Streamlining Printing in the Modern Workplace: The Benefits of Microsoft Universal Print for Large Companies and its current limitations
In today’s fast-paced, technology-driven business landscape, large companies face the challenge of managing complex IT infrastructures while ensuring seamless operations for their workforce. One often-overlooked yet critical aspect of this infrastructure is printing and scanning. For organizations with hundreds or thousands of employees spread across multiple locations, traditional print management can become a logistical nightmare—replete with server maintenance, driver compatibility issues, and security concerns.
Enter Microsoft Universal Print, a cloud-based printing solution designed to simplify and enhance print management for enterprises. Integrated into Microsoft 365, this service offers a range of benefits that make it a game-changer for large companies seeking efficiency, scalability, and security. Applied with proper consulting and extensions, Universal Print can drastically increase productivity, reduce cost and reliance on paper.
This guide explains the innovation, the scalablity of Universal Print as well as ways to enhance it ie to support card readers and badge readers, Power BI reporting, AI-DLP follow-me printing or support much more printer models than what is available today.
Universal Print Simplifies Print Management and Reduces IT Overhead
One of the standout advantages of Microsoft Universal Print is its ability to eliminate the need for on-premises print servers and printer drivers. Traditionally, large companies have relied on dedicated servers to manage print queues, drivers, and user access—a setup that requires constant maintenance, updates, and troubleshooting by IT teams. Universal Print shifts this burden to the cloud, leveraging Microsoft Azure’s infrastructure to handle print jobs. This not only reduces the physical hardware footprint but also frees IT staff from time-consuming server management tasks. For a company with multiple offices or remote workers, this means a centralized, streamlined system that can be managed from anywhere with an internet connection.
Additionally, Universal Print eliminates the headache of printer driver management. In traditional setups, ensuring compatibility between various printer models and employee devices often requires installing and updating specific drivers—a process that can lead to errors and delays. Universal Print uses the Microsoft WPP standardized driverless approach released in 2024 and mandatory in 2027, allowing compatible printers to work seamlessly with Windows devices enrolled in Microsoft 365. This simplification is a boon for large organizations, where diverse hardware ecosystems are common, reducing downtime and support tickets related to printing issues.
Enhanced Scalability of Print Management for Growing Enterprises
For large companies, scalability is a critical factor in adopting any new technology. As organizations expand—whether by adding new employees, opening branch offices, or integrating acquired businesses—their printing needs evolve. Microsoft Universal Print is designed with this in mind, offering a flexible, scalable solution that grows with the company. Administrators can easily add printers and assign permissions through the Microsoft 365 admin portal, ensuring that new users and locations are integrated without disrupting workflows.
This scalability extends to hybrid work environments, a growing priority for large companies in the post-pandemic era. With Universal Print, employees can securely print from any location—whether in the office, at home, or on the road—using their Microsoft 365 credentials or mobile. With an extension to Universal Print such as Celiveo 365 it is also possible to print safely on hom printers, without requiring any local IT infrastructure. This location-agnostic approach eliminates the need for complex VPN setups or local printer configurations, making it ideal for organizations with distributed workforces. For example, a multinational corporation with offices in New York, London, and Tokyo can manage all its printers under a single cloud-based system, ensuring consistency and accessibility across the globe.
Microsoft Universal Print is a SaaS built on Azure PaaS, it makes a very significant difference. That modern architecture is the only way to go, as most other Cloud print solutions are merely Windows or Linux VMs running slightly improved Print Management developed for on-premise usage. They feature no built-in elasticity, no automatic load balancing, no High Availability, no advanced CSPM, no distributed backup when those capabilities are fundamental for Enterprise accounts.
Advanced AI, DLP, Robust Security and Compliance Features
Security is a top concern for large companies, especially when sensitive documents are involved. Universal Print addresses this by integrating with Microsoft’s enterprise-grade security framework. Print jobs are encrypted and routed through a Zero-Trust-Access channels, ensuring that only authorized users can access printers and retrieve documents. This is particularly valuable for industries like finance, healthcare, or legal services, where data breaches could have severe consequences. Administrators can also set granular access controls, such as restricting certain printers to specific departments or requiring multi-factor authentication for print release.
DLP, or Data Loss Prevention, is crucial for documents because it helps protect sensitive information from being leaked, stolen, or misused. Documents often contain confidential data—like personal details, financial records, intellectual property, or business strategies—that could cause significant harm if exposed. Here’s why DLP matters:
- Stops Data Breaches: By detecting and blocking attempts to send sensitive info outside secure environments (e.g., on documents), DLP reduces the risk of breaches.
- Compliance with Regulations: Many industries (healthcare, finance, etc.) have strict laws like GDPR, HIPAA, or CCPA that mandate protecting sensitive data. DLP helps organizations avoid hefty fines by enforcing those standards.
- Protects Reputation: A leak can tank a company’s credibility. DLP minimizes that risk by keeping critical info under wraps.
- Mitigates Insider Threats: Whether intentional or accidental, employees can compromise data. DLP tracks document activity and flags suspicious behavior—like someone downloading tons of files before quitting.
If Microsoft Universal Print does not include DLP, this important security feature is available by adding the third party Celiveo 365 extension to Universal Print. Celiveo 365 adds AI-powered Data Loss Prevention (AI-DLP) to bolster document security in cloud-based printing environments. It leverages OpenAI artificial intelligence to proactively monitor and protect sensitive data during the printing process, addressing a critical need for organizations relying on Universal Print’s serverless, Azure-hosted infrastructure.
Moreover, Universal Print supports compliance with regulatory standards by providing detailed audit logs and usage reports. For companies subject to GDPR, HIPAA, or other data protection regulations, this transparency helps demonstrate adherence to privacy and security requirements.
Card readers and badge readers for Microsoft Universal Print
Microsoft Universal Print does not support natively card readers to authenticate users on printers, this would need to be implemented by printer vendors and if this is on the roadmap it is not yet available.
Such card authentication is needed:
- to allow users to reclaim their documents on any printer by swiping their employee proximity card or their NFC mobile.
- to provide walkup access to multifunction printers to activate copy, email, scan, print release
The majority of third-party solutions proposing card reader for Universal Print operate within their own separate ecosystems, independent of Universal Print. They merely connect to Universal Print to retrieve print jobs and send them back to the local network. As a result, you end up managing two distinct systems instead of a single unified one, requiring additional software installation and maintenance on your network for the third-party solution. Ultimately, this adds complexity rather than simplifying the process. One exception is Celiveo 365, it adds features such as card readers and badge readers on printers to a Microsoft Universal Print setup, does not require any local software and keeps pending print jobs secure in the Cloud.
Microsoft Universal Print and the scan to OneDrive, SharePoint
As of today Microsoft Universal Print does not address the scan from multi-function printers (MFPs), leaving it to printer vendors to manage it. That creates a significant loophole as most MFPs scan more than they print. Scanning to OneDrive or SharePoint requires the highest security to ensure no hacker can act like a MFP and read/write data on the corporate and personal folders.
If we can hope Microsoft will succeed in providing such secure communication service directly on MFPs, in the meantime the Celiveo 365 extension to Universal Print features scecure scan to OneDrive using Entra ID authentication and card/badge.
Print from mobile, print to home printers
Finally, Microsoft Universal Print delivers financial and environmental benefits that resonate with large companies. By reducing reliance on physical servers or VMs and simplifying printer management, organizations can lower operational costs associated with hardware, energy consumption, and IT labor. The cloud-based model also enables better resource allocation, as companies only pay for the printing capacity they need through their Microsoft 365 subscription.
Universal Print requires that mobile devices are managed in Intune, that closes the door to BYOD where users don’t want their mobile to be managed by the company and don’t want to load any business-related App on their personal mobile. Fur such situation, the Celiveo 365 extension for Universal Print provides a no-App print for BYOD cases, and also an App that does not require Intune enrolment but leverages from Entra ID SSO.
From a sustainability perspective, Universal Print supports paperless initiatives by integrating with digital workflows. Features like secure print release—where documents are held in the cloud until the user authenticates at the printer—reduce wasted prints from forgotten or unclaimed jobs. For a large company aiming to meet corporate social responsibility goals, this efficiency aligns with broader efforts to minimize environmental impact. It is available as the Universal Print Anywhere feature that need printers fully compatible with that capability. Reality is that there are very few such printers since vendors are not keen to lose control over the Cloud Print business. Native integration in printers for Pull Print and walkup user authentication with badge, NFC mobile and PIN code is also available using the Celiveo 365 plugin for Universal Print, it does not have the same limitations since it is printer vendor-agnostic.
Cost Efficiency and Sustainability Benefits of Universal Print
Finally, Microsoft Universal Print delivers financial and environmental benefits that resonate with large companies. By reducing reliance on physical servers and simplifying printer management, organizations can lower operational costs associated with hardware, energy consumption, and IT labor. The cloud-based model also enables better resource allocation, as companies only pay for the printing capacity they need through their Microsoft 365 subscription.
Reporting is limited with Universal Print, keeping the data just a few weeks and it does not provide cost calculation and bill-back. Universal Print can be enhanced with advanced Power-BI reporting, multi-year data, cost calculation, duplex/simplex, b&w/color reports, by adding the Celiveo 365 extension for Universal Print.
From a sustainability perspective, Universal Print supports paperless initiatives by integrating with digital workflows. Features like secure print release—where documents are held in the cloud until the user authenticates at the printer—reduce wasted prints from forgotten or unclaimed jobs. For a large company aiming to meet corporate social responsibility goals, this efficiency aligns with broader efforts to minimize environmental impact.
Conclusion
Microsoft Universal Print is more than just a printing solution; it’s a strategic tool that empowers large companies to modernize their operations. By simplifying management, enhancing scalability, bolstering security, and driving cost savings, it addresses the unique challenges faced by enterprises in a digital-first world. As hybrid work and cloud adoption continue to shape the future, Universal Print positions organizations to stay agile, secure, and efficient—proving that even a mundane task like printing can become a competitive advantage when powered by the right technology.
Mary Woodcock
Celiveo
