Document Routing Engine

The Document Routing Engine (DRE) is the print server. Its primary function is to enable document flow from user workstations to output devices such as printers, plotters, or MFPs and capture the document characteristics of all output. Each time a user releases a print job, DRE communicates the job characteristics to CAS.

If there are many printers within your deployment that generate frequent throughput, you may need to deploy multiple DREs. You can designate specific printers to each DRE, balancing the overall load to streamline the data flow.

In a typical DRE workflow. First, a user generates a print request. The DRE intercepts the request before it gets to the printer and “holds” the print job while it waits for a user validation response from CAS. CAS checks its database and either validates the user, or denies the request. The response is sent back to DRE, and the print job is forwarded to the printer if the user was validated. If denied, the user receives a notification message on their desktop (if configured). After the job is printed, the page count and job attributes are forwarded to the CAS database for tracking.

For installations that require secure document printing, you can configure DRE to hold documents in a print queue until the user releases them from a release device. See Enabling Secure Printing for details.

Although DRE is a core component, it is not required in all deployments. DRE manages communications with physical printing devices. If you are only tracking copy transaction on devices with embedded devices (rather than tracking printing), you do not need to install the DRE component.