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Thank you all for joining our AMA today! I'll be locking this event to new questions but you should always be able to see all the questions and answers here on this page, so feel free to bookmark. We will also be following up on any existing threads for follow-up questions. If you have more questions related to Universal Print in Gov feel free to check out the Public Sector Discussion Space here on Tech Community and stay tuned for our follow up blog on this AMA!
- How best can I utilize Universal Printing in a school set up? Is this where I can use PIN for printing so that teachers/students from different departments dont waste paper/ink for other departments? What if the inTune admin is not resident in the school?
- Universal Print offers user access control per printer, so you can limit student access to select printers. To reduce paper/ink waste further, some form of secure release is required. Universal Print offers PIN release option for printers that natively connect to Universal Print. Please refer to https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/universal-print/fundamentals/universal-print-partner-integrations#universal-print-ready-printers to see which brands offer printer models with PIN release support for Universal Print. Alternatively, we are working on a secure release mechanism using QR code scanning with a mobile app. The feature is currently in early preview in the public cloud. Regarding Intune admin question, Universal Print and Intune are both cloud services so the admin can connect from anywhere with Internet access. The only requirement I'm aware of is that the admin will need an user account in the tenant.
- Great stuff, thank you Jimmy! Looking forward to the QR code scanning feature.
- Does logging of print jobs differ from print jobs generated locally on a Windows desktop or routed through a Windows Server? If so, how does it differ? And any cool integrations with Splunk or other trend analysis engines?
- Braeden_Petruk_MSFT
Microsoft
Print reporting is generated in the cloud, so it could differ from what you see in Windows Server. If you look at the licensing page, there's a purple box under "What's included with Universal Print" that describes how we account for print jobs.
We don't currently have integrations with other reporting or analytics software, but we're investigating Azure Monitor integrations for Metrics, Log Analytics, and Alerts. This integration would also make it possible to stream events to another service like Splunk if desired.
We'll keep the roadmap updated with our progress in this area!
- Just to add on, UP has a number of partner integrations that can help flesh out the solution for release management, pin, smart cards, etc. like Papercut: https://query.prod.cms.rt.microsoft.com/cms/api/am/binary/RE4J6nt. They can be viewed here for a listing of current providers: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/universal-print/fundamentals/universal-print-partner-integrations. I'll let MSFT speak to Gov availability.
- Braeden_Petruk_MSFT
Thanks for pointing out our partners' great integrations! We don't have any updates to share at this time regarding partner integrations, but please keep an eye out on the roadmap for any updates.
- Can we share administrative rights with organizations within our agency to manage their own printers? (And only their own printers, vs having to centrally manage thousands of printers for tens or hundreds of thousands of users, if this were to be adopted at an agency level.)
- Yes, Universal Print offers a feature called Delegated Admin (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/universal-print/portal/delegated-admin) which uses Azure Administrative Units to configure scoped Print Administrator role rights to specific users/groups. The feature is currently in preview in the public cloud with GA coming soon.
- I posted my comment as a reply to another. I'll post here for greater visibility. May conditional access policies be applied to the use of Universal Print? Will universal print be shown as an Enterprise App in azure and selectable when creating a CAP?
- Braeden_Petruk_MSFT
Universal Print doesn't support Conditional Access yet, but it's on our radar! Can you please upvote the related idea?
Also, if you can explain a bit more about what you're trying to achieve/restrict using Conditional Access, there may be another way to accomplish it.
- In a previous comment, it was mentioned the inability to restrict device-level access for Intune managed devices. Typically we restrict access to various applications for only Intune managed devices. What "Internet network connectivity control" would be required to restrict device-level access to universal print?
- Can the universal print connector support USB printers? And are there any plans to offer it for OSs other than Windows?
- Braeden_Petruk_MSFT
With some exceptions (like PDF printers), the connector supports most printers that are visible on the machine installed, including USB printers.
We also made a sneak-peek announcement about our upcoming macOS support in the recent business model blog post:
The native integration of Universal Print with macOS preview is expected in June 2023 and will empower macOS users to print from any app, just like Windows users can do today. Whether people are on Windows or macOS, they will have a seamless, no learning-curve print-experience. Organizations benefit from the simplicity of a single print solution for all users.
Apologies - I was unclear with that second question. I was asking if the connector service will stay a Windows-only thing. Easy to imagine some organizations slapping a Raspberry Pi on a dated but reliable or specialized printer, and have heard other companies pitching that capability. (Edit to clarify: Planning to port the Universal Print Connector Service to Linux or macOS?)
- How are print jobs stored/transmitted in the cloud? In regards to GCC O365 tenants, are jobs stored/processed/transmitted in the O365 tenant or through Azure's public cloud? Is there any TLS termination in the cloud for the print jobs from MS to the universal print connector? Bottom line, would like to better understand how print jobs are handled through universal print to ensure the data handling satisfies our company's requirements.
- For GCC environment, Universal Print service runs in the same environment as GCC O365, where both the processing and data storage is within the GCC environment. The user authentication is using Azure AD public cloud, which is the same as GCC O365. The storage service used by Universal Print is the same storage service used by O365. All data connections between client to Universal Print; printer or Connector to Universal Print; micro services in between the cloud services are all TLS1.2 encrypted. For additional info please refer to https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/universal-print/fundamentals/universal-print-encryption
- Fantastic. Thank you very much!
- Does Universal Print support PIN code to release print jobs on the printer?
- Yes, but needs a Universal Print ready printer that supports the feature. The user has the option to use the feature. Admin doesn't have capability to enforce users to use PIN to print. To provide feedback, please add at: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/universal-print-feature-requests/idb-p/UniversalPrintFeatures And to see a list of Universal Print ready printers, please check at: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/universal-print/fundamentals/universal-print-partner-integrations
- Will the release cadence of new features in Universal Print differ significantly from commercial? And speaking of new features: Is there a clear path ahead to expanding mobile printing outside of the limited web experience of select Office apps? (Printing from M365 mobile apps, or at an OS-layer on InTune protected mobile devices)
- Rachelle_CheungWe are looking into expanding to mobile printing outside of the web experience, but no ETA at this time.
- Are other Microsoft product teams being tasked with adding integration with other mobile Office apps? The mobile web UX can be difficult to access with the MFA requirements in place at my agency, but the mobile apps are very reliable. A simple option to print from Outlook and OneDrive from iOS and Android would go a long way.
- Rachelle_CheungWe are aiming to have feature parity with Universal Print in commercial and in Gov. However, the cadence may be different if there is any additional work needed to keep our service compliant for Gov.
