RICOH myPrint

With the changing workplace technology, many organisations allow their employees to bring their personal devices to work and use them to perform work-related tasks—a policy known as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). 

Ricoh introduces myPrint to provide a simple and cost-effective printing solution that supports BYOD users.

What is RICOH myPrint?

RICOH myPrint is a simple and cost-effective mobile printing solution that allows users to print to a multifunction printer (MFP) from their personal devices, such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops, within a myPrint environment. 

RICOH myPrint can be integrated with an output management solution, ensuring secure collection of documents at a preferred printer using FlexRelease.

RICOH myPrint is compatible with a wide range of mobile devices and supports all commonly used document and file formats. It also enables organisations to assign print, scan, and copy credits for each user that can be easily topped up via the myPrint website or by using vouchers.

While RICOH myPrint is suited for most IT environments, the key target markets are higher education and Major Account (MA) customers in financial, government, and healthcare sectors. 

How it works

Printing via RICOH myPrint involves three steps—users log in to their myPrint account and submit their print jobs, the system encrypts and sends the documents to the printer, and users collect their documents from their preferred printer.

Charging for printing

RICOH myPrint allows users to print from different mobile platforms to an organisation’s configured Follow-You system where printing can be paid or free. An option to charge for printing is useful for schools and universities, and other organisations with printers that are shared with the public.

After a user account has been registered, myPrint automatically tracks when the account has been used, and deducts the credits only when the user releases the document for printing. Users can top up their accounts by using pre-paid vouchers or their credit or debit card via an online payment system.

Features and benefits

RICOH myPrint comes with a wide range of features—from creating accounts and allocating credits, to printing and collecting documents in a secure, flexible, and cost-effective way.

User accounts

To be able to use myPrint, users need to create a myPrint user account on the myPrint website. After the user account has been created, an email is sent to the user’s email address with an activation link.

There are three types of accounts:

• Corporate account—when myPrint is linked to your customer’s organisation, existing user accounts can be used to log in to myPrint via LDAP authentication
• Local account—a user creates their own account on the website and activates it via an email link
• Temporary account—a user sends their print job to a myPrint email address and retrieves it from any myPrint-enabled printer.
  

Print from any device

RICOH myPrint allows users to print from any device, such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops. It provides four ways to submit documents for printing:

• Web print—print directly from the myPrint website which can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection
• Driver print—connect to myPrint via a standard device driver and print from any Windows and Mac-based computer
• App print—print from the myPrint Android, iOS, or Windows app available for free download
• Email print—send documents as attachments to a dedicated email address and automatically process for printing.
  

Online and offline payment

The print credits allocated to the users are deducted only when they release print job for printing. When a user has used all their credits, they can top them up using an offline pre-paid voucher or buy credits online via an integrated payment system that supports payment through various service providers such as PayPal, and debit and credit cards.

myPrint supports more than 240 payment methods in more than 180 local currencies to buy print, copy, and scan credits, providing users a variety to choose from.

myPrint also supports the Polyright and Kuario external wallets via RICOH Streamline NX v.3.1 or newer. The users get their balance at the login at myPrint or an MFP, and the balance is updated right after printing. If users need to top up their credit in the external wallet, they can easily access the top-up page via the Purchase credit button on the myPrint home page.

Integration with Ricoh and third party products

RICOH myPrint supports integration with popular output management solutions, such as Streamline NX, Enhanced Locked Print NX, Kofax ControlSuite, Kofax Equitrac, and PaperCut via Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). This integration offers users maximum flexibility over how they submit print tasks, and where they can collect their printed documents.

Scalability

RICOH myPrint eliminates the need for regular driver updates to support new and existing user devices, which makes it easier for administrators to manage a growing user base. There is no limit to the number of users that can be connected via each RICOH myPrint core server, and the platform can be scaled up to accommodate a growing demand.

Security

RICOH myPrint uses 256-bit encryption that is stronger than in online banking, ensuring that documents are secure and not accessed by unauthorised users. It also supports SSL communication to protect the myPrint website from external threats, while Captcha authentication prevents creation of unauthorised user accounts and password hacking.

Additionally, myPrint provides a configurable privacy option to mask document names. When this feature is active, myPrint will mask document names with asterisks in job logs.

Single sign-on authentication

RICOH myPrint supports single sign-on authentication from various accounts like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and so on—helping reduce support costs and boost productivity, as well as improve compliance and security capabilities.

The Ricoh myPrint apps for Android and iOS also support secure auto-login when using a mobile device management system.

Other features

RICOH myPrint has many other features that provide customers a number of benefits:

• Role-based access control such as admin, helpdesk, and finance, helps increase efficiency and reinforce security—making it also ideal for corporate offices and large organisations
• Integrates with high performing output management solutions such as Streamline NX and Equitrac, providing a flexible, scalable platform that can grow to meet the needs of the customer’s organisation
• myPrint mobile app comes with a customisable UI that allows users to personalise the look and feel of the app by themselves, such as customising the navigation bar, background, and buttons
• myPrint supports more than 240 payment methods in more than 180 local currencies to buy print, copy, and scan credits, providing users a variety to choose from
• Customised support documents can be added and Help links can be redirected for enhanced flexibility and convenience
• Support for Microsoft Azure SQL ensures myPrint works with a broad range of cloud database services
• Print jobs can be sent to a specific queue or multiple queues for better control and contingency for IT outages respectively Support for multiple languages such as Thai and Traditional Chinese broadens the solution’s appeal in the region
• Users can easily add a Google Cloud printer to their Google Cloud environment from myPrint home page and use Google Cloud Print from any Android device based on native Android printing, including Chromebooks 
• Support for multiple languages such as Thai and Traditional Chinese broadens the solution’s appeal in the region
• Support for Microsoft Graph, which is the latest gateway for interacting with the Microsoft Exchange email service for Office 365
• Advanced printing options  similar to those found in printer driver settings—such as Choose document size, Fit to page, Paper type, Orientation, Number of pagers per sheet, and Page range—are available
• Drag and drop feature allows users to upload multiple files at once to the Ricoh myPrint website.
  
   

Product strategy

 

The key objectives of launching RICOH myPrint are to drive business sales, improve profitability, and give Ricoh a competitive advantage in the market. Here are the objectives in detail:

• Increase profitability—as a Ricoh solution, it helps reduce our costs by up to 30% compared with selling third party solutions. This helps increase Ricoh’s revenue and provide added value to drive our global services strategy.
• Develop consultancy and professional services—using Ricoh’s own mobile printing platform, professional services can be developed according to customer needs, providing also pre  and post sales support. The benefit to customers is a more mature product, with fewer risks for Ricoh to breach any Service Level Agreements (SLAs).
• Drive core business sales—RICOH myPrint enables us to drive and improve core business sales because it is aligned with Ricoh’s plans and service lines, allowing us to obtain more long term customers.
• Offer customer-driven solution—with myPrint and Streamline NX together, Ricoh offers a complete mobile printing solution developed and owned by Ricoh. The solution is continually monitored and developed based on the feedback from customers and Ricoh sales companies.
• Differentiate from competitors—myPrint with Streamline NX is a strong differentiator to create a competitive advantage against our competitors such as Konica Minolta, who don’t have their own product but use a similar third party solution.

Case study—Dutch railway

Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS) is the principal passenger railway operator in the Netherlands providing rail services on the main Dutch rail network.

Background

NS developed an application platform on Microsoft Azure for their 8,500 train conductors. All train conductors had the Mijn NS app deployed on their smartphones—to perform tasks such as verifying a traveller’s check in status or viewing the duty roster for the day, and so on.

Challenge

The train conductors wanted to print their individual rosters with a single button on the Mijn NS app and collect them from a multifunction product (MFP) in any of the railway stations.

Solution

NS developed a print button on the Mijn NS app that creates a document containing a conductor’s roster and sends it to the myPrint web Application programming interface (API).
Subsequently, the myPrint server processes the document and sends the print job to the head office’s Follow-You Printing system. The NS train conductors can then collect their rosters from an MFP in any railway station.

Conclusion

RICOH myPrint supports printing from third party solutions using a web API. For the Dutch railway, myPrint eased the daily tasks of 8,500 train conductors and allowed them to print rosters from their smartphones, anytime, anywhere.