MDC: MyQ X Desktop Client

Hello everyone, maybe you remember MyQ 8.2 introduction couple months back when we highlighted several game changers. Let's have a look at one of the game changers now in detail. I am Michal Gerepl, chief business development officer at MyQ, and I will tell you more about the MyQ Desktop Client.

It is a successor of previous services which were integrated in MyQ. MyQ Desktop Client or MDC actually substitutes the print server in several situations. It can be home-based users, remote locations, or remote locations with limited connectivity or that are being temporary offline. MyQ Desktop Client, or "MDC", is actually a client application which can run on Windows or macOS. It replaces Smart Job Manager and Smart Print Services that've been available in MyQ for a long time.

This version brings more improvements and integrates these two features into one. MDC also substitutes the print server when it's not available or when it's actually not suitable to have it installed in a specific office or in a specific environment.Let's have a look at the first scenario:

Home-based users. We'd like to react to the current trends and situation where many people are located in their homes outside the network. Actually, they are required to work as if they were in the office. In this situation, we'd like to offer perfect, 100% solution which covers all the printing management/printing jobs they would like to do.

With MDC installed on the PC, users can: Print, the job is accounted for in a very high detail, the job policies are applied, the user can select before printing, if he wants to assign the job to a specific project or to a cost center, whatever the quota or credit applies. The behavior is almost the same as if the user was sitting in the office, connected directly to the print server. Plus, MDC can work next to the network devices also on the USB or LPT connected devices.

The user's PC has to be connected to the print server at least via VPN. The jobs are spooled completely locally, there is no large data transfer between MDC and the print server. The second option where MDC can be used are the small offices. If the office is quite small and it's not feasible to install the print server in the environment, as it's quite small or doesn't make sense, because it operates only few users and there are few devices.

In such situation, MDC installed on each of the users' PC substitutes the print server fully. MDC installed on every PC or laptop can pretty nicely substitute the behavior of the print server. The jobs are still spooled locally, so there is no large data transfer between the remote-located PCs and the print server. At the same time, the metadata transfer is covered, so the print server knows the details about the print jobs. Users can work as if the print server was normally installed in the environment.

Users' PCs have to be connected with the print server at least via VPN. Pool printing is available. Even though MDC's are installed without the print server in the branch, users just simply get to the device use a card or a PIN code to authenticate and get these prints done. Users can do the very similar stuff as the home-based users. Plus, when there are more devices in the environment, pull print is available, but it also allows users to select a fallback printer, in the case that one of the devices is unavailable.

The last option how MDC can be used are remote sites that are getting offline or that are not connected well to the print server. The connection is weak, the bandwidth is very low or the site is getting offline. That can happen. And in this case, MDC should work fully independently on the print server.

How does it work? The site is getting disconnected, but MDC somehow substitutes the work of the print server, so for some period of time users can still use the project selection, accounting groups, or cost centers, the credit quota applied for some time. If the gap is too long and the disconnection is not only temporary, then MDC is working just in a limited mode. But still, MDC monitors all the print jobs, so the accounting is still very precise.

MDC knows whether the job is simplex, duplex, color, black and white, or how many pages are being created. All the information gets synchronized with the print server, when it gets online. Thank you very much for listening. In the case you are interested, please download MDC from our website and enjoy the best of it!