Question: What documentation is available to help understand the Reporting feature in HP Web Jetadmin?

Answer:

The White Paper titled Creating Reports and Exporting Data in HP Web Jetadmin is available at http://www.hp.com/go/webjetadmin under Documentation.

Question: What is the difference between the Reporting feature and the Exporting Device Data feature in HP Web Jetadmin?

Answer:

In general, Reporting is used to show historical usage data over time, while Exporting is used to show printer data valid at the time of the export. In certain situations, exporting this raw data from a Device List Layout to a file may be more useful than creating a report. Both methods (Reporting and Exporting) are offered to meet the various needs of our customers.

Question: What are some of the benefits provided by the Reporting feature in HP Web Jetadmin?

Answer:

The Reporting feature allows you to generate reports based on historical data gathered over time (defined as data collections). These reports provide better insight into your print environment and help control costs. They can show color vs. black and white printing usage, simplex vs. duplex usage, media size usage, MFP usage (like Copy, Scan, Digital Send, and Fax usage), toner cartridge usage (including forecasting usage and ordering of supplies), and By-user usage (like who uses color, how often they use it, and what applications they are using).

Question: What general report types are available in HP Web Jetadmin?

Answer:

Report types available are:

• Device Utilization (page counts)
• Supply Utilization (consumables usage)
• Inventory (Devices and Device Accessories)
• Event Log History (Error Log and other events occurring on the printer)
• Printer Usage By User and Application (pages printed and applications used by user)

Question: What is data collection?

Answer:

Data collection is the process used by HP Web Jetadmin to collect usage data from the printer over time. HP Web Jetadmin uses SNMP to communicate with printers when gathering data. Since HP Web Jetadmin’s Reporting feature is based on historical data, multiple data collections must occur before reports can be generated.

Question: What types of data collection does HP Web Jetadmin offer?

Answer:

Matching the report types, the following types of data collection can be enabled:

• Accessory Inventory
• Device Inventory
• Device Utilization
• Device Utilization by User
• Event Log History
• Hourly Peak Usage
• Supply Utilization

Question: How often is data collected from printers?

Answer:

Each data collection type occurs on a daily basis. By default, each enabled data collection type starts the collection process at midnight. Data collection default times can be modified to occur at any time of day (under Tools/Options/Device Management/Reports/Data Collection Times).

Question: What data collection types should be enabled?

Answer:

Since data collection occurs on a daily basis, the types of data collections to enable should be thought through carefully. HP Web Jetadmin uses Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express. This version of SQL Server has a 4GB limitation. To minimize database growth, you should only enable data collection types on devices that provide value to you. For this same reason (and for performance reasons), Device Utilization by User and Hourly Peak Usage data collection types are intended to be used in a limited capacity.

Question: Can the data collection process be redefined to occur at some other interval other than daily (like weekly or monthly)?

Answer:

No. With two exceptions, data collections are defined to occur only on a daily basis. Hourly Peak Usage data collection occurs on an hourly basis and is used to monitor page count usage throughout each day for a small number of printers. Device Utilization by User data collection occurs in real time, triggered by each print job sent to the printer.

Question: Can data collection be launched manually?

Answer:

Yes. On any of the data collection type pages, select the desired devices and then click on the Collect Now button at the bottom of the page.

Question: Can the creation of reports be automated?

Answer:

Yes. Not only can reports be created on-the-fly, they can be scheduled to be created on a regular basis (once, daily, weekly, or monthly). This is useful for example, in creating regular weekly or monthly reports.

Question: How are reports saved and can they be emailed?

Answer:

Once a report is created, it is automatically saved as an HTML file on the HP Web Jetadmin host. It can then be accessed from within HP Web Jetadmin under Reports/Report Generation/Archived Reports. From here, it can be viewed, saved elsewhere in either HTML or CSV format, emailed, or deleted. Not only can reports be archived (whether created on-the-fly or scheduled), they can also be emailed. Either individually-created reports or scheduled reports can be set up to be emailed.

Question: What file-formats are supported for reports?

Answer:

All reports created are archived in HTML format. If a report is either saved manually or emailed, either HTML or CSV formats can be selected.

Question: Will historical data used for reports in HP Web Jetadmin 8.x/7. 8 be migrated when rolling to HP Web Jetadmin 10.x?

Answer:

Yes. Historical data will be migrated, but the migration process may take a long time, depending on the amount of historical data being migrated.

Question: Is it possible to determine when a data collection occurred and whether it was successfully completed on a particular device?

Answer:

Yes. On any of the data collection type pages, columns exist showing First Collected, Last Collected, and Status for each device enabled for that data collection type.

Question: For Device Utilization by User data collection, what applications are monitored for usage when capturing by-user data?

Answer:

Adobe PDF, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Word, and Web pages.

Question: If by-user data is not showing up in a report, what might be the cause?

Answer:

• Only HP printers will show by-user data
• Only printers in a Microsoft Windows environment will show by-user data
• Printers must be using either the HP Universal Printer Driver (UPD) or the HP printer driver specific to that printer
• Printer drivers from the Microsoft Windows Operating System CD/DVD will not provide by-user data
• Printers must support the Job Information Table – used to store details about the print job
• The printer must support the SNMP Trap Destination Table and have an available entry so HP Web Jetadmin can write its IP Address and Port Number (27892) there when the device is subscribed to Device Utilization by User data collection

If any of the above points are not met, page counts will be captured under Anonymous instead of under a particular user.

Question: If I suspect the data in a report to be incorrect or devices are missing, where might I look to verify any issues?

Answer:

Check the Anomalies Log, accessible via the main Data Collection page. Click on the Anomalies button to display the log. The list can be easily sorted by IP Address to help look for suspect devices and the reason why they might be excluded from the report.

Question: Is there a way to view a sample report in order to see what it might look like before actually implementing any Reporting features?

Answer:

Yes. From the main Report Generation page, click the Sample button and follow through the various screens. A sample report will be generated using real-looking data.

Question: After creating a report that includes the data columns for General Office or Professional page counts, what might be the reason why no count values show up under these columns?

Answer:

General Office and Professional are specific color quality page count columns used exclusively by the HP Edgeline Printers (HP CM8060/CM8050 Color MFPs). These two columns do not apply to any other printers.

Question: What does the data column Total Duplex 1 Image represent?

Answer:

Total Duplex 1 Image represents the number of times a page was sent through the printer’s duplexer that resulted in printing on only one side as a result of being the last page of an odd-numbered, duplexed print job. Some printers can determine odd-numbered, duplexed print jobs ahead of time and send the last page through the normal path (non-duplexed) of the printer engine. In this case, the Total Duplex 1 Image count would not increment. Instead, the count would be captured by the Total Simplex count. Total Duplex 1 Image counts only apply to the last page of a document. Not all printers are able to report Total Duplex 1 Image counts. For those that can’t, the last page of an odd-numbered, duplexed print job is captured as a duplexed page count under Total Duplex. The count for Total Duplex 1 Image is included in the count for Total Duplex.

Question: After creating a report, when a data value includes a single asterisk (*) next to it, what does this indicate?

Answer:

A single asterisk (*) occurs next to a data value in a report to indicate the collected data is not complete for the selected time period. For example, if data collection was enabled on a number of devices in the middle of the previous month and then a report was created that included the entire previous month, the page count values for those devices during the previous month would have an asterisk next to them, indicating only a partial month’s worth of data exists for those devices. This format is used to help the user recognize when a value might not be accurate for the time period selected.

Question: Can reports be created for third-party printers?

Answer:

HP Web Jetadmin will use the Standard Printer MIB when trying to gather printer usage information on third-party printers. If the printer responds accordingly, HP Web Jetadmin will be able to show usage values. However, most usage information is in proprietary MIBs, and hence unavailable to HP Web Jetadmin. For most third-party printers, HP Web Jetadmin will be limited to reporting only overall total page counts.

Question: What might be a reason why some selected printers do not appear in a report?

Answer:

If the ‘Exclude devices with no collected data’ option is selected (it is enabled by default) on the ‘Specify report settings’ page, then devices with no data collected for the time period selected will not be included in the report. This option is used to simplify a report by eliminating any devices from the report that have no data to show.

Question: When creating a report and selecting columns to display under Device information, what do the ‘Any Total Count’ columns indicate?

Answer:

These columns indicate the total number of units (as defined by the column title) printed as tracked by the printer engine; this number is the total units printed, which is the equivalent total number of Letter/A4 pages that would have been printed by the printer. Columns for various counts selected under the Device information section indicate overall printer totals, where columns for various counts selected under Report data indicate total counts for the selected time period of the report (last week, last month, etc.).