Track printing using Xerox Network Accounting

When tracking print jobs through a Xerox embedded device, configure the device and its print drivers to accept only authenticated print jobs. Users are prompted to enter user and account credentials prior to printing. The user authentication data is checked by the Xerox device when it receives the print job. The embedded device tracks printing and captures appropriate accounting information.

Use this method when you require precise job accounting. When the user releases a print job, the precise output details are gathered and held at the device after the job is completed. If the user cancels mid-way through a job, or if the device is not capable of producing output as the user intended (i.e. duplex was selected, but the device is not capable of duplexing and produces single-sided output only), the device calculates the precise output details only after the job is fully processed.

The DCE obtains the transaction details from the output device and forwards them to the CAS at a later interval.

This method requires additional configuration steps and your Xerox devices must meet the following prerequisites:
  • JBA-supported Xerox device with the Network Accounting module installed and enabled and Authentication (Network Accounting option) enabled.

  • TCP/IP enabled and configured on the devices.

  • A static IP Address or reserved DHCP IP Address (recommended).

  • TCP/IP port 443 communication enabled on the network between the Equitrac server and the devices.

  • Depending on the Xerox device and server operating system, you may require Xerox Advanced Services Management before you can enable the Accounting option on the printer driver. See the Xerox device documentation for details.

  • Off-printer (also called off-box) validation must be configured on the Equitrac server. This option forces the device to send a request to Equitrac to validate the data input by the user.

  • For Xerox devices to accept authenticated print jobs and the embedded device to track print jobs correctly, the Xerox® device and Xerox print drivers must be configured as described in the following table.

Device and Print Driver Configuration Notes
The Network Accounting module must be installed and enabled on each Xerox device. Equitrac does not support the Internal Auditron authentication method. When you set the authentication mode on the device, ensure you select the Network Accounting option.
The Network Accounting Configuration > Authentication option must be enabled. Depending on the Xerox® device Authentication configuration, job information can be accurately tracked by the Xerox® device regardless of whether or not the user and account information exists on that device. See the Xerox® device documentation for details on configuring options for the physical device.
Installed Xerox print drivers must have the Accounting option enabled for each printer to prompt users for user and account ID prior to printing.

The location of the Accounting option in the Xerox® print driver dialogs may not be the same for all printer connections you create.

The option is located on the Properties > Document Details or the Printer Preferences dialogs. You may find that the location of the Accounting option varies by Windows platform, driver language type (Postscript or PCL), driver version, or device model.

The Xerox device deletes print jobs to prevent anonymous (un-billable) printing when any of the following situations apply:

The Xerox print driver does not have authentication features.

The Accounting option for the print driver is disabled.

Configure the embedded device to perform print tracking. By default, both the printer port and the embedded device track the print job. You must disable the tracking on the physical device and allow the embedded device to perform the tracking instead.

Once the prerequisites and configuration steps are complete, you must disable Equitrac print tracking.

  1. Open Web System Manager and select Devices > Physical Devices and select the physical device.
  2. In the Settings area, ensure Do not rack activity or page counts is selected from the Tracking behavior for transactions on this device list. This is the default setting.
  3. Click Save to save the changes.
  4. Go to Global Configuration Settings > Devices > Embedded devices.
  5. Select Xerox/Fuji Xerox JBA from the Device Type list.
  6. Ensure that Print is selected in the Tracked activities section, then click Apply to save the change to the global options set in the Embedded devices dialog box.
    Note: When using JBA print tracking from the device, you must set the Tracking behavior to Do not track and record printing on this device on the Physical device summary screen, and select the Print check box on the Embedded device configuration dialog box. Failure to set these options results in double tracking or no tracking.