Step by step
- Install the agent on a second computer at the customer (or plug in a SubClik Box) on the same network, and pair it with its own code. Nothing else to set up.
- Optional: in Agents › Settings and actions › Reading with other agents here, mark a computer that is always on as Preferred reader, or a laptop as Only when the others are off.
- Optional: on a printer's page, under Read by, choose the agent that should read that printer while it is on.
What happens
Every agent that reaches a printer reads its meters once a day. The same printer seen by several agents is one printer in SubClik (by serial number), with one counter row and one reading per meter per day: the first reading of the day counts, later ones from other agents are not added. So the meters keep coming whichever computer is off, and nothing is billed twice.
For each printer one agent is the reader: only its reports change the printer's status, toner and errors, so a jam is reported once, and an agent with an older view cannot close it. The other agents leave that printer out of their status checks and quick checks (newer agents; older agents and Boxes keep checking, and what they send about status is set aside).
The reader is chosen among the agents in touch with the portal that read the printer in the last 36 hours: first the agent chosen in the office for that printer, then one that read it in the last 6 hours, then the reading preference, then one that has been in touch for at least 15 minutes without a break.
When an agent goes silent
Agents ask the portal every minute (a Box every 2). When the reader has not been in touch for 6 minutes, another agent that reaches the printer becomes its reader at once, checks its toner and errors straight away and from then on watches it. Read now and diagnostic requests go to the new reader.
When the reader is in touch but has not read the printer for 6 hours while another agent has (for example the computer was moved to another network), the printer is handed over too.
When the agent is back it does not take the printer back, so nothing flips back and forth. Only the agent chosen in the office, or a Preferred reader over an automatic one, takes it back, and only after 15 minutes in touch without a break.
If no agent that reaches the printer is in touch, nothing moves: the meters resume when one is back. Every hand-over, with its reason, is kept in the audit log and shown on the printer's page.
Limits
Agents only cover printers they can reach themselves. An agent on another network (or with other SNMP settings) is not a stand-in for printers it cannot read.
Printers without a readable serial number are not merged between agents (two customers can both have a printer on the same address), so each agent keeps its own record for those.
The older Backup for setting still works: a backup reads nothing until its main agent has been silent for 30 minutes. With automatic reading it is no longer needed; clear it to let both agents read.
Works together with
- Backup agent (takes over when the main one stops)An extra computer with the agent at the same customer and site stands by and reads the main agent's printers when the main agent has been out of touch for 30 minutes. Usually not needed any more: with two agents at a customer, SubClik shares the printers and hands them over within minutes by itself (see Several agents at one customer).
- Check an agent: online, offline and what it seesEach agent in the Agents list shows whether it is online, when it last made contact, how many printers it found and which machines on record it has not found yet.
- Install the SubClik Agent on a Windows PCInstall the Agent on one always-on Windows computer in the same network as the printers, enter the pairing code and scan. It runs as a Windows service and needs no one signed in.
- The printer pageEverything the agent knows about one printer: status and current errors, problem counts, toner forecast, error history, daily counters, readings sent to the machine and the device's own details.
- Meters & tonerEvery machine's counters, toner and errors, grouped by customer. Ask customers for their counters by link, check readings that look wrong before they reach a bill, and export the month's readings.