PROPELLING PRINTING INTO THE 21ST CENTURYHow the City of Thornton, Colo., Capitalized on an All-in-One Solution for Print, Scan, and Device Management.

Utah performs comprehensive performance audits of its agencies’ printing practices,1 while Kentucky

created a local printing policy to reduce printing expenses due to budgetary shortfalls.2 Several other states have taken similar approaches to contain printing costs.

Printing can be a costly, ongoing expense that is difficult for government agencies to manage — but that doesn’t have to be the case. When they leverage the right printing solution, agencies have the tools to help them realize long-term cost savings and process improvements.

IT leaders in the city of Thornton, Colo., encountered this situation in late 2014 as they searched for a new vendor for their print management operations. The city has more than 1,000 full-time and seasonal employees who need to print, scan, copy, and fax documents. The city’s IT department handles large volumes of printing across multiple devices — and must make the process as seamless as possible.

Scott Tekavec, Thornton’s technology services manager, says the city’s previous printing and scanning solution was cumbersome and didn’t meet staff needs. Thornton put out a bid to find a new vendor and eventu-ally chose Canon’s uniFLOW solution, an all-in-one soft-ware platform for print, scan, and device management.

“We chose Canon’s solution due to the ease of deployment and functionality,” Tekavec says.

uniFLOW offers several features that can benefit local governments, including single-button scanning, security features, the ability to use the solution with third-party devices, data and analytics to track output costs and usage, and a function that routes print jobs

to the appropriate device for additional cost savings. Thornton takes advantage of these features to optimize its print operations.

Smarter Print ManagementuniFLOW features a modular structure that can

support multiple vendors and can be customized to fit each organization’s needs. It acts as the single driver for an organization’s entire printer fleet, allowing employees to print documents from any device on the network. Employees can submit print jobs from their computer, host-based server, and smartphone or tablet using the uniFLOW app, and every print job is held virtually in their personal print queue ready to be released and printed at the device.

The city of Thornton took a hybrid approach to updating its print operations. It integrated uniFLOW with its existing fleet of printers and brought in more Canon devices to replace standalone printers that lacked scanning or copying functions.

“Almost everywhere we’ve implemented a Canon device, it’s been multifunction, so we’ve got copy, print, fax, and scan on almost every device in our organization,” Tekavec says.

According to Tekavec, the implementation went smoothly. “With [Canon’s] expertise, we were able to get the uniFLOW statistics reporting up within 30 days of going live with the devices,” he says. “We teamed up to do staggered delivery and deployment, so the process was to remove the old device, install the new Canon device, and add it to uniFLOW. The training was on-site at each device when we deployed it.”

uniFLOW also offers authentication features where employees can use either a card login, PIN code or job code, username, or password at each print device to retrieve their job. Tekavec says the city hasn’t employed this option, but it does require employees to use their badges or log in if they want to make copies or scan documents.

The user experience for scanning is similar to printing. Employees can use uniFLOW to scan documents from the Canon imageRUNNER ADVANCE, a multifunction color printer and copier that automates workflows and streamlines document capture, output, and information management. A document can be scanned and converted to a Microsoft Word file and employees can also choose how they’d like to export their document, including sending it to Microsoft SharePoint and OneDrive, Google

“We chose Canon’s solution due to the ease

of deployment and functionality.”

Scott Tekavec, Technology Services Manager, City of Thornton, Colorado

2

Drive, Box, or other options. Tekavec says with uniFLOW the city was able to configure all its scanning capabilities into one device so when employees log in they automatically receive their scan by touching one button.

“The unexpected benefit of the configuration of tasks down to one button on the device was the biggest surprise out of the solution,” Tekavec adds. “Scan to folder, scan to home drive, and scan to myself are huge hits with our organization. uniFLOW was the best solution for us. It’s really saved a lot of time.”

Enhanced Security and SavingsOne of local governments’ greatest responsibilities is

to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars. uniFLOW allows organizations to monitor usage and develop a strategy to save on unnecessary printing costs.

The city of Thornton uses an employee directory to track usage.

“It integrates with Active Directory seamlessly and is a simple way to keep track of who is using the printing and copying resources in the organization,” Tekavec says. “The tracking allows us to monitor specific tasks by the person completing them.”

With uniFLOW, the city can generate reports on usage by device, by group, by user, or by cost center. The reports detail which device is used the most throughout the organization and where spending is the highest. The solution tracks and records all costs, savings, and potential savings, which can occur when uniFLOW routes a print job to a cheaper device or deletes a print job that an employee hasn’t followed through with printing.

“From these reports, if we see something that’s abnormal, we can investigate it,” Tekavec says. “We’ve never had that insight and ability to see the details of what was going on with our print or copy services.”

Security features are another benefit of uniFLOW. The city of Thornton has deployed secure printing as an option in the driver. When implemented, this allows managers, supervisors, and other employees who want to print confidential documents to enter a code to retrieve their document.

uniFLOW also enables IT managers to establish print policies for an organization’s entire network, such as preventing larger jobs from being printed on smaller laser printers, requiring large print jobs over a certain size to

be double-sided, and helping to prevent unauthorized devices from accessing the system. In the event of business disruptions or network issues, uniFLOW can be configured to process transactions locally which helps ensure business continuity.

The uniFLOW solution has driven great results for the city of Thornton. Not only has the city implemented security features within its print network, it has also reduced its cost per copy. Thornton also upgraded its entire fleet to a color environment without exceeding its budget.

More importantly, the city’s employees are happy with the new system.

“The devices are super reliable. We don’t have that weekly call to service to get the device repaired. That is huge for us,” Tekavec says. “They are also user-friendly. The single-touch buttons we’ve been able to program using the uniFLOW configuration have saved time and allowed employees to get back to tasks that directly serve our mission.”

Endnotes1. https://le.utah.gov/audit/12_12rpt.pdf 2. https://technology.ky.gov/policy/Pages/CIO-086.aspx

3

“The single-touch buttons we’ve been able to program using the uniFLOW configuration have saved time and allowed employees to get back to tasks that directly serve our mission.”Scott Tekavec, Technology Services Manager, City of Thornton, Colorado

This piece was developed and written by the Government Technology Content Studio, with information and input from Canon.

© 2 0 1 8 C A N O N S O L U T I O N S A M E R I C A . A L L R I G H T S R E S E R V E D .

Canon U.S.A., Inc. and Canon Solutions America, Inc. do not provide legal counsel or regulatory compliance consultancy, including without limitation, Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, GLBA, Check 21 or the USA Patriot Act. Each customer must have its own qualified counsel determine the advisability of a particular solution as it relates to regulatory and statutory compliance.

Canon products offer certain security features, yet many variables can impact the security of your devices and data. Canon does not warrant that use of its features will prevent security issues. Nothing herein should be construed as legal or regulatory advice concerning applicable laws; customers must have their own qualified counsel determine the feasibility of a solution as it relates to regulatory and statutory compliance.

Some security features may impact functionality/performance; you may want to test these settings in your environment. Neither Canon Inc., Canon U.S.A., Inc. or Canon Solutions America, Inc. represent or warrant any third-party product or feature referenced hereunder. Canon is a registered trademark of Canon Inc. in the United States and elsewhere. All other referenced product names and marks are trademarks of their respective owners and are

hereby acknowledged.

SPONSORED BYPRODUCED BY