Manage Your Printing Environment with Web Jetadmin 10.0 - HP’s Enterprise Printing Blog -
Manage Your Printing Environment with Web Jetadmin 10.0

Rick Aldinger
WW Business Development Manager for HP’s Imaging & Printing Group

When you work for HP, you meet a lot of people from different industries, disciplines and walks of life.  And when you’re fortunate enough to have an authentic conversation, to be able to ask pointed questions, to listen, and to get answers about what is important to customers, you learn a lot about them as individuals, what works for their business, and just as importantly, what doesn’t work.

HP recently had conversations with more than 100 of our best enterprise customers. And what we heard time and again is you want us to talk with you; that you want us to get to know your business -- to become a partner in making your business better, more efficient, and more profitable by solving problems.

I am not sure how many of you are familiar with managing your printers or even if you want to know. (It’s OK, most business people don’t think about printers unless there’s a problem. The printers just work, and there’s no need to really manage them. After all, they are printers, right?)  Well, I’m not sure your business really has that luxury anymore.

I have found out talking with customers that usually there is someone in your organization struggles with the complexity of printing (MFPs, color control, security, standardized configurations, to name a few), and that someone works hard to understand how many printers you have, or the types of printers, or how those assets are utilized or if they can be remotely configured, and how to troubleshoot the printers remotely.

I would like to share with you best practices, tips and ways to help you solve these problems and make printing an asset and competitive advantage for your business. A good first step is to share how HP can help you manage your printing environment.

It starts with a printing software solution called Web Jetadmin. It’s been around for 10 years now, and we just recently introduced a new version that takes printer fleet administration and management to an all new level. Web Jetadmin 10.0 comes with robust new features for remote deployment, problem reporting and resolution, proactive management, enhanced security and supplies management, and integration with MS Active Directory Services.

The early reviews of Web Jetadmin 10.0 that I’ve seen have been very positive. And while good reviews are good news, it’s more important for me – and HP -- to hear that this release will make a big difference in someone’s business. I have good news there too: My phone has been ringing steadily with customers calling to find out more about this software.

HP Web Jetadmin 10.0 has all the benefits of Web Jetadmin 8x, but with added features that make it even easier to work with. Users can now:

  • Drag and drop printers to a group
  • Right click to perform a wide range of tasks (including adding a device to a group, start a configuration, set alerts, and more)
  • Easily resize screens
  • Utilize wizards and searchable help functions

And these features just scratch the surface of what this revamped tool can do, but more importantly is what Web Jetadmin 10.0 will do to improve your company’s bottom line. Over the next few months, I’d like to talk with you about what these new benefits can do for managing your enterprise printers and more specifically, what they mean for you in your daily work life.

(But if you want to start today, you can learn more about HP's Print & Imaging Management Solution, on HP Web Jetadmin, where you will find all kinds of information about our current solution, whitepapers, training schedules, and more.)

Please use the comment link below to ask me questions about Web Jetadmin or to let me know what printing issues you’d like to talk about in this blog. I look forward to you joining the conversation!

Blogger Rick Aldinger is Worldwide Business Development Manager for HP’s Imaging & Printing Group, Print Management Solutions.


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Posted 05-25-2007 5:26 PM by Anonymous
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Comments

mrskiho@gmail.com wrote Re: Manage Your Printing Environment with We
on 07-24-2007 11:45 AM
Hello, WJA looks realy improved since last ver.8 How many printers is able to manage with v10? I have an issue: I have a firmware of printers stored in Repository of WJA, but when trying to install new fw to printers, WJA doesn't see any firmware in own repository and says "everything is up to date" or says "invalid data". I set up credentials on my printers (HP 3800n) via WJA, this part (permissions) should be ok. Many thanks for reply. Mrski
HPBangkok wrote Re: Manage Your Printing Environment with We
on 08-01-2007 11:38 PM

Thanks for your comment.

We have not hit any limits at this time. We have tested with 16,000 printers and one copy of HP WJA 10x. I just returned from another site and we discovered close to 20,000 printers with one copy of WJA. When running that many devices you will want to make sure you are using a powerful enough server, at least 2.4ghz with 2GB of memory. Keep in mind, HP WJA 10x will take advantage of a dual processor and additional memory.

With reference to the firmware & repository, I have tried it out on our versions and have not duplicated the problem. If you are still seeing an issue you can contact HP Support at 1-800-HP-Invent.

tinab@as.aaa.dk wrote Re: Manage Your Printing Environment with We
on 08-28-2007 11:52 AM
I have a similar problem with my repository at version 10, I just get an error when trying to uodate, no description of it. did you get your problem solved?
techinfo wrote Re: Manage Your Printing Environment with We
on 10-08-2007 2:38 PM
WJA 10 is extremely disapointing and from what i hear it should not have been released in it's current state. I have 150 printers that i have applied alerts to. It is extremely slow when discovering alerts. the first 30 rusn through quick but gets slower the more you apply I was also told not to use the critical alerts as this slows it down even more. You guys are not tellign the full story of how botched this release was
enterprise_printing_team wrote Re: Manage Your Printing Environment with We
on 10-10-2007 2:32 PM

Techinfo, thank you for your comment.

We were notified by a customer last week of a performance issue when subscribing to alerts through the support process. This was the first time we had heard about a problem with alerts. We have identified the problem and are working on a solution that should be available in the next upcoming service patch release. One of the work arounds we are recommending is to break up the subscription process to smaller groups; this should help with performance.

If this is not the problem you are experiencing, please contact our support line as quickly as possible so that we can better understand the issues and provide a fix if needed.

mmhgarcia wrote Re: Manage Your Printing Environment with Web Jetadmin 10.0
on 01-12-2008 1:48 AM
Hello, I bought 01 laserjet HP4350dtn I want to work with eforms, macros, overlays, RAW PCL What application can i use ?? Where can i find/buy it ?? Thank You
enterprise_printing_team wrote Re: Manage Your Printing Environment with Web Jetadmin 10.0
on 01-23-2008 10:27 PM

Hi mmhgarcia. Thanks for your question.

Basically, forms can be designed within a standard editor, e.g. Microsoft Word or Lotus AmiPro. After designing a form, selecting Print to File from the printer driver will convert the print job so that it can be downloaded to the printer as a macro. The form/macro needs an ID and also needs to be stored in the appropriate folder on the device so that it can be called by the printer.

You can use a tool like HP Web Jetadmin 8.1 and the Device Storage Manager plug-in to get the form, macro, etc onto the device. The following link will provide you with information on how the Device Storage Manager plug-in works: http://www.hp.com/bizsupport/wja/live/manual/8.1/installs/wja-device-storage-manager.pdf . You can also go to www.hp.com/go/webjetadmin and click on the HP Web Jetadmin 8.1 documentation link to read more about the application the various plug-ins that are available with HP Web Jetadmin 8.1. The ability to manage the forms and fonts will be added to HP Web Jetadmin 10.0 later this year.

Another option is to do this manually using PCL http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/bpl13210/bpl13210.pdf. The PCL guide will also talk about how to invoke the macro, so it would be a good document to have on hand if this person is wanting to create their own and perform a lot of the heavy lifting.

There are also third party solutions like EuroForm's Forms & Font Manager Solution http://www.euroform.com/english/eforms/ or Capella's Technologies FormPort server http://www.hpgsc.com/solutionview.cfm?solutionid=417 that can help create and store the macro, form or font.

Please let me know if this answers your question.

jwoodfield@rwater.com wrote Re: Manage Your Printing Environment with We
on 02-27-2008 2:39 PM
I noticed that the version 10 device storage management will not be added until later this year. Do you have a target date ? It appears that this option does not work in version 8.1. The only printer we can get version 8.1 to work with is a Color Laserjet 5500. If we utilize it to manage a 4300 or 9000 series, all we receive is error in the list where the macros are listed. Version 7.6 works perfectly.
enterprise_printing_team wrote Re: Manage Your Printing Environment with We
on 03-05-2008 4:51 PM
Thanks for your question. The Device Storage Manager Plug-In for WJA 10x will be supported in a future release. We are not aware of any existing problems with the Device Storage Manager Plug-In and WJA 8.1. If you are experiencing a problem, please contact the HP Customer Support: http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/contact_us.html
Doug Fanning wrote re: Manage Your Printing Environment with Web Jetadmin 10.0
on 06-12-2008 9:51 PM

I stumbled across this site looking for answers regarding Device Storage Manager availability in wja 10.  I second the remark that DSM in 8.1 does not work--it has never worked for me.

I have used the venerable HP Resource Manager instead to assign IDs to fonts and macros and successfully store them on laserjets.  We currently are using a number of LJ4250  printers.  (BTW, thank you, thank you, for incorporating CompactFlash cards in these printers!!!)  We store form overlays for invoices and statements that we generate in MS Word and merge with data printing from our Unix backend server.  We also incorporate Material Safety Data Sheets that are stored as macros on the printers.

Alas, I cannot get HP Resource Manager to discover any printers in Vista.  How is it that an ancient (by technology standards) program like HPRM can achieve something that Web Jetadmin cannot--or won't?

Stefan Mueller wrote re: Manage Your Printing Environment with Web Jetadmin 10.0
on 08-21-2008 8:41 AM

The Device Storage Manager 8.1 only worked correct for me when the Java VM was activated for Internet Explorer.

me wrote re: Manage Your Printing Environment with Web Jetadmin 10.0
on 08-22-2008 1:30 PM

Hi, we scanned our corporate network for printing devices - which worked well. But now we need for all the different brands the plug-ins to really take advantage of wja10. is there somewhere a kind of repository where can get them? (Brother,Canon,Dell .....)

Thanks

murradav wrote re: Manage Your Printing Environment with Web Jetadmin 10.0
on 09-09-2008 3:05 AM

Hi Stefan,

Regarding your question on August 21 about how the Device Storage Manager 8.1 only worked correctly for you when the Java VM was activated for Internet Explorer, here is my answer:

Currently HP Web Jetadmin supports Java version 6 release 3.  We will support Java version 6 release 5 by the end of September.  We are not aware of any problems with DSM and Java; however if your are experiencing problems please call the support center, 1-800-HP-Invent so that the issue can be identified and fixed.

Thanks,

Rick

murradav wrote re: Manage Your Printing Environment with Web Jetadmin 10.0
on 09-09-2008 3:09 AM

Hi,

Regarding the August 22nd question about finding a repository of competitive plug-ins (Brother,Canon,Dell .....), here is my answer:

HP has discontinued the HP Competitor Plug-in program that provides new, non-HP printer/multi-function peripheral (MFP) device support for HP Web Jetadmin software (WJA). Multi-vendor device support remains important to some of our customers and HP WJA continues to manage existing, supported non-HP devices. HP is investigating options to provide non-HP printer/MFP device support utilizing printer management standards. HP WJA 10x will make an attempt to read the standard printer objects that competitors have made available in their devices, today.

Thanks,

Rick

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