Principles regarding quotas

Prerequisites

The quotas are based on a re-invoicing price; this must therefore be configured before setting up quotas (see chapter entitled Configuring prices).

What is a quota ?

In Watchdoc®, a quota is a number of units of credit intended for printing and allocated to a user or to a group of users.

This quota can be credited:

 

  • by the administrator (company, university, administration), either manually or automatically, according to a predetermined frequency, using a fixed value;

  • by the user, manually, depending on his/her needs.

 

When the print jobs can be invoiced to the user, the quota is associated with a currency and thus forms a Virtual Wallet (VW), which can be used to pay the different print job costs. This cost is defined by the administrator, who attributes a price per page depending on various criteria (black-and-white/colour, page format, double-sided and the software from which the documents originate).

 

The quota (VW) is defined as operating according to a management rule.

 

From Watchdoc® V5.0 onwards, a double quota can be managed, used to allocate credit to a user that is managed by an institution and a second credit that is managed by the user from a top-up station or website such as Pay- box®.

 

In such a case, the print jobs are automatically deducted from the second quota when the first quota has run out.

 

The quotas are based on a specific database (SQL® database) declared when initially installing Watchdoc®, called Watchdocpmv by default.

Where and how are the quotas used?

The quotas are used when releasing print jobs:

  • if the quota is positive, the print job is released and printed;

  • if the quota is negative, the print job is suspended by Watchdoc®.

Reload a quota

If the administrator authorises users to top up their account, this can take place from the My Account web interface or from a top-up station or a dedicated website (such as PayBox®).

Configuration steps

In order to become operational, the quota must be:

  1. associated with a predefined management rule;

  2. allocated to a group of users.

 

See the tutorial Configuring print quotas.