Stations Overview

A station is a shared screen (a tablet, kiosk, or computer browser) placed near your printers, that lets people submit, approve, and manage print jobs without signing in to the full Pluraprint dashboard.

Stations are useful for:

• Walk-up labs, makerspaces, or classrooms where many people share a few printers
• Letting staff quickly approve jobs, clear finished prints, or resolve printer errors right where the printers are
• Letting people without a Pluraprint account (using a PIN or ID card) submit and track their own jobs

How stations fit together#

Two things work together to define what a station can do:

• Station Templates (Resources > Station Templates): a station type (what kind of screen this is) plus a set of capabilities (what actions are possible) and whether each capability requires the user to identify themselves first.
• Stations (Resources > Stations): individual physical screens, each registered by how it is recognised (its IP address, or a client certificate) and assigned a template.

This separation means you can define a template once (for example, “Lab Kiosk: full access”) and apply it to every station in a room, then change it in one place if your policy changes.

Station types#

Every template declares what kind of screen it is. The type decides what the station displays when someone walks up to it, and it sets the boundaries of the capability list:

• Required capabilities: the minimum a screen of that kind needs to do its job. They are ticked automatically and cannot be removed.
• Allowed capabilities: everything the type permits. Anything outside that set cannot be granted, no matter who is editing the template. The option is hidden in the form, and the server also refuses it, so a display screen can’t be given an action it shouldn’t have.

Types are also either interactive: someone stands at it and uses it, or a display, a screen that only shows information. A display never asks anyone to identify themselves and never listens for a card scan.

Type	Kind	What it is
Management station	Interactive	The full walk-up kiosk: upload a file, define a job, approve what is waiting, and manage the printers in front of you.
Printer board	Display	A wall display of the printers at this site: which are free, which are running and for how long, which are down.
Queue board	Display	A wall display of what is waiting to print and what is running, so people can see where their job is without asking anyone.

Existing templates were all set to Management station when station types were introduced, so nothing changed for stations you already had.

The two boards are read-only by design. Their allowed capabilities cover viewing printers and print jobs and nothing else, so a screen hanging in a public corridor cannot be given the ability to cancel someone’s print: the server refuses it, whatever the template says. They also stay lit rather than blanking, page through their contents automatically when there is more than one screenful, and show a warning if they lose contact with the server, since a frozen board otherwise looks exactly like a working one.

Some station types belong to optional modules. If the owning module is switched off, that type cannot be selected, and a station already using it shows a “module disabled” message instead of its normal screen: its configuration is kept, and it comes straight back when the module is switched on again.

How a station is recognised#

Every station registration says how Pluraprint tells that screen apart from any other browser on your network. There are two options, chosen per station:

• IP address: the station is whichever device connects from the address you registered. Simple, needs nothing installed on the device, and appropriate for a screen that displays information or sits on a network only staff can reach.
• Client certificate: the device holds a certificate and proves it during the connection. Reaching the right network is not enough; without the certificate’s private key, which never leaves the device, a browser cannot pretend to be that station.

Certificates are the stronger choice for any station that can act on other people’s work, approving jobs, cancelling prints, taking printers down, because an IP address can be imitated by anything else on the same network.

Client certificates require your administrator to configure them first; see Setting Up a Station. Until they do, the option is shown but cannot be selected.

Identification at a station#

Some actions (like approving a job or pausing a printer) should be tied to a specific person, even on a shared screen. Pluraprint handles this with identification:

• A user identifies themselves at a station with a PIN or an ID card, set up on their account under Managing Users.
• Once identified, that identity stays active for a few minutes, so someone doesn’t have to re-scan for every click.
• Each capability in a station’s template can independently require identification: for example, viewing printers might be open to anyone, while pausing one requires a PIN.

Where to go next#

• Setting Up a Station: create station templates, register kiosk devices, and assign templates to them.
• Using a Station: what walking up to a station looks like, including identification, browsing printers, and approving jobs.