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Students have found the journey of printing out assignments, papers and other important information has become extremely difficult for no reason at Winona State University (WSU). Before, the process was attempting to add a printer on a computer. This year, an email was sent out at the beginning of the year explaining that the system was being switched, but if students didn’t flag or read that email, they were in for a big and challenging surprise.
Follow Me Print is the new printing software that WSU has switched over to. Steve Heftman, who co-implemented this system and is a member of the tech support offices, spoke on why the switch happened and what it means for students.
“We found a solution that was expandable, user friendly, and kind of bulletproof for down the road,” Heftman said. “It’s kind of the industry standard as well.”
Heftman explained that the old system, Print Manager Plus, has become obsolete in the field. This combined with the benefits of the Follow Me Print system was the reason for the switch.
There’s also a variety of technical aspects to the new system as well. Students can release multiple prints in one transaction, the university can gather data on what printers are needed where and adjust accordingly and graduate and bring-your-own device students can seamlessly use the platform to print on campus and reduces paper costs.
“In the last month, we had 54,000 pages that were never printed,” Heftman said.
However, the tech support office is not unaware of some of the pushbacks the system has received. But they hope that the benefits of the new system and the student body acclimating to it will provide more positive feedback, ultimately resulting in a better printing experience for everyone.
“I know it’s been a little frustrating for some of the upperclassmen in that before you could just hit print, pick the printer, and it would pop out,” Heftman said. “We wanted to allow the students to be able to just print off of a one print queue.”
However, many students, including upperclassmen, said they thought that Follow Me Print was fine, or even better than the old one.
“I thought the old system was much slower, and I think others feel the same,” Nicholas Fryer, a third-year student, said. “I really love Follow Me Print because it’s all Wi-Fi based printing. It’s a way more productive system and it’s so fast!”
There have been cases of bugs or system malfunctions in the Follow Me Print system, but this is a common occurrence when this type of switch is engaged. Heftman highlighted some tricks for students to use if they are having troubles.
“One of the nice things about Follow Me Print is that you can use your phone or your laptop so it’s available for multiple devices,” Heftman said. “It’s not just if one way doesn’t work you can’t do it, you can certainly come up to tech support (Somsen 207) or call in and we’re more than happy to help.”
