How it works
Three steps to put your Windows PCs’ printing under your rules, with no print server and no change to your teams’ habits.
Sign up with your work e-mail address.
By signing up, you accept the terms of service and the data processing agreement on your organisation’s behalf; the privacy policy describes how we use your data.
Step 1:Create your organisation and invite your colleagues
The organisation is your company: you create it with your work e-mail address, then invite the people who manage and the people who print.
- Sign up with your work e-mail address and confirm it. Your organisation’s environment is then prepared, and an e-mail tells you as soon as it is ready, usually within a minute.
- Invite your colleagues from Users: each one receives an e-mail to create their Diwink account, or to join with the one they already have.
- Give a role to those who manage: Administrator, Manager, Technician, or roles of your own, limited to some groups or printers.
- Put the users in groups, your departments: quotas, access and managers are attached to them.
| Name | Users |
|---|---|
| AdministratorSystem rolealways over everything | 1 |
| Managercan be narrowed to groups | 3 |
| Techniciancan be narrowed to printers | 2 |
| Accounting managerAccounting | 1 |
An administrator who only uses the panel needs no seat: only the people whose printing Diwink controls need one. The organisation’s owner gets the first seat, though, which an administrator can take back in Users.
Step 2:Install the agent on your PCs
One MSI package per PC: the Diwink agent, a Windows service, and the employees’ Diwink app. The panel gives it to you with the command that links your PCs to your organisation.
- In the panel, PCs › Enrollment tokens › New token: choose how many days the token stays valid and how many PCs may use it.
- The panel shows the token once, with the package to download and the ready-made install command.
- Run the command on each PC as an administrator. When it starts, the agent enrols the PC, which appears in PCs; the token is then deleted from the PC.
Copy it now: it will not be shown again. Install the PCs’ setup with it, as an administrator:
DWC-…
msiexec /i Diwink-<version>.msi /qn SERVERURL=https://app.diwink.fikrasystems.com ENROLLMENTTOKEN=DWC-…For many PCs, the same command as a startup script of a Group Policy, or in Intune (a line-of-business MSI app, with the arguments after /i). Create a short-lived token for as many PCs as you need, then revoke it once they are installed.
All it takes is 64-bit Windows 10 or 11, and an administrator account to install: the package carries everything else. See the system requirements
With Diwink Server, the command names your own server (SERVERURL=https://<server>:8443), with a DWK-… token and, for the certificate the server’s setup created, its fingerprint (CERTTHUMBPRINT=…).
Step 3:Link the Windows accounts, and print under your rules
Diwink recognises each person by their Windows account. Once that link is made, your rules apply to every one of their print jobs.
- Each employee links their Windows account once: the Diwink app offers it, they sign in with their Diwink account, and their documents print in their name.
- You can also type a user’s Windows account in the panel:
DOMAIN\userorPC\user. - On Diwink Cloud, each user has one Windows account. A new link from the app replaces the old one, at most once every 30 days; an administrator can change it at any time.
- On a shared PC (a reception desk, a training room), each person signs in to the Diwink app before printing, and their pages count against their own quota.
- Each person who prints takes a seat, which you give in Users: the Free plan includes 5.
- Set your quotas, access rules and blocks: each change goes to the PCs at once.
Your Windows account COMPANY\accounting is not linked to Diwink yet. Sign in once with your Diwink account to link it: your documents then print in your name.
Your Diwink user name (your e-mail address on Diwink Cloud)
Password
What happens to each print job
For the employee, nothing changes: they print as before. It all happens on their PC, before the document reaches the printer.
They print
From any application, to their usual printer.
The agent holds the document
It notes who is printing, on which printer, how many pages, in colour or not.
Your rules decide
Blocks, access to the printer, quotas: all of them must let the whole document through. Offline, the PC decides on its own, with the last rules it received.
The document goes, or is refused
Allowed, it prints and its pages are counted. Refused, it is deleted, and the Diwink app says why and offers to make a request.
Frequently asked questions
Do we need a print server?
No. The agent controls the print queues of each PC, whether the printer is on the network or plugged in by USB. Your PCs keep their printers as they are today.
Do we need Active Directory?
No. On Diwink Cloud, each person has a Diwink account with their work e-mail address and links their Windows account from the app. Diwink Server can also read your users and groups from Active Directory, without ever changing it.
What if the internet or the server goes down?
The PCs keep printing with the last rules they received. Each one gets a share of the quotas (by default, according to its recent printing) and decides on its own.
You set the limits of this mode in the settings: how many days the rules stay valid, and how many pages a day at most. The jobs printed offline are sent once the server is back.
Can an employee get around Diwink?
Not through their PC’s print queues: without administrator rights they can neither stop the agent, nor uninstall it, nor change the queues. But what is sent straight to the printer (its web page, a USB key on its panel, e-mail printing, other protocols) does not go through the agent: keep your employees as standard users, limit the printers’ network access to the PCs that should print to them, and turn off the printing features nobody needs.
For network printers, Diwink compares their page counter with the pages it recorded: pages printed some other way raise an alert.
Does Diwink see our documents?
No. Document contents are never stored and never leave your network. Diwink records who printed, on which printer, how many pages and when. Document names are optional: recorded by default on Diwink Server but not on Diwink Cloud, and a setting (Settings › Printing) changes this.
Which printers are counted?
Your PCs’ network and USB printers. Virtual printers (PDF, XPS, OneNote, fax) stay allowed and are not counted, unless you map them to a printer. A printer an agent discovers waits for your decision, to manage it or ignore it, and counts as managed meanwhile.
How do we update the PCs?
Install the new MSI package like the first one: it replaces the old version and keeps the PC enrolled.
Try Diwink for free
Diwink Cloud’s Free plan: 5 seats, 5 PCs, 5 printers and 90 days of history.
Sign up with your work e-mail address. Addresses from public webmail services are refused: the organisation you create is your company’s, recognised by its domain name, and your colleagues join it by invitation.
By signing up, you accept the terms of service and the data processing agreement on your organisation’s behalf; the privacy policy describes how we use your data.