Item: Vasion Print
Rating: 9
Author: Bruce Carter

Overall Satisfaction with Vasion Print

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use PrinterLogic/Vasion Print to manage, distribute and install printer drivers for a variety of departments and locations. Many of our departments are dispersed around campus in different buildings, and we need to have faculty and staff set up to print to wherever their preferred or closest location is . PrinterLogic/Vasion Print takes a lot of end user consulting time out of the picture by automating the printer setup process. This frees up departmental as well as core consultants and engineers for more technical or enterprise oriented project work.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Repository of printer drivers for departmental and unit printers
Easily update configurations and drivers
Can be installed to end user systems by our MDM system
Centralizes location of drivers and configurations
Removes necessity for tech support to install drivers manually

Cons

We would like to move all of our print accounting into Vasion Print, but there are some features we use in Pharos that Vasion is still building out.
The repository can get a little unwieldy if too many people are adding drivers. An internal check to see if a driver for a particular printer is already available would be a nice feature.
Direct authenticated release of print jobs from the printer device would be a nice feature.

Most Important Features

Driver installation for non-technical users
Consistent configurations
Easy update mechanism
Excellent support team

Return on Investment

Large reduction in waste printing
Significant freeing of technical resources from needing to do manual installs
Live evaluation of where higher or lower capacity is needed
Centralized administration function
Reduced load on Help Desk to route printing issues to local tech support

Usability

Vasion Print does everything that we want it to do with driver and configuration management and they are expanding their feature set such that we may be able to migrate our accounting as well. As it stands, we are supporting two printing related infrastructures, Pharos for authentication and accounting, and Vasion Print for driver installation and management.

Print Management Impact

We no longer have to support unit or college print servers, that function is centralized. We also don't have to troubleshoot failed or incorrect driver installations due to user error or misunderstanding of how to install drivers. We also only have to update one central location, which can update all of the endpoints automatically instead of having to do this individually with a tech call.

Alternatives Considered

Vasion Print was already selected before I became an engineer in this group, so I don't have any insight into the previous situation. I do know that there were a LOT of Help Desk calls around printing because that is why a project was initiated in the first place to try to find a solution to this problem. It was burning up a lot of Help Desk and deskside support time.

Key Insights

Do you think Vasion Print delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Vasion Print's feature set?

Yes

Did Vasion Print live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Vasion Print go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Vasion Print again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Pharos Uniprint, Okta, Xcode, Jamf Pro, Jamf Connect, AllSight, CrashPlan, Parallels Desktop for Mac, Webex Calling, VMware Fusion, Slack, Apple Remote Desktop, macOS, Microsoft 365

Likelihood to Recommend

This is a very easy product to use and was quite straightforward to install and configure. We currently use the printer driver repository function the most heavily as end users in our academic departments access it pretty much every day. It was very easy to load on our endpoints and simplifies the process of getting the proper enterprise printers set up on departmental computers. Their customer support has been very helpful on the few occasions that we have needed to contact them. We currently are in conversation with Vasion about expanding the use of PrinterLogic/Vasion Print and have discussed various ways that it could be integrated with other printing support functions. They have been very interested in our use cases and ideas for building out the features in the product. We are very happy with the product and with the Vasion support and sales teams. The only thing I dislike about PrinterLogic/Vasion Print is that the repository can get a bit large and disorganized at times.

Using Vasion Print

Users and Roles

2000 - Functions all across the university, from students to senior administrators.

Support Headcount Required

2 - These are not full time Vasion Print support positions, but are platform experts on macOS and Windows. We have 1 person supporting the server and application instance.

Business Processes Supported

Supporting administrators
Supporting faculty
Supporting students

Innovative Uses

One side effect that we didn't really expect was reduction in waste print jobs

Future Planned Uses

Accounting
Heat cloud tracking for usage

Likelihood to Renew

It has done everything we needed it to do, and the technical support at Vasion has been very responsive. Most of the staff, faculty, and students are used to it now, and it is quite easy for Endpoint Engineering to support at a fairly low FTE cost. We don't see a compelling reason to change and in fact are looking at managing more aspects of our printing ecosphere through Vasion Print.

Evaluating Vasion Print and Competitors

Products Replaced

Not Sure

Key Differentiators

Scalability
Integration with Other Systems
Ease of Use

Cost reduction

Evaluation Lessons Learned

I was not in this position when this product was evaluated, so I can't really comment on changes, but whenever I do this kind of evaluation I try to find the market leaders as well as candidates that have experience with higher education, then compare and contrast feature sets and support availability.

Vasion Print Support

Support Rating

Vasion has been right on top of any questions or comments that we have had about their product. They have been working side by side with us on expanding our use of the product. They have always been available when we have had a question or concern. The sales and support team keeps in good contact with us.

Vasion Print Customer Support Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Immediate help available Support understands my problem Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response	None

Premium Support

I don't know that there is a "premium" support level available for purchase. Whatever level the team provides with our ongoing licensing of PrinterLogic (Vasion Print) is comprehensive and very sufficient for our needs. They have never mentioned a premium level, maybe we are already at it, or maybe there isn't such a level. I would need to check this with our procurement department.

Bug Resolution

Exceptional Examples of Vasion Print Support

They continually provide us with what I consider an exceptional level of support. They have always been responsive to our inquiries and have even invited us out to their headquarters for planning and forward looking sessions about the product. I feel that they are very engaged with our use case and are looking for ways that they can expand their support of our printing needs.

Using Vasion Print

Usability Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using Familiar	None

Easy Tasks

Driver installation
Configuration updates
Managing library of drivers

Difficult Tasks

Keeping driver repository organized

Comments

Please log in to join the conversation

Channon Voyce
(Vendor Representative) commented a year ago
Thank you for the detailed review, Bruce. It we truly appreciate all of the feedback and insight into using Vasion Print!