Managing Accounts

This topic covers the administrator tasks for setting up and maintaining accounts. For an overview of how Account Management works, see Account Management.

Web console: Account Management view

The Account Management sub-tab within the Users tab is used for managing accounts within the HP Insights platform. The Account Management view allows administrators to:

  • Create and manage accounts

  • Configure account rates

  • Archive unused accounts

  • Enable account selection on clients

  • View archived accounts

The Account Management view includes the following action buttons:

  • Add. Use this action to create new accounts.

  • Archive. Use this action to archive unused accounts.

  • Rates Card. Use this action to view or edit the costing structure for printing.

  • View archived accounts. Toggle the switch to ON to view archived accounts only.

Configure Account Management

  1. Create Accounts

    Administrators create accounts in the Account Management tab of the web console.

  2. Turn on "Enable on client" setting

    Navigate to the Users > Account Management tab and turn on "Enable on client" setting. This will activate the accounts on user clients, including the user portal, mobile app, and Print Scout.

  3. Enable user portal for end users

    Navigate to the Secure > Settings tab, select User Portal Settings, and then enable User Portal for end users. The User Portal allows users to view or change their active account.

Add an account

  1. Navigate to Users > Account Management tab in the Pharos web console.

  2. Click on the Add button.

  3. In the Account Properties, enter the account details. See Account Properties for a description of each field, including the Allocation and Access settings.

Note: Expired accounts are kept for reporting purposes.

Note: When a user loses access to an account (for example, due to account expiry or being moved out of the account's group), if the account was currently selected for the user, it may continue to be used for up to 12 hours after the change.

Enable Account Management on clients

The "Enable on client" setting turns on the account management feature for HP Insights clients, letting users manage their accounts easily across different devices and platforms.

  1. Navigate to the Users > Account Management tab in the web console.

  2. In the top-right corner of the page, toggle Enable on client to ON.

Turning this on activates account management on the following clients:

  • Print Scout

  • User Portal

  • Chrome Print

  • HP JetAdvantage Secure Print mobile app

Enable the User Portal for end users

The User Portal is a web-based, self-service page for end users, separate from the administrator-facing web console. Enabling it gives users a link where they can sign in with their OpenID Connect email address and manage their own printing without installing Print Scout.

What users can do

  • View pending print jobs

  • Generate or reset a release passcode

  • View available accounts

  • Switch active accounts

On the desktop, this is what makes account-switching available at all, whether directly through the User Portal or via the shortcuts Print Scout provides into it (right-clicking the icon, or the Change Account option on a send-job notification). It doesn't affect the mobile app, which has its own independent account-switching controls.

Note: User Portal Settings are available only for sites using OpenID authentication.

  1. Go to Secure > Settings in the web console.

  2. Turn on Enable User Portal for End-Users.

  3. Once enabled, the system displays a User Portal link that you can share with users. See Turn on the User Portal.

Additional notes

  • The Allow Job Upload setting appears under User Portal Settings and controls whether users can upload documents through the portal. See User Portal settings and limits.

  • Administrators can also configure a Friendly URL for the User Portal from Account Settings > Settings > Friendly URL to make the link easier to share.

  • When you add a new account in the Account Management tab, it typically appears in the User Portal after the default cache period of 12 hours. To see the new account immediately, click the Upload button to update the portal right away.

Archive an account

You can archive accounts that will no longer be available for use.

  1. Select the account you want to archive

  2. Click the Archive button.

  3. The account will be removed from the active accounts list. To view archived accounts, click View Archived Accounts.

Verify an automatic failed-release refund

See Failed print-release refunds for what causes this refund. Use either method below to confirm one was applied.

In the web console

The restored points appear as a credit associated with the original print transaction. To view it, open the user's properties panel and go to Accounts > Global and group assignments. Each account row can show up to three indicators next to the account name: a green dot if it's the user's active account, a bar-chart icon that opens the account's Usage graph, and a > chevron that opens the account's details. Click the bar-chart icon next to the account to view its usage graph, including the restored refund.

In the Activity list, each failed-release refund appears as a Decreased by Admin | PrintFailureRebate entry next to the original Print entry for the same job, marked with a green dot. The refund entry shows a negative point value (for example, a 3-point Print entry paired with a -3 pts PrintFailureRebate entry) because it reduces the number of points counted as used, which is what restores the points to the user's available balance. The underlying Activities API record for the same event also carries a negative amount. See below.

In the Activities API

Use this procedure to confirm that a failed-release refund was applied correctly. See Accounts API Reference for the activity record fields and for how to generate API credentials if you don't already have them.

  1. Open the HP US Billing Accounts API documentation or HP EU Billing Accounts API documentation and authorize the client with the cloudprint:billing-accounts scope.

  2. Open the Activities API and select the GET operation.

  3. Enter the customer ID, start date, and end date covering the time of the failed release, then execute the request.

  4. Filter or scan the response for an activity with userEmail set to the submitting user's email address and fromUser set to PrintFailureRebate. This is the refund record, shown here alongside the original Print activity it corresponds to:

{

  "userEmail": "user@example.com",

  "accountId": "56679f2f-367d-4e6c-b0fc-9cf1a72133a1",

  "activityType": "Print",

  "transactionTime": "2026-05-06T21:59:10Z",

  "quantity": 1,

  "amount": 4,

  "activityCorrelationId": "3a2d47ea-827a-4494-98fb-9d7fd1b65d19"

},

{

  "userEmail": "user@example.com",

  "accountId": "56679f2f-367d-4e6c-b0fc-9cf1a72133a1",

  "activityType": "Credit",

  "fromUser": "PrintFailureRebate",

  "transactionTime": "2026-05-06T21:59:12Z",

  "quantity": 1,

  "amount": -4,

  "activityCorrelationId": "3a2d47ea-827a-4494-98fb-9d7fd1b65d19"

}

The refund is identified by an activityType of Credit and an fromUser of PrintFailureRebate, not by a distinct activity type of its own. Its amount is negative, matching the sign convention used for manual credits. The activityCorrelationId ties the refund back to the original Print activity. See Accounts API Reference for the full field list.

If the refund can't be found, confirm that the date range includes the transaction, and that you're filtering on userEmail and fromUser rather than activityType.

Credit a user's balance

Administrators can manually adjust user points directly from the Users > User Management screen. Search for the user, select the account to update, and increase or decrease points as needed.

To credit a balance programmatically instead, for example to correct a user who has exceeded their allocated points, see Credit a user's balance via the API in Accounts API Reference.

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