Pharos Chrome Print Now Available!

We are happy to announce the latest update to the Pharos Beacon cloud platform! This update includes several important new features, including Pharos Chrome Print, a lightweight extension that makes Chromebook printing simple in any Pharos environment!

This update to Beacon also includes several improvements to Sentry Print: Mobile Device Management (MDM) support for the Sentry Print iOS app, and support for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) environments.

Chromebook Printing

Chromebooks are widely used in educational organizations because they are inexpensive and easy to manage. In the corporate enterprise, the shift to a work-from-home model has led to a significant increase in Chromebook use. Organizations need to provide a secure and cost-effective solution for remote workers, and Chromebooks are often a good fit.

Chromebooks have used Google Cloud Print (GCP) as the default printing option. In 2019, Google announced that it will no longer support GCP as of December 31, 2020. To continue to support Pharos customers using Chromebooks, we built Pharos Chrome Print—an extension available in the Chrome Web Store that makes it easy to print into any Pharos print management system from Chromebooks or the Chrome browser on any OS.

Key features of Pharos Chrome Print

• It’s easy for Chromebook users to print to the office and to home printers.
• It provides simple secure printing from any Chrome device or the Chrome browser on any OS.
• No print driver is required.
• It’s easy for IT managers to deploy the extension to employees.
• It promotes document security and confidentiality: documents can only be released (printed) when the document owner is present at the device to collect it.

Also New In This Update:

Mobile Device Management (MDM) Support for the iOS App

It’s now easier for IT managers to enable mobile print submission on the Sentry Print app for iOS devices. IT administrators can now deploy a configuration profile to all managed users via their preferred MDM solution. Sentry Print currently supports the following MDM solutions:

• MobileIron
• AirWatch
• Intune

Support for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)*

Sentry Print now supports some Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) systems, such as Citrix® XenDesktop and Microsoft® Terminal Services. This allows organizations with VDI environments to take advantage of secure printing workflows. Both persistent and non-persistent VDIs are supported. *This feature is currently in preview – if you would like to participate in preview program, please reach out to beacon-beta@pharos.com.

Automatic Proxy Bypass

Administrators can now configure Print Scouts to automatically stop using the configured proxy should the system detect that it’s not working. This feature is especially helpful for the traveling user who goes between home (no proxy) and the office (proxy).

For more details, please refer to the release notes for this update.