Pharos Printing Allocation and Spartan Cash Balance: Printing Money Not Appearing

 Hey Folks,

 This is another confusing aspect of the Pharos Print system that we get questions about fairly often, and it usually comes in this form.

"Hey, I just added money to my Spartan Cash account but the computer doesn't show it."

The answer, unfortunately, requires some explanation and some defined terms.

 

Figure 1: Image of the Pharos Print Center client with the Pharos Print Allocation circled in red.

First up, this is the Pharos Print Allocation. This number represents the free money that is allocated to everyone's Pharos account at the beginning of each semester. The Pharos Print Allocation can only be used for printing on the Pharos system.

Figure 2: An image of the SpartanCard Online homepage with the Spartan Cash balance circled in red.

 Second, we have the Spartan Cash balance. This represents the amount of money that is deposited in your Spartan Cash account. Spartan Cash can be used for a variety of things, including printing.

Figure 3: An image of the total printing balance that appears on Pharos print release terminals.

 Third and finally, we have what I'm going to call the total printing balance. This number should reflect the total amount of printing funds available to you. This includes both the Spartan Cash balance, as well as the Pharos Print Allocation.

The Problem

 Typically, the patron will realize that they have run out of their Pharos Print Allocation and proceed to make a quick deposit into their Spartan Cash account. They will then go and check the number that they have been conditioned to believe represents their printing money: the Pharos Print Allocation.

 

Now, because the Pharos Print Allocation only shows the free print money they are given at the beginning of the semester, it will remain at $0.00 no matter how much they deposit into their Spartan Cash account.

 

 The Solution

The fastest way to solve this is to have them check their total printing balance on the Pharos print release terminal near the reference desk. This should show that more printing money is available to them. Feel free to explain the difference between the three numbers above if you wish to be as informative as possible, or you just really like seeing patrons' bemused expressions.

 

 The Complication (Because Nothing is Ever Simple With Printing)

You may have noticed all of the qualifying words in the above description. The reason for that is the total printing balance does not always update quickly enough to represent the money added to the Spartan Cash balance. They should still be able to print as long as they see money in their Spartan Cash balance, no matter what number the total print balance is showing them.

 

With any luck, now that I've taken the time to document this oddity, the Pharos system will finally be phased out on the student side and we'll be able to spend time documenting whatever new and interesting errors the PaperCut system will produce.