Environmental Dashboard / Windows 8.1 Live Tiles

One of the most powerful features in PaperCut is not actually a feature at all – it’s the culture change that it brings about in an organization. Most of this change is encouraged by increasing the visibility of the impact printing has on the company and the environment. The Environmental Dashboard and the Windows 8.1 Live Tile is an innovative way to raise awareness. It promotes paper saving in a positive and creative way. For example:

  • See your environmental impact front and center
  • Benchmark your usage against others in the organization
  • Reward and promote good user behaviour:
    • Award users for printing less
    • Encourage the user of duplex and grayscale
  • It makes printing impact tangible and understandable:
    • Converting sheets into an “energy equivalent”
    • Emphasising forest conservation
    • Highlighting CO2 emissions

Environmental Dashboard

Figure 5.28. Environmental Dashboard

Windows live tile sample

Figure 5.29. Windows live tile sample

Windows 8.1 Live Tile

The increasing use of Windows 8 devices and Tile based interface has opened up a new avenue to communicate to users. The Environmental Dashboard page can be Pinned to the Windows Start Screen to create a dynamic Live Tile. This Live Tile will communicate over 20 user-specific facts, awards and challenges all generated from real-time PaperCut data.

Sending a positive message with the Live Tile

All too often, the IT department is implementing back-end systems or invisible projects. The PaperCut Windows Live tile is a highly visible and positive story, and is a great complement to other changes planned in your print management program.

Tip

Recently PaperCut was working with a large national retail organization and they were in the middle of a project to implement PaperCut’s secure print release. There was push-back from various department heads worried that any barriers to printing were going to reduce productivity. The environmental impact statistics helped turn this reluctance around. In the end, the savings were so compelling the project’s success was promoted not only internally but externally as a strong corporate and social responsibility story… Oh, and for once the IT guy was the hero!

Some suggestions:

  • Encourage your users to bookmark their dashboard
  • Draw Windows 8.1 users attention to the Live Tile and encourage them to Pin it to their start page. See the section called “Windows 8.1 Live Tile Installation”.
  • Link to the Environmental Dashboard on your intranet or monthly newsletter
  • Share environmental impact information visually with management
  • Challenge users to compare their live tile awards with their colleagues

 

Windows Live Tile Examples

Below is a small sample of the 20+ tiles available:

Tile sample: 5 stars

Figure 5.30. Tile sample: 5 stars

Tile sample: Organization C02 use

Figure 5.31. Tile sample: Organization C02 use

Tile sample: Organization tree consumption

Figure 5.32. Tile sample: Organization tree consumption

Tile sample: Organization weekly printed sheets

Figure 5.33. Tile sample: Organization weekly printed sheets

Tile sample: Tip to use grayscale

Figure 5.34. Tile sample: Tip to use grayscale

Tile sample: User energy use

Figure 5.35. Tile sample: User energy use