Track is an optional, add-on module for EasySpooler that can monitor output, impose quotas, and keep historical statistics of past usage. With it, the Track administrator can automatically
Maintain usage statistics for printed documents by destination, user, and department
Monitor output on a daily and hourly basis and track the output by destination, user, department, and the system as a whole
Set and enforce quotas for individual users and departments
Track must run on the EasySpooler server. This server becomes the Track host. After you purchase the Track module and enter the license key on the Track host, you can set up a Track administrator through the EasySpooler security system and then activate Track. The Track administrator can chart and export Track data, as well as configure Track. You can also set up a user who can view Track information. See Roles and Capabilities for more information.
Quotas
When a destination, user, or department is part of Track, the Track administrator allocates that entity a quota expressed in points. These points, at the discretion of the Track administrator, may be equivalent to pages, dollars, cents, or any other unit meaningful to your organization. Track does not count separator (banner) pages against the quota. The Track administrator may exempt any user or destination from the quota system.
CAUTION: If the data type of a document is set to binary, the entire document counts as one point. If certain users or departments in your organization print binary documents, you may want to take this into account when you set quotas.
The following actions count against the quota allotment for a user or group. Quota allotments should be sufficient to allow for these activities.
Spooling a document via the Web UI, llp, or llpd
Reactivating a document
Moving a document from one destination to another, when the target destination charges more points per page than the source destination
Receiving a document from an external host
A quota allotment is good for a certain time period, at the end of which it is either reallocated or accumulated. If reallocated, the points remaining from the last period are replaced with a new quota for the next period. If accumulated, the points remaining from the last period are rolled over and added into the quota for the next period. The setting in the parameter Allow rollover determines whether or not the quota allotment is reallocated or accumulated.
The allotment period may be by day, week, or month. EasySpooler starts (allocates) the allotment period for a user or a department when you add that user or department. It measures the allotment period from the last allocation date, which is visible on the Track Departments list window.
If the allotment period is daily, a new allotment period begins every day. If weekly or monthly, a new allotment period begins on the same day of the week or month as in the initial allotment. However, if the initial monthly allotment started on the 29th, 30th, or 31st day of the month and the next month has fewer days, the new allotment begins on the last day of that month. EasySpooler allocates the new quota allotment the first time it accesses the user or department after the previous allotment period ends.
The program that reads the database and monitors usage is lpsquota. It updates the database or reports the quota whenever llp or lpsfilt calls it.
If spool time quota checking is enabled, the spooler (llp) informs Track of the page count for the current document. Track processes the information from llp and grants the right to spool if the page count is below the quota. If the count is above the quota, it either refuses the right to spool or grants spooling.
On the basis of the message that Track returns, llp does one of the following:
Rejects the document outright
A document that is put in a delete pending state is marked for deletion with a default save time of three hours. A document that is rejected, is marked for deletion with a default save time of 15 seconds.
If Track rejects a document or places it on hold, the administrator can set up automatic email notifying the user that his points used would be over quota if a particular document were printed. For more information, see Email Notifications.
The filter program (lpsfilt) connects with Track to accomplish the following:
Inform Track of character and page usage for the printer
Track processes the lpsfilt-delivered user and device data and grants permission to print the document, put it on hold, delete it, or reject it. If the document is printed, lpsfilt instructs lpsquota to update the user’s print balance.
For more information on lpsquota, see the section on lpsquota in Chapter 2 of the EasySpooler Developer’s Guide.
After you configure Track and use it for a while, you may want to configure the time that you wait for a response from the Track host. You can configure wait time by changing the setting for the parameter track_timeout in the global tuning parameters. The default is 15 seconds. If you increase the time, you may increase the accuracy of the Track data, but slow performance. If you decrease the time, you may increase performance, but decrease accuracy under heavy volume.
A related parameter, track_timeout_action, allows you to set the action to take if the Track host does not respond to attempts to contact it when a document is being spooled or printed. Choices are accept (process the document), hold (place the document on hold), delete (move the document to the inactive queue), and reject (delete the document immediately). The default is accept.
You can change track_timeout and track_timeout_action on the Miscellaneous tab on the Global Tuning page. For instructions on changing these parameters, see the section Track Activation.
Continue to Getting Started.