Desktop HP Printers - wanting to capture consumables in a report

[GarrettH]

Good morning everyone!
We've been asked to build a report out that shows the usual (address/contact/CI name/SN/make/model, etc) but the one part that's got me a little stumped is how to capture HP desktop printers (your typical Laserjet, DesignJet, etc) black & white and colour page counts.

Now, I know about the HP for ServiceNow app but that seems to be for more enterprise-y devices. Plus, on Laserjets, I can't find anywhere to install the ServiceNow app itself.

Has anyone been through this? Mind sharing how you worked around it, or is this simply asking for too much, from relatively dumb printers?

I also found this: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/bundle/zurich-it-operations-management/page/product/discovery/refere... but we just made the jump to Yokohama, and won't be upgrading again for 6-8 months...

Thanks!

[Mark Manders]

How are you getting those printers in your system? Is there some kind of discovery running on them? Are they connected to any network or are they used by end users by attaching them through cables/blue tooth? 
The requirement sounds like a simple one, but you do need to realize that a request to report on something that isn't there, is simply impossible. Is the requirement that important that you need to create integrations to dumb computers, just to get the page counts? The requester has to know that this requirement is going to cost money, setting up integrations, just to get to know something from the printer. 

The requirement to report something is different than creating the possibility to get more data into the system that can be reported on.

[GarrettH]

Our "discovered" printers were a one-time turn on discovery a few years ago...long before we had an ITAM program...and we're just looking at it now.

We're in between discovery tools (may or may not be keeping Solarwinds)...so that's exciting. 😕

We use Vasion's Printer Logic as a cloud-based print service. As you look at each printer, you can see the colour vs b&w page counts, which is great, however, their reporting only spits out total page counts. I've got a ticket in to them asking to please enhance their reporting features.

Because they don't have an API or any ETA on possibly creating one...right now this is one of my "work harder, not smarter" processes - once a month I generate a report, VLOOKUP compare against what we've got in HAM Pro, and will be manually bulk importing any changes discovered. Not ideal, but until we stand up a brand new ServiceNow instance in the new year, it'll have to do.

You make excellent points, Mark (costing) and I'll bring that back. Thank you!