with Dispatcher Paragon Embedded Terminal installed and the configuration properties mentioned.	10
mfpStatusMonitorNotReadyTimeBeforeDeletion	How long an MFP in a NOT READY state must be monitored before the job deletion operation is started. Sets how many seconds (minimum) an MFP is monitored in a Not Ready state before the job deletion operation is triggered. It is not recommended to set a value lower than 120 (= two minutes).	240 seconds

Known limitations

Currently, the feature is supported only on MFPs/printers having Dispatcher Paragon Embedded Terminal for Konica Minolta, Olivetti, Develop or Aurora installed.

If the Monitor ready state is set to 'Disabled' value and the printer is saved, it is possible there will be one additional check of the printer state more.

When IPP over SSL is set, device has to have IPP configured on HTTPS port 443.

Authorization of user is not available neither for IPP nor for IPPoverSSL.

If the network address of the printer/MFP whose status is being monitored is changed via Dispatcher Paragon management interface, it is possible there will be one more check to the original network address (but all the following checks of the printer/MFP state would be done correctly to the new address).

Canceled jobs on MFP might or might not be accounted. It depends on particular vendor and model.

Detection, when the MFP is in the Not Ready state, is vendor and model specific. E.g. one MFP model is considered as Ready when it has empty one tray and the other MFP model might be considered as Not Ready when it has empty one tray. It depends on what state is read from the MFP through IPP protocol.