University of Minnesota - Department of Geology and Geophysics - printing to networked printers in Pillsbury Hall

This page is still incomplete
Can't print? Check out the printing problems page.

In order to track printing costs within the department of Geology and Geophysics, the Department recently bought a new piece of software known as Printing Accounting Server, or PAS. This software will make it considerably easier to track printing costs to facilitate charging printing costs back to users and/or grants, and eliminate some of the printing which is being done by those unassociated with the Department or its affiliates.

All users intending to print to the printers will have to get a Windows NT account, and with that the user will automatically receive a PAS account. In order to receive an account, each user will have to sign a copy of the Computer Acceptable Use Policy, which not only includes policies for using the computing facilities on the University of Minnesota campuses and in the Department, but also includes useful information.

Information for printing specifically from Macintosh computers and Windows computers is available.

Fall 2000 will be a trial period for this process. The goal is to gather data on the printing patterns in the department, and to work out the bugs and glitches which invariably result in implementing a new system.

Each job sent will be associated with a username, and a PAS Billing Code. If no Billing code is given, the job will be charged to the user's personal account.

For the most part, the Billing Codes will mirror the CUFS system, so jobs which are associated with a project or a grant should be charged to a CUFS number attached to that grant. Departmental and Teaching accounts will also be available for those who have the need to print to them.

During the trial period, users will be able to input their own CUFS numbers. At the end of the period these will be passed by the accountants, and CUFS numbers which will be used for printing will have the correct objects added to them if they don't already have them.

Each user will have a certain amount of "free" prints each term, and this number will be partially determined by how this trial period goes. This trial period will also help determine how much printing will cost on each of the printers. So the prices listed at the top of this page are very subject to change.

Detailed reports can be generated by PAS for Billing Codes, Printers, or Usernames.

The method of purchasing more prints when one's "free" prints are gone is also to be determined. The current plan:

Once a user's prints are used up, they can purchase new prints in pre- determined amounts (probably $10 a pop) from the accountants, much like buying printing cards in the IT labs.

Other ideas can be presented to System Administrator, or presented to other members of the Computer Committee.