I'm in the process of deploying Configuration Manager to our company with ~35 sites and ~2000 users. Many of our users travel with their laptop from site-to-site. We will deploy the Application Catalog and train our users to use it as their one-stop source for applications. Here is the issue:
I want to deploy printers using the application catalog. But, our company has 100's of printers, and I only want to show the printers installed at the site where the user is logged on. For devices, this is easy to do - just create a collection based on IP addresses or AD sites and deploy the printers accordingly. The problem is that the Application Catalog only shows user deployments, not device deployments, and users don't have an IP address.
Does anyone have an idea on how I could create a user collection based on the IP address of the last logged-on computer? I've searched around for ideas but so far have come up empty.
Here are some options for alternative approaches I have considered:
1. Just use device deployments and tell the users to install printers from the software center. This is probably how I'll wind up doing things if I can't get user-based deployments to work. I just don't want to train users to look for software in 2 places.
2. Use AD groups to define my user collections. I may also do this, but we'll have to add direct membership rules for users who travel a lot, which is okay, but not ideal.
3. Deploy all printers to everyone. I don't want to do this for many reasons: "I printed my document 10 times but I can't find it anywhere."
Thanks in advance,
--Russel