Commontray for offices and teams
Print management for small business, without a print server.
You don’t charge anyone for printing. You just want new starters to print without an IT ticket, confidential pages kept off the tray, and a clear answer when someone asks what printing costs. Commontray does those three things and nothing you have to maintain.
How it works
Printing that IT sets up once and then forgets.
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Install once
Run Commontray on a computer that stays on at the office, or plug in the Commontray Box. It finds the printers on your network.
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People print from the browser
Any laptop, phone or tablet. No driver, no app, nothing in system settings. PDFs, photos and Office files.
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Release at the printer
Documents wait until people scan the printer’s code or tap Print now. Only the owner can release them.
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See who printed what
Pages by person, printer and day, black & white and color, with a CSV for anything else.
Serverless printing for offices: what you stop doing.
Most small offices end up with a print setup nobody chose: a driver on every laptop, a Windows server that shares the printers, and a person who knows how it works. Commontray replaces it with a web page and one small service that talks to the printers directly.
- Installing and updating printer drivers on every laptop.
- Patching a print server, or the Windows Print Spooler on one.
- Adding printers by IP address for each new starter.
- Explaining why contractors and visitors can’t print.
It suits hybrid teams too. People who come in twice a week print from whatever laptop they brought, and contractors print without joining your domain or waiting for a driver to be approved.
What stays
- Your printers, as they are.
- One computer or Box per site running Commontray.
- A QR sticker on each printer.
- A print page everyone can open.
Office print tracking without charging anyone.
Printing costs money even when nobody pays for it. Commontray records every job against the person who sent it, once the printer confirms what it printed, so the reports match what really came out of the printers.
- Pages by person, by printer and by print type.
- Black & white and color counted separately, page by page.
- Failed and never-collected jobs listed apart.
- Today, the last 7 or 30 days, this or last month, or any dates up to a year.
- A CSV with one row per job, safe to open in a spreadsheet.
Reduce printing costs
Spend less on printing without a printing policy.
Nobody reads a printing policy. These work without one.
Uncollected prints never print
With secure release, a document waits until its owner is at the printer. If they forget, it’s deleted after the hold time instead of landing in the recycling.
Color is visible
People see which pages have color before they print, and reports show color pages separately, so the expensive pages stop being invisible.
Every page previewed
Thumbnails of every page before confirming catch the 40-page spreadsheet that was meant to be one page.
Numbers instead of guesses
When the contract for the printer comes up, you know how many pages each printer really prints.
Secure printing for small offices.
HR letters, payslips, contracts and board papers all go through the same printer as the lunch menu. Commontray keeps them private and keeps the printer from being a way into your network.
- Documents print only for their owner, at the printer.
- Each document is deleted when its job ends.
- People only ever see their own jobs.
- No print server and no printer drivers on laptops.
- Updates are signed and installed at night.
Alerts where your team already is
“Floor 2 printer: Paper jam.” Commontray sends printer problems to email, Slack, Microsoft Teams or Google Chat, so the office manager knows before the queue forms. Printer alerts.
Questions
Questions from offices
Do we have to charge people for printing?
No. The Team plan is for companies that print for themselves: nobody is charged, and every page is still counted against the person who printed it.
Can we see printing by team or department?
Reports show pages by person, by printer and by print type, for any period up to a year. The CSV has one row per job with the person’s name, so grouping by department is one pivot table away.
Does Commontray replace our print server?
For printers that take PDF or support IPP Everywhere, yes: people print through Commontray and the server has nothing left to do. If you rely on driver features such as stapling or hole-punching, keep a queue for those. Our guide How to replace your print server covers when to keep one.
How do new starters and contractors print?
They open the print page in their browser and sign in. There’s no driver to install and no printer to add, so it works on day one, on any laptop, including ones IT doesn’t manage.
What happens to the documents people print?
Each document is deleted as soon as its job ends. Documents that are never released are deleted after the hold time. See security.
What do we need to run it?
One computer that stays on at the office (Windows, macOS or Linux, including a Raspberry Pi), or the Commontray Box. One printer is free.
Stop installing printer drivers.
Commontray is free for your first printer. Set it up on a computer you already have and see who prints what by Friday.