How to auto-deploy a print queue to specific users or Departments

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How to auto-deploy a print queue to specific users or Departments

How to auto-deploy a print queue to specific users or Departments

A print queue can follow the people who need it rather than the PCs. You can pick individual users, or everyone in certain Departments, and the queue is installed on whichever PC they are logged in to.

The user is identified through the PDAgent Client, so PDAgent must be installed on the PCs and the user must be logged in through the PDAgent Client for the PC to match.

How deployment zones work

A deployment zone describes a group of PCs running PDAgent. Each zone can match PCs in three ways, one tab each in the New deployment zone window:

  • Hosts: by PDAgent or by computer name (hostname).
  • IP range: by the PC’s IP address.
  • User logins: by the users, or Departments, logged in on the PC.

A PC matches a zone only if it matches all of the tabs. Leave a tab on its first option (All hosts, All IP addresses or All users) to ignore it.

A Queue Deployment set to Selected deployment zones is installed on a PC when any of its ticked zones covers that PC. Zones are shared, so one zone can be ticked on several Queue Deployments. The Deployment zones tab lists every zone with its Name, Include or exclude, Match hosts, Match IPs and Match users settings, and when it was created and last modified. Use Edit and Delete to change or remove a zone.

The same zones control self-install: if Self install is set to Allowed for selected deployment zones, users on PCs covered by a ticked zone can install the queue themselves from the Install print queue option in the PDAgent Client.

Set up the deployment zone

  1. Open Resource Manager.

  2. In the tree on the left, expand Print Management > Print Queue Management and click Queue Deployments.

  3. On the right, double-click the Queue Deployment. If it does not exist yet, create it first: see How to manually create a Queue Deployment or How to copy an existing Windows print queue to a new Queue Deployment.

  4. In the Deployment scope section, set Auto deploy to Selected deployment zones.

  5. Click the Deployment zones tab, then click Add. The New deployment zone window opens.

  6. In Deployment zone name, enter a descriptive name for the zone.

  7. Set Include or exclude:

    • Only include those matching search parameters: the zone covers only the PCs that match.
    • Include all except those matching search parameters: the zone covers every PC except the ones that match.

  8. Click the User logins tab and set Match user logins:

    • Users selected below to pick individual users, or
    • Certain Departments to pick whole Departments. If your site uses a different name for Departments, that name is shown instead.

  9. Tick the users or Departments in the list.

    If you click OK without ticking any, Resource Manager warns you: with Only include those matching search parameters the zone would cover no PCs, and with Include all except those matching search parameters it would cover every PC.

  10. Leave the Hosts and IP range tabs on All hosts and All IP addresses.

  11. Click OK to save the zone.

  12. Back on the Deployment zones tab, make sure the new zone is ticked, then click OK to save the Queue Deployment.

A PC matches when any of the users logged in on it through the PDAgent Client is one of the selected users, or belongs to one of the selected Departments.

Shared PCs and terminal servers: the queue is installed for the whole PC, not just for the user who matched. On a PC that several people use, such as a terminal server, every user on that PC sees the queue once one matching user has logged in.

When the queue is installed

Each PDAgent checks for Queue Deployments whenever it refreshes its settings, so PCs that match the zone get the queue automatically. To apply the change straight away:

  • to refresh one PC, click PD Agents in Resource Manager, right-click the PDAgent and choose Refresh, or
  • to refresh every PC, click PD Servers, right-click the PDServer and choose Send command > Refresh all connected PDAgents.

If Auto remove queues if not in zones or the Deployment is deleted is ticked on the Queue Deployment, the queue is also removed from PCs that stop matching the zone. Queues that users installed themselves with Self install are never removed automatically.

 

Document revision date: 2026/10/23
Software version: 2.5.15.3

How to auto-deploy a print queue to specific users or Departments