User Portal and Classic email invitation - overview

About the User Portal and classic invitation email

Your Users list is populated, your printers are plugged in, paper drawers filled, and even the magenta toner is full. Looks like you’re ready to get your users printing!

Using the User Portal is a good option for organizations that want their users to do most of their printer setup work themselves, without admin support. It lets users finish setup (amongst other print-related things) via the User Portal.

It’s not suitable for organizations that have a fully-centralized device management system with bulk deployment.

The User Portal

The User Portal is PaperCut Hive and Pocket’s online self-serve space for end-users, where they set up and track their printing. Users can sign into the User Portal via any of your organization’s enabled authentication methods (Single Sign-on, Sign in with Microsoft, Sign in with Google, and/or Email & Password).

How users access the User Portal

To give users access to the User Portal, you can either:

• send them an invitation email (ensure you select the User Portal option)
• share your invite link URL via, for example, a messaging platform like Microsoft Teams or Slack.

Users can also discover the login page via the PaperCut home page, but giving them direct access to your organization’s login screen is a faster option.

Make sure you have at least one authentication method enabled before giving your users access to the User Portal!

What users can do in the User Portal

In the User Portal, users can:

• download the PaperCut Hive or Pocket computer app (user client) and/or mobile/tablet apps
• automatically finish setup of the computer app (also known as “account linking via login”)
• learn how to print using PaperCut Hive or Pocket
• find their access code
• view their job history (coming later).

What happens after users logs in for the first time

In the User Portal, the following process guides users through how to get started printing with PaperCut Hive or Pocket:

1. The User Portal checks the user’s computer and detects if the computer app (user client) is installed or not.
2. If the user client is not installed, the User Portal asks the user to complete the download and setup steps. During setup, the computer app automatically links to the user’s PaperCut Hive or Pocket account without the user having to do any extra steps.
3. If the user client is installed (via bulk deployment) but isn’t linked to a PaperCut Hive or Pocket account, the first time the user prints they must “authenticate on print” to link the client to their user.
4. After their user client is installed, the user can start printing. The User Portal gives them access to how-to-print guides for different user device types.

If the computer app is already installed, the user can still re-install it again if they ever need to.

For bulk deployment, if your organization uses mobile device management (MDM) software to deploy the user client, linking the user’s identity to the user client is simple: the user is asked to log into the User Portal the first time they print (or log in to the mobile/tablet app during setup). Linking happens silently in the background. Learn more about authentication.

The classic invitation

This is PaperCut Hive and Pocket’s classic email invitation experience. Users receive the classic invitation email and select the Get Started button to go to a static, 3-step webpage where they:

• download the user client
• optionally install the mobile or tablet app
• learn how to print with PaperCut Hive or Pocket.

If the user needs to re-access the setup page in the future, they will need to find their invitation email again or request another invitation email from an administrator.

With classic invitations, there’s no need for users to log in anywhere (they don’t log in to the User Portal) or set up an account. However, these users don’t get the self-service benefits of using the User Portal. This means the user can’t access their job history (coming later), access code, or any of the User Portal’s other features.

If you want to, you can always give them access to the organization’s User Portal login page later by reinviting them (using User Portal invitation type) or sending them a shared link.

Bulk deployment: if your organization uses mobile device management (MDM) software to deploy the user client, users need to click the Get started button in their invitation email and follow the online steps to finish linking their client software. For computer client apps, the steps are web-based, and for mobile/tablet apps, the steps are in the app itself.

Choosing the User Portal or classic invitation onboarding experience

What’s right for your organization can depend on many factors, such as how you manage your users, how many users you have, and whether they are permanent or guest users.

Here’s a quick comparison between the two initial user onboarding experiences:

	User Portal	Classic invitation
Email invitations	Yes	Yes
Shared link invitations	Yes	No
No login setup	No	Yes
Single Sign-on login	Available	Not required
Sign in with Microsoft login	Available	Not required
Sign in with Google login	Available	Not required
Email & Password login	Available	Not required
Users can see job history	Coming later	No
User Access Code location	In User Portal	In email invitation
Client app download links	In User Portal (customizable)	On web page
Bulk deployed client link method	Log in on first print	Follow instructions, starting with the invitation email

Example organization setups and onboarding preferences

Let’s take a quick look at some ways that organizations might set themselves up with PaperCut Hive and Pocket:

Organization type	Potential preference
Doesn’t use device management software, and just wants its users to set themselves up with minimum involvement by the IT admin	User Portal over classic invitation
Has used PaperCut Hive or Pocket for a long time, and the users are familiar with the classic email invitation	Classic invitation over User Portal for continued experience
No onsite IT admins and the users are familiar with self-serving software on their own devices	User Portal
Deploys PaperCut Hive or Pocket via device management software and/or wants its users to self-serve	User Portal
Deploys PaperCut Hive or Pocket via device management software and wants to give users a low-touch software experience	User Portal — authenticate (log in) on first print
Wants to give users maximum self-serve opportunities but not encourage usage of mobile app print job release (prefers use of Access Codes and/or Access Cards)	User Portal, but hide the mobile app download option
Wants users to be mobile app only, with no option to install computer app	User Portal, but hide the computer app download option
Users don’t use email, but only a messaging app	User Portal (share organization login page URL via message)