Paper Problems
The problem seems pedestrian. Tied to an earlier decade, if not an earlier millennia. Yet almost all of us, each month, if not each week, encounter a somewhat sinister problem: someone wants something printed out on paper. Are schools still doing this? Yes. Law firms? You bet. And let's not forget most doctor offices just aren't there, yet. Most of my conversations go like this:
"Can't I just send an email, or even a SMS?"
"No."
"What about a digital signature? Or we chat on Teams, like we're doing...now?"
"Nope. We need a signed document for our records."
"Why can't I sign it digitally and then you print it out?"
"No, it has to come physical."
Even writing these words causes my stress levels to rise. In 2022, the thought that someone would need a piece of paper for authorization, or to prove something, seems so outdated. So outdated, in fact, that as recently as five years ago, many home workers began to throw away their old inkjet printers. The cost of ink and paper, the inevitable failures when needed and the increasingly few times those needs occurred combined to turn inkjets into a version of an old pickup truck: beloved by friends looking to borrow it, but too expensive to keep bringing back to the shop. And after all - if you really needed to print something, why not just do so at the office on the fast, reliable laser printers?
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Of course, the last couple years put those decisions in a new light - with large swaths of workers moving to a remote model, the ability to even come back to the office meant some printer pain when the inevitable request came up. And as organizations began to move their office infrastructure to the cloud, the entire concept of keeping a "server" sitting in a closet, solely to manage folks access to a printer, seemed anachronistic. The old days of "printer queues" being needed to be managed, and the near constant hum of a printer (let alone a copier!) in use aren't coming back to the office regardless of the global health situation.
Having said all this, it has only been a few months since Microsoft has enabled a feature to allow folks to solve most of these printer infrastructure problems including:
The solution is called "Universal Print" and although very much focused on a piece of infrastructure most would like to forget - it enables a truly modern experience for staff across your organization.
First, let's address the elephant in the room: it does require a modern printer that has been updated by the manufacturer. But although every major manufacturer has started to roll out this functionality over the past two years - if you do happen to have an unsupported printer, you still have a solution - you just need a device located on the same network that you can install the Universal Print Connector onto. No need for a server - it can be any desktop. And you don't need to be a powerful global administrator to accomplish this task - anyone with the Azure AD role of "printer admin" can add new printers to the mix and manage them.
Because Microsoft is hosting the Universal Print portal - as long as the printer (or connector) can reach the internet, anyone who has been assigned to use it can print directly to it. This solves a variety of interesting use cases that previously were hard to manage - from folks using Windows 365 virtual desktops, to web applications being able to print from the browser - you no longer need something *attached* to your device to be able to print to it. This has the added benefit of eliminating the need for print drivers as well as print servers in offices. Even better, you can tie universal printers to location based services - so folks who are back on the road can simply print from the local printer without having to "install" something each time they go into a different office.
The connection to Universal Print is secured via https - but it also doesn't require any sort of VPN, meaning less network complexity and ultimately, an easier experience for folks who may not even have a traditional Active Directory identity. For many organizations that had already moved to Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365 for their core collaboration and business scenarios, the last remaining piece of physical infrastructure in their offices were servers setup purely to manage print queues. With Universal Print, even large organizations can shut those servers down, allowing pure Microsoft Cloud scenarios and instantly shrinking their attack surface. What used to only be an option for the smallest of organizations - being cloud-native, can now be done at scale.
Universal Print just hit General Availability in March - which means that many infrastructure folks haven't wrapped their heads around it yet. And because it's included in the popular Microsoft 365 E3 license at no additional cost - folks likely can start using it as soon as it is provisioned. And as every admin knows from the bad old days of printer management, the last thing you want is an office of folks, freshly returned, angry that their printers aren't working. It is a solid bet that implementing Universal Print now, before everyone shows back up, will reduce pain across the organization.