Understand Color Access Control

Make color printing more manageable & affordable with Color Access Control

» Small & Medium Business

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In this article:
What is Color Access Control? ›
Monitor usage ›
Manage access ›
Track and bill ›
Select an HP printer with Color Access Control ›
Learn more about Color Access Control ›
Learn more ways to save ›

Two women with color printouts
Introduction: Color printing is a great business tool that makes marketing collateral pop and presentations zing. However, it's always important to consider return on investment. HP's Color Access Control lets you easily manage the use—and cost—of color printing in your office.

What is Color Access Control?
Woman using keycard at printer
HP's Color Access Control lets you easily manage the use—and cost—of color printing in your office.
Developed to help you face the unique challenges that come with color printing, HP's Color Access Control (209 KB,PDF) technology and Web Jetadmin software allow you to manage your color printing in a number of ways:
•  Monitor usage: Monitor color printing by user or application.
•  Manage access: Easily control who has access to color printing.
•  Track and bill: Simply bill internal departments—or clients—for color printing.

Monitor usage
Man looking over reports
Trend reports tell you who is printing in color and on which printers.
Knowing who is printing in color and on which printers is the first step to managing your color usage.
Run trend reports and track usage: Use HP Web Jetadmin software to remotely run reports by user, job, or device. Learn which printers are being under-used or overused.
HP Easy Printer Care is another usage tracking option for small to mid-sized businesses and ships with most new HP printers. Discover when users are printing more than necessary.
Use alerts and thresholds:  Use Jetadmin to get centralized, proactive threshold alerts via a Web page view or e-mail so you know when someone is printing more than they should.

Manage access
Hand holding ID up to printer in order to make color copies
A few HP printers allow you to define a PIN that each user needs to use to make color copies.
Marketing teams, graphics departments, and publishing teams in your office may need color printing but finance and IT may not. Now you can choose who can print in color.
You can even centrally manage printers to allow or disallow color printing on any given printer based on user, application, or time of day.
Configure user lists: Using Jetadmin and HP's Color Access Control, selected printers allow for embedded lists of up to 50 users who can print in color (see the printer list below).
Configure application lists: You can also use Jetadmin to create a list of applications that are approved for color printing.
Color copy control: Not every document needs to be copied in color and not everyone needs color copying capabilities. A few printers allow you to define a PIN that each user needs to make color copies (see the printer list below).

Track and bill
Being able to allocate the cost of color printing to a specific client, workgroup, or user and then bill it back accordingly can be a tremendous benefit.
A number of third-party tools are available for use with select HP printers to help organizations with job tracking and billing requirements:
CapellaTech logo CapellaTech Mega Track® Job Accounting: Track network and walk-up printing activity so you can plan budgets, balance printer distribution, calculate costs, and more. Create detailed reports by department, project, printer, and user and have those reports emailed to you at scheduled times.
Pharos logo Pharos Systems solutions: Pharos Uniprint tracks, monitors, measures, routes, and optionally charges for network printing. Pharos Blueprint sits invisibly on client computers monitoring all printing—whether local or network, online or off-line—and feeds this valuable information to a database for analysis and reporting.
Equitrac logo Equitrac: Equitrac provides software and hardware tools that enable you to accurately monitor and measure costs associated with printing, copying, scanning, and faxing.
Software Shelf logo Software Shelf: Software Shelf offers a variety of software tools to help you audit, analyze, restrict, and set quotas for print traffic. Choose from an extensive set of tools to customize your print management solution.

Select an HP printer with Color Access Control

Color Access Control Functions
Monitor usage:
•  Color job usage log
Control usage:
•  Master switch (color turns on/off)
•  Photo slot PIN #
•  Copy PIN #
Monitor usage:
•  Color job usage log
Control usage:
•  Master switch (color turns on/off)
•  By application
•  By user
•  Photo slot PIN # (if needed)
•  Copy PIN #

HP Color LaserJets
•  Color LaserJet CP2025 series
•  Color LaserJet CM2320 series
•  HP LaserJet Enterprise 500 Color M551 series
•  Color LaserJet Enterprise CP4025 series
•  Color LaserJet Enterprise CP4525 series
•  Color LaserJet Professional CP5225 series
•  Color LaserJet CP6015 series
•  Color LaserJet CM3530 Multifunction printer series
•  Color LaserJet CM6040 Multifunction printer series

Learn more about Color Access Control
HP Color Access Control FAQ ›
Color Access Control Step-by-step instructions ›

Learn more ways to save
•  Saving money is great, but so is saving the environment with eco-friendly printing.
•  Learn how using multiple paper trays can save paper and money.
•  Can modular ink help your business save?
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