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Universal Print in Government

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Universal Print is currently FedRamp certified by Office 365 in both the GCC and GCC High environments. Universal Print in GCC/GCC High aims to offer full feature parity with what exists in the commercial cloud today, while remaining compliant with certifications that are required for U.S. government organizations. At this time, DoD support is not available. Universal Print in GCC and GCC High is available as a part of an existing Microsoft 365 or Windows 10/11 Enterprise subscription or as a standalone offering, with the option to purchase additional print jobs.

Licensing

Government organizations that have one of the following subscriptions have licenses for Universal Print. Government licensing also grants access to the full suite of features & capabilitites offered by the service. Additionally, each license adds to a pool of print jobs that are available to all users who have a license. The number of jobs that each license contributes to the pool depends on the license type, and unused jobs expire at the end of each month:

Learn how to set up printers, give users access, and complete your first print job on the Set up Universal Print page.

GCC

License Part Number Jobs Per Month
Universal Print for GCC (standalone) Universal_Print_for GCC 5
Microsoft 365 G3 GCC* M365_G3_GOV 100
M365 G3 Extra Features M365_G3_EXTRA_FEATURES_GCC 100
Microsoft 365 G5 GCC* M365_G5_GCC 100
Windows 10/11 Enterprise E5 Commercial (GCC Compatible) WINE5_GCC_COMPAT 5

*If you have Microsoft 365 Government G3 or Microsoft 365 Government G5 – GCC, you will also need either the corresponding Extra Features SKU or the Win OLS Activation SKU (VRM-00001) in order to use Universal Print.

GCC High

License Part Number Jobs Per Month
Universal Print for GCC High (standalone) Universal_Print_for_GCCHIGH_USGOV_GCCHIGH 5
Microsoft 365 E3_USGOV_GCCHIGH SPE_E3_USGOV_GCCHIGH 100
M365 G3 Extra Features_USGOV_GCCHIGH M365_G3_EXTRA_FEATURES_USGOV_GCCHIGH 100
Microsoft 365 E5_USGOV_GCCHIGH SPE_E5_USGOV_GCCHIGH 100
Microsoft 365 E3 - Unattended License_USGOV_GCCHIGH SPE_E3_RPA1_USGOV_GCCHIGH 100

Note

All users, including administrators, must be assigned one of the above licenses to use or configure Universal Print.

It may take up to 24 hours to gain access to Universal Print after purchasing and assigning an eligible license. If you see Universal Print included with at least one of your licenses, and you still cannot access Universal Print after 24 hours, please read our troubleshooting guide or contact support.

The included quantity of jobs is enough for many companies, meaning that those companies won't need to pay additionally for print jobs. Some organizations print more than others on a monthly basis. If your print usage will exceed the included capacity, additional print job volume is available to be added to your organization’s pool for all users.

Customers can increase their pool of print jobs by purchasing one or more additional volume add-ons. Volume add-ons are available through all regular channels, and are available in packs of 500 or 10,000 print jobs.

To view your total print volume, monitor usage, and know when you need to purchase additional volume, visit the Usage and Reports page in the Universal Print portal.

Note

A single printed document is counted as a single print job, regardless of the number of pages or number of copies printed. Attributes such as single vs. double sided or color vs. grayscale do not affect print job count. For example, 15 copies of a 10-page document sent to the printer is counted as a single print job.

A print job is only counted when it is completed. A job is considered completed when it is successfully delivered to a printer or acquired by a 3rd party service being used with Universal Print. It is counted even if it is not picked up from the printer by the user who may be using a secure release mechanism like badge release. If a failure occurred in the Universal Print service, the job is not counted.

Prerequisites

All versions of Windows are officially supported by Universal Print in GCC.

Windows 11, 22H2 and onwards is supported natively by Universal Print in GCC High. To use Universal Print in GCC High with Windows 10 and previous versions of Windows 11, please run the following commands from PowerShell script or command prompt scripts in the context of the user using Universal Print:

  • reg add "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Print\MPS" /t REG_SZ /v "OAuthAuthority" /d "https://login.microsoftonline.us/common" /f
  • reg add "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Print\MPS" /t REG_SZ /v "MSGraphBaseUrl" /d "https://graph.microsoft.us/v1.0" /f
  • reg add "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Print\MPS" /t REG_SZ /v "MSGraphResourceId" /d https://graph.microsoft.us /f

This can also be done via Intune. For more information on how to deploy these registry keys via Intune, please refer to this [link] (/mem/intune/apps/intune-management-extension).

Government endpoints

Commercial

GCC

GCC uses Commercial endpoints as well as the following:

GCC High

FAQs

Basics

What version of Windows is supported with GCC High?

Windows 11, 22H2 and onwards is officially supported by Universal Print in GCC High.

Are there any Universal Print ready printers that can connect directly to Universal Print in GCC and GCC High?

We are working with IHVs to provide this as soon as possible. Please keep an eye out here for any updates. In the meantime, you can use the connector to connect your printers to Universal Print!

Is Universal Print available in DoD?

Universal Print is not currently availalbe in DoD. Please keep an eye on our roadmap for further updates.

Access

I have an eligible license in GCC, but cannot access Universal Print.

If you have Microsoft 365 Government G3, G5 – GCC, you will need to also get the Win OLS Activation SKU in order to use Universal Print in GCC.

Would someone outside of the U.S. have access to Universal Print in GCC and GCC High?

Yes, they would be able to access Universal Print in both GCC and GCC High.

How are print jobs stored and transmitted in the cloud? For example, for GCC O365 tenants, are print jobs stored/processed/transmitted in the Office 365 tenant or through the Azure public cloud?

For the GCC environment, the Universal Print service runs in the same environment as GCC O365, where both the processing and data storage is within the GCC environment. The user authentication is using Entra ID public cloud, which is the same as GCC O365. The storage service used by Universal Print is the same storage service used by O365. All data connections between client to Universal Print; printer or Connector to Universal Print; micro services in between the cloud services are all TLS1.2 encrypted. For additional info please refer here.

Features

Does every feature in commercial work in the GCC and GCC High environments?

We are aiming for feature parity, and have prioritized making sure that commercial features are in the GCC and GCC High environments as soon as possible.

Can IT share administrative rights with different organizations within a government agency so that they can manage their own printers, and only their printers, instead of centrally managing a significant quantity of printers at an agency-wide level?

Yes, Universal Print offers a feature called Delegated Admin which uses administrative units in Microsoft Entra ID to configure scoped Print Administrator role rights to specific users/groups. The feature is currently available in GCC, and will be coming to GCC High soon.

Does secure release for iOS and Android work in GCC and GCC High?

Yes, secure release for iOS and Android works in both GCC and GCC High. For more information, please check out our secure release documentation.

Can you print directly from MacOS in GCC and GCC High?

MacOS support for GCC is currently available; it is not yet available for GCC High.