BETA: Universal Print, a Microsoft 365 service (Preview)

Posted by: kurtsh | July 22, 2020

BETA: Universal Print, a Microsoft 365 service (Preview)

Today we are excited to announce the public preview of Universal Print, a Microsoft 365 service that enables an intuitive, rich, and secure print experience for users, while helping IT reduce time and effort.

Organizations moving to the cloud with Microsoft 365 have responded en masse since we announced the private preview of Universal Print in March, and today we have more than 2,500 customers testing the new service. Many of them have accelerated their adoption of cloud services and Universal Print because employees and teachers working from home can now print to company or school printers from anywhere when connected to the internet. While many processes have gone paperless, many critical business processes – especially in education, healthcare, and other industries – still require print.

What is Universal Print?

Universal Print provides a user-friendly, easy print experience that also:

Eliminates the need to install printer drivers because it is built into the Windows experience
Helps you to find printers both near and outside of your current location
Enables print from zero-trust networks via single sign-on (SSO) when connected to the internet and authenticated to Azure Active Directory (Azure AD).

For IT professionals who are managing print, Universal Print offers:

A print solution to unblock the move to the cloud and support print for Azure AD users.
Managed printing in zero-trust networks.
Eliminates the need to manage print servers or the need for complex hybrid print solutions.
A centralized portal that enables robust management capabilities.
Visibility and insights into your print with reporting.
Print data stored in the same manner as other Microsoft Office data, in accordance with Microsoft’s data management guidelines.
Printer deployment and default printer configuration on end-user devices using Microsoft Endpoint Manager (Microsoft Intune).

Universal Print public preview rolling out globally

We are ready to roll out the Universal Print public preview to data centers in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific in waves over the next weeks. We will start with Microsoft 365 E5 and A5 tenants, followed by customers who have a Microsoft 365 E3 or A3 subscriptions, and then those who have Windows 10 E3, A3 and E5 only subscriptions. And finally, we will complete the roll-out with Microsoft 365 Business Premium and Microsoft 365 Firstline F3 customers. Details will be published on the Universal Print release page, where you can start your journey with us.

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