› Equitrac › Introduction › Supporting components › Workstation Client › Direct IP Printing (DRC)

Direct IP Printing (DRC)

The DRC component of the Workstation Client is intended to provide DRE printing behavior for sites that prefer to print via direct IP printing instead of to a print server. A physical device appears in Web System Manager the first time a workstation prints using DRC. A single physical device is created for each printer regardless of how many DRC clients are printing to it. As other DRC clients print to the same printer, additional ports and print queues associated with each workstation name appear under the same physical device. This is repeated for each printer accessed by a DRC client. Reporting is the same as if they had printed to DRE printers.

On startup, DRC sends version information to CAS, and reports when a new printer is added on the workstation. When printing, DRC calls CAS to validate the transaction and to post the transaction results.

Features:

  • DRC has all the same capabilities as DRE
  • Tracks the same print attributes as DRE
  • Supports the same rules as DRE
  • Rules can re-direct print jobs to DRE printers
  • Holds jobs for secure release on the user’s workstation
  • Can pull jobs to any printer in the pull group
  • Supports the same workstation popup features as DRE (billing code, cost preview, interactive rules)
  • Works on Windows workstations and Mac workstations (there are no interactive rules on Mac)

DRC is managed the same as any other device in System Manager. Go to System Manager > Devices > Workstation Devices to select and configure the DRC clients. To minimize network traffic, configuration changes in System Manager are not immediately reflected on the workstations. On startup, each DRC synchronizes its cache with CAS if the DRC cache does not exist or is older than 24 hours. To prevent all of the workstations from synchronizing at the same time, automatic synchronization occurs according to a random time schedule between midnight and 6 AM. The cache contains configuration settings from System Manager for each Direct IP printer used by the workstation. Cache synchronization has the potential to send the largest amount of data. The size is dependent upon such things as the printer name, number of rules, and so on. To manually force an immediate synchronization, go to System Manager > Diagnostics > Software, select one or more workstations, and then select Force cache update from the list.

DRC print tracking appears the same as DRE printing, but more printers are listed when reporting by print queue instead of physical device.

This only applies to Windows direct IP printing. DRC cannot function as a print server since rules to re-direct to another DRC is not supported. If the printer is shared, and a job is printed through the share from another machine, the job prints, but it is not tracked, and rules are not applied.