Users love to have simple, visual ways to find network resources. Administrators like them as well, when it reduces the time they have to spend configurung end user workstations and tend more to the server side issues.

How this works is that the IPP uses an IIS web page to show print queues and install print drivers on workstations by clicking on URL’s. It is simple to use in itself, however for end users they typically do not know the name of the printers on the network which they need to connect. As an admainistrator you can simplfy this process of installing print drivers and setting up print queues for end users and management thinks it the next best thing in IT.

In order to do this you will need to:

  1. Enable IPP (Internet Printing Protocol) on your Windows Server.
  2. Obtain, or create, a simple layout of the building or floor in which your users work.
  3. Use an image editing program to place printer icons, and device labels, on the building map.
  4. Copy each print device link from the the IPP printer web page, and use them to enable image map hot spots on the building layout graphic. (YOu can do this in FrontPage or almost any WYSIWYG HTML editor.)
  5. Save the image file and the HTML page to an internal web server. This can even be saved on the print server that you have IPP enabled on.
  6. Have the user click on the printer icon on the map to install the driver and print queue on the workstation.

If you have an existing Intranet such as SharePoint or another custom intranet site, place a link to the printer map you created on the intranet in an easy to find location for the users. If you have multiple locations, you can create muiltiple printer maps and place a links to the different pages on the intranet. For example you might have a link to “LA Office Printers”, “Denver Office Printers”, “Chicago Office Printers”. This keeps things simple for users that may travel from office to office as well.
This can be a time consuming process if you need to create the office layout from scratch, but try and start with somehting simple to test the pages with and disciver how much the maps will be used.