Billybonga
IS-IT--Management
Hi all,
I'm working on a project where we have 4 OCE printers on our network. What happens on a frequent basis is that one of the printers may get a paper jam etc and people continue printing to this printer. When they finally discover the problem the decide to call us but send their job to another printer - this results in alot of wasted paper as we can't clear the spooler as we don't know who has/hasn't sent jobs to the other printer.
The way we want to over-come this is to create a small application that runs on everyones computer that keeps an eye on the printer status. If the printer is in difficulty when the user sends a print job, then they should get an warning message that printer is out of action, we could also develop it to SMS a member of the tech team when a printer goes down etc.
Well, enough on what the plan is ... here is what I've done so far :
I am using the following API controller from Microsoft
It works - to an extent i.e. It will show the jobs being sent to the printer (in the print queue) but if I turn off the printer it doesn't change the application status (even after restarting the application) and if I send a job to the printer it stays on the queue saying "Ready /Printing" .
No matter what status i put the printer into i.e. if i empty the paper tray, turn it off, set it off-line, empty toner, paper jam - the printer status doesn't isn't reflected in the applicaton.
The OCE Printers are OCE 8445 but I have also been testing the same on a HP LaserJet 5N (All are networked printers)
I really need to find a way to notifying when the printer is in difficulty and I was hoping that the API would work but nothing so far.
Can anyone help ????
Cheers,
William
I'm working on a project where we have 4 OCE printers on our network. What happens on a frequent basis is that one of the printers may get a paper jam etc and people continue printing to this printer. When they finally discover the problem the decide to call us but send their job to another printer - this results in alot of wasted paper as we can't clear the spooler as we don't know who has/hasn't sent jobs to the other printer.
The way we want to over-come this is to create a small application that runs on everyones computer that keeps an eye on the printer status. If the printer is in difficulty when the user sends a print job, then they should get an warning message that printer is out of action, we could also develop it to SMS a member of the tech team when a printer goes down etc.
Well, enough on what the plan is ... here is what I've done so far :
I am using the following API controller from Microsoft
It works - to an extent i.e. It will show the jobs being sent to the printer (in the print queue) but if I turn off the printer it doesn't change the application status (even after restarting the application) and if I send a job to the printer it stays on the queue saying "Ready /Printing" .
No matter what status i put the printer into i.e. if i empty the paper tray, turn it off, set it off-line, empty toner, paper jam - the printer status doesn't isn't reflected in the applicaton.
The OCE Printers are OCE 8445 but I have also been testing the same on a HP LaserJet 5N (All are networked printers)
I really need to find a way to notifying when the printer is in difficulty and I was hoping that the API would work but nothing so far.
Can anyone help ????
Cheers,
William
