JP2011134135A - Remote diagnostic system and control program - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To transmit maintenance information of an image forming apparatus to a management server even when utilizing a printer controller which does not include a maintenance information transmission function. <P>SOLUTION: A remote diagnostic system includes: an image forming apparatus provided with a function for reading an image of a document and outputting the read image as scan data; a printer controller provided with a function for obtaining the scan data from the image forming apparatus, converting the scan data into an image file and outputting the image file; and a management server for managing maintenance information obtained from the image forming apparatus through the printer controller. The image forming apparatus outputs the maintenance information of the image forming apparatus itself to the printer controller by the same format as the scan data. The printer controller converts the scan data into the image file and outputs the image file to the management server. The management server obtains the maintenance information from the image file. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2011,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a remote diagnosis system and a control program, and more particularly to a remote diagnosis system including an image forming apparatus, a printer controller, and a management server, and a control program that operates in the image forming apparatus.

  A remote diagnosis system is one of maintenance services for copiers and multifunction machines (hereinafter referred to as image forming apparatuses). The remote diagnosis system is a system for remotely monitoring the image forming apparatus by communicating maintenance information (information indicating the occurrence of a jam, the state of the apparatus, etc.) between the image forming apparatus and the management server via a network or the like. E-mail, http (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol), modem (telephone line), etc. are used for data exchange between a general image forming apparatus and a management server.

  With regard to such a remote diagnosis system, for example, in Patent Document 1 below, a maintenance command is transmitted from a remote location to a target machine to be maintained by a remote terminal, and connected to the remote terminal via a remote communication means. A remote maintenance system is disclosed in which a maintenance command transmitted from a remote terminal is converted into a command that can be processed by a target machine and supplied to the target machine by a protocol conversion device.

Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-150897

  FIG. 9 shows the overall configuration of a conventional remote diagnosis system. The route for transmitting maintenance information to the management server 90 of the remote diagnosis system includes the route 1 for transmitting from the engine 70 (image forming apparatus) through the printer controller 80 and the route 2 for directly transmitting from the engine 70. In the case of route 2, it is necessary to have the user prepare two LAN (Local Area Network) ports for the engine 70 and the printer controller 81, which increases the burden on the user. It is done.

  However, in order to communicate via the route 1, it is necessary to install the maintenance information transmission function unique to the engine manufacturer in the printer controller 80. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 10, in the case where a plurality of printer controllers 80 are provided for one type of engine 70, each printer controller 80 must be provided with a maintenance information transmission function, resulting in a high development cost. was there.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and the main object of the present invention is to manage maintenance information of an image forming apparatus even when a printer controller that does not have a maintenance information transmission function is used. It is to provide a remote diagnosis system and a control program that can be transmitted to a computer.

  In order to achieve the above object, the present invention acquires an image forming apparatus having a function of reading an image of a document and outputting it as scan data, acquires the scan data from the image forming apparatus, converts the scan data into an image file, and outputs the image file. In a remote diagnosis system comprising: a printer controller having a function; and a management server that manages maintenance information acquired from the image forming apparatus via the printer controller, the image forming apparatus scans maintenance information of the apparatus itself. Output to the printer controller in the same format as the data, the printer controller converts the scan data into the image file and outputs it to the management server, and the management server acquires the maintenance information from the image file Is.

  In the image forming apparatus having a function of reading an image of a document and outputting it as scan data, the present invention further includes means for outputting maintenance information of the apparatus in the same format as the scan data.

  The present invention also provides an image file generated based on scan data in which maintenance information is embedded in a management server that manages maintenance information of an image forming apparatus having a function of reading an image of a document and outputting it as scan data. And a means for acquiring the maintenance information from the image file.

  According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a control program that operates in an image forming apparatus having a scan function of reading an image of a document and outputting the scanned data as scan data, wherein the image forming apparatus has the same maintenance information as the scan data. It functions as a means for outputting in a format.

  According to the remote diagnosis system and the control program of the present invention, it is possible to transmit the maintenance information of the image forming apparatus to the management server even when using a printer controller that does not have a maintenance information transmission function.

  This is because an image forming apparatus having a scan function transmits maintenance information as scan data to the printer controller, and a management server that manages maintenance information acquires maintenance information from the scan data received via the printer controller. It is.

It is a figure showing the whole remote diagnostic system composition concerning one example of the present invention. It is a block diagram which shows the detailed structure of the engine of the remote diagnosis system which concerns on one Example of this invention, a printer controller, and a management server. It is a figure which shows an example of the screen displayed on the engine which concerns on one Example of this invention. It is a flowchart figure which shows operation | movement of the engine which concerns on one Example of this invention. It is a figure which shows the communication sequence of the scan data between the engine which concerns on one Example of this invention, and a printer controller. It is a figure which shows an example of the image file containing the maintenance information which concerns on one Example of this invention. It is a figure which shows an example of Header Info concerning one Example of this invention. It is a flowchart figure which shows operation | movement of the management server which concerns on one Example of this invention. It is a figure which shows the whole structure of the conventional remote diagnosis system. It is a figure which shows the other whole structure of the conventional remote diagnosis system. FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a detailed configuration of an engine and a printer controller when a path 1 is used. FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating a detailed configuration of an engine and a printer controller when a path 2 is used. It is a figure which shows an example of the screen displayed on the conventional engine. It is a flowchart figure which shows operation | movement of the conventional engine. It is a flowchart figure which shows operation | movement of the conventional printer controller. It is a figure which shows the communication sequence of the scan data between the conventional engine and printer controller.

  As shown in the background art, in the remote diagnosis system shown in FIG. 9, there are a route 1 for transmitting maintenance information from the engine through the printer controller and a route 2 for directly transmitting from the engine as the routes for transmitting maintenance information to the management server. The configuration and operation of the engine and printer controller when using each path will be described below.

  FIG. 11 is a block diagram illustrating main configurations of the engine 70 and the printer controller 80 when the path 1 is used.

  As shown in FIG. 11, the engine 70 has a scan function and a maintenance information transmission instruction function.

  The scan function of the engine 70 includes an operation unit 16 that receives a scan operation from a user, a panel control unit 17 that controls the operation unit 16, an image reading unit 11 that reads a document, and data that can be transferred to the printer controller 80. An image processing unit 12 that performs conversion processing, a scan image transfer unit 25 that transfers image data to the printer controller 80, a printer controller communication unit 15 that implements communication with the printer controller 80, and a job that holds a job list such as a scan job history The list holding unit 18 and the scanner control unit 13 for controlling the entire scan function are included.

  The maintenance information transmission instruction function of the engine 70 includes an operation unit 16 for inputting maintenance information transmission settings, a panel control unit 17 for passing the input setting information to the setting holding unit 19, a setting holding unit 19 for holding settings, and maintenance. Maintenance information generation unit 24 that generates maintenance information to be transmitted upon receipt of an information transmission instruction, maintenance information transfer unit 22 that transfers the generated maintenance information to printer controller 80, and printer controller communication that realizes communication with printer controller 70 The unit 15 includes a maintenance information transmission control unit 23 that performs overall control of the maintenance information transmission instruction function.

  As shown in FIG. 11, the printer controller 80 has a scan image transmission function and a maintenance information transmission function.

  The scan image transmission function of the printer controller 80 includes an engine communication unit 31 that realizes communication with the engine 70, a scan image reception unit 32 that receives a scan image from the engine communication unit 31, and an image that converts the received scan image into an image file. A file generation unit 34, a Scan To E-mail generation unit 35 that generates a mail with an attached image file, an E-mail transmission unit 36 that transmits the generated mail to a specified destination from the engine 70, and a printer controller 80 on the network. A network communication unit 37 to be connected, a scan function control unit 33 for controlling the entire scan image transmission function, and the like.

  The maintenance information transmission function of the printer controller 80 includes an engine communication unit 31 that realizes communication with the engine 70, a maintenance information reception unit 38 that receives maintenance information from the engine communication unit 31, and a maintenance mail that generates a mail with the maintenance information attached thereto. A generation unit 39, an e-mail transmission unit 36 that transmits the generated mail to a designated destination from the engine 70, a network communication unit 37 that connects the printer controller 80 to the network, and maintenance that performs overall control of these maintenance information transmission functions. It consists of a function control unit 40 and the like.

  The maintenance information transmission instruction function of the engine 70 in the remote diagnosis system having the above configuration will be described with reference to the screen example of FIG. 13 and the flowcharts of FIGS. 14 and 15.

  First, the maintenance information transmission instruction function is set from the operation unit 16 of the engine 70 by a service person or the like. FIG. 13 shows an example of a setting screen for the maintenance information transmission instruction function. The function setting 101 indicates ON / OFF of the maintenance information transmission instruction function, and the maintenance information transmission instruction function operates only when it is ON. The communication method setting 102 sets a method for transmitting maintenance information to the management server. The destination setting 103 sets a destination (e-mail address in the case of E-mail) of the management server. These setting contents are stored in the setting holding unit 19, and control such as setting contents display on the panel is performed by the panel control unit 17.

  The maintenance information transmission control unit 23 acquires setting information of the maintenance information transmission instruction function from the setting holding unit 19. When the function setting 101 is ON, the status of the engine 70 is monitored, and it is determined whether or not the maintenance information transmission condition previously incorporated in the maintenance information transmission control unit 23 is satisfied.

  When the status of the engine 70 satisfies the maintenance information transmission condition (Yes in S301), the maintenance information transmission control unit 23 transmits the setting contents of the communication method setting 102 and the destination setting 103 to the maintenance information generation unit 24, and the maintenance information A maintenance information generation instruction is issued to the generation unit 24 (S302).

  Receiving the instruction, the maintenance information generation unit 24 acquires maintenance information from the status of the engine 70 (S303), and transmits it to the maintenance information transfer unit 22 together with the setting contents of the communication method setting 102 and the destination setting 103 (S304).

  The maintenance information transfer unit 22 transmits the received maintenance information to the printer controller 80 through the printer controller communication unit 15 (S305).

  On the other hand, when receiving the maintenance information from the engine communication unit 31, the printer controller 80 passes the maintenance information to the maintenance information receiving unit 38. The maintenance information receiving unit 38 notifies the maintenance function control unit 40 of the reception. The maintenance function control unit 40 passes the maintenance information received from the maintenance information receiving unit 38 to the maintenance mail generation unit 39 and instructs generation of the mail.

  Receiving the instruction, the maintenance mail generation unit 39 creates a transmission mail based on the maintenance information (S401), and passes the created mail to the E-mail transmission unit 36. The E-mail transmission unit 36 E-mails the mail received from the maintenance mail generation unit 39 to the destination specified through the network communication unit 37 (S402).

  Then, the management server 90 extracts maintenance information from the received mail, and manages the engine 70 based on the maintenance information.

  By using such a method, the maintenance information of the engine 70 can be transmitted to the management server 90. However, when the route 1 is used, the printer controller 80 must be provided with a maintenance information transmission function, which requires development costs. There is a problem.

  FIG. 12 is a block diagram illustrating main configurations of the engine 70 and the printer controller 81 when the path 2 is used.

  As shown in FIG. 12, the engine 70 has a scan function and a maintenance information transmission instruction function as in FIG. 11, but the printer controller 81 has only a scan image transmission function. It does not have a transmission function (maintenance information receiver 38, maintenance mail generator 39 and maintenance function controller 40 in FIG. 11).

  For this reason, the printer controller 81 transmits the maintenance information to the management server 90 even if the maintenance information is received from the maintenance information transfer unit 22 of the engine 70 through the printer controller communication unit 15 and the engine communication unit 31 as described above. I can't.

  In addition, although maintenance information can be transmitted directly from the maintenance information transfer unit 22 of the engine 70 to the management server 90, a communication unit for connecting to the network 60 must be provided in the engine 70. The configuration becomes complicated. In addition, a port for connecting to the engine 70 must be provided separately on the network 60 side, which increases the burden on the user.

  From such a background, in one embodiment of the present invention, even when a printer controller without a maintenance information transmission function is used, maintenance information can be transmitted from the engine to the management server via the printer controller. We propose a method to do this.

  In order to describe the above-described embodiment of the present invention in more detail, a remote diagnosis system and a control program according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating an overall configuration of a remote diagnosis system according to the present embodiment, and FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating detailed configurations of an engine (image forming apparatus), a printer controller, and a management server. FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a screen displayed on the engine, and FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the operation of the engine. FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating a communication sequence of scan data, FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of maintenance information, and FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating an example of Header Info. FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing the operation of the management server.

  As shown in FIG. 1, the remote diagnosis system according to the present embodiment includes a printer controller 30 (an in-house printer controller 30a, an external vendor 1 printer controller 30b, an external vendor 2 printer controller 30c, etc.) that can be connected to an intranet via a network 60. And the management server 50 are arranged, and the printer controller 30 is connected to the engine 10 (image forming apparatus).

  FIG. 2 shows the detailed configuration of the engine 10, the controller 30, and the management server 50. Note that FIG. 2 shows only the configuration related to the maintenance information transmission function of the present invention, and omits functions (such as a printer function) that are not necessary for explaining the present invention. Hereinafter, each device will be described in detail.

  The engine 10 has a scan function and a maintenance information transmission instruction function.

  The scan function of the engine 10 includes an operation unit 16 that receives a scan operation from a user, a panel control unit 17 that controls the operation unit 16, an image reading unit 11 that reads a document, and data that can be transferred to the printer controller 30. The image processing unit 12 that performs conversion processing, the scan image transfer unit 14 that transfers data (data converted by the image processing unit 12 or data embedded with maintenance information) to the printer controller 30, and a printer that realizes communication with the printer controller 30 The controller communication unit 15, the job list holding unit 18 that holds a job list such as a scan job history, and the scanner control unit 13 that controls the entire scan function.

  The maintenance information transmission instruction function of the engine 10 includes an operation unit 16 that inputs settings such as maintenance information transmission ON / OFF, a panel control unit 17 that transfers the input setting information to the setting holding unit 19, and a setting that holds the setting. When the holding unit 19 receives a maintenance information transmission instruction, the maintenance information is generated, the maintenance information generation unit 21 transmits the scan information to the scan image transfer unit 14 or the maintenance information transfer unit 22, and the maintenance information transfer transmits the maintenance information to the printer controller 30. A printer controller communication unit 15 that realizes communication with the printer controller 30, a maintenance information transmission control unit 20 that performs overall control of the maintenance information transmission instruction function, and the like.

  In the present embodiment, the maintenance information transfer unit 22 is provided in the engine 10, but the maintenance information transfer unit 22 can be omitted when connected to the printer controller 30 that does not have the maintenance information transmission function.

  The printer controller 30 has only a scanned image transmission function.

  The scan image transmission function of the printer controller 30 includes an engine communication unit 31 that realizes communication with the engine 10, and a scan image reception unit 32 that receives data (scan image data or data embedded with maintenance information) from the engine communication unit 31. An image file generator 34 for converting the received data into an image file such as TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) or PDF (Portable Document Format), a Scan To E-mail generator 35 for generating an email with the attached image file, An E-mail transmission unit 36 that transmits the generated mail from the engine 10 to a designated destination, a network communication unit 37 that connects the printer controller 30 to the network, and a scan function control unit 33 that controls the entire scan image transmission function. Etc.

  The management server 50 acquires maintenance information of the engine 10 from a network communication unit 51 that connects the management server 50 to the network, an E-mail reception unit 52 that receives mail from the printer controller 30, and an image file attached to the mail. A maintenance information acquisition unit 53, a maintenance information holding unit 54 that stores maintenance information, and the like are included.

  In this embodiment, the engine 10 (image forming apparatus) and the printer controller 30 are configured as separate apparatuses. However, the printer controller 30 may be included in the engine 10 (image forming apparatus).

  In this embodiment, Scan To E-mail that transmits a scanned image as an e-mail will be described as an example. However, Scan To FTP that transfers a scanned image based on FTP (File Transfer Protocol), and WebDAV ( The same can be applied to Scan To WebDAV that is stored in a server based on Distributed Authoring and Versioning protocol for the WWW) and Scan To FAX that transmits a scanned image by FAX.

  Next, a procedure for transmitting maintenance information using the remote diagnosis system having the above configuration will be described with reference to a screen example of FIG. 3 and a flowchart of FIG.

  First, a maintenance information transmission instruction function is set from the operation unit 16 of the engine 10 by a service machine or the like. FIG. 3 shows an example of a setting screen for the maintenance information transmission instruction function. This screen is provided with a printer controller maintenance transmission function setting 104 in addition to the function setting 101, communication method setting 102, and destination setting 103 described above. Yes.

  The function setting 101 indicates ON / OFF of the maintenance information transmission instruction function, and the maintenance information transmission instruction function operates only when it is ON. The communication method setting 102 sets a method for transmitting maintenance information to the management server 50. The destination setting 103 sets a destination (e-mail address in the case of E-mail) of the management server 50. The printer controller maintenance transmission function setting 104 sets whether or not the printer controller 30 has a maintenance transmission function. When “Yes” is set, the conventional operation is performed. Since the conventional operation is the same as described above, it is assumed here that “none” is set. These setting contents are stored in the setting holding unit 19, and control such as display of the setting contents on the panel is performed by the panel control unit 17. In this embodiment, the communication method and destination are set by the engine 10, but these may be set by the printer controller 30. In this case, the setting contents of the communication method setting 102 and the destination setting 103 are set. Need not be transmitted to the printer controller 30.

  The maintenance information transmission control unit 20 acquires setting information of the maintenance information transmission instruction function from the setting holding unit 19. When the function setting 101 is ON, the status of the engine 10 is monitored to determine whether or not the maintenance information transmission condition is satisfied. The maintenance information transmission condition is incorporated in the maintenance information transmission control unit 20 in advance, and an example is when the pre-maintenance of the engine is reached.

  When the status of the engine 10 satisfies the maintenance information transmission condition (Yes in S101), the maintenance information transmission control unit 20 generates the maintenance information by setting the communication method setting 102, the destination setting 103, and the printer controller maintenance transmission function setting 104. The maintenance information generation unit 21 is instructed to generate maintenance information (S102).

  Receiving the instruction, the maintenance information generation unit 21 acquires maintenance information from the status of the engine 10 (S103), and determines whether the printer controller maintenance transmission function setting 104 is “present” (S104). The maintenance information is information indicating the occurrence of a jam, the state of the apparatus, etc., but may be information that can be used for remote diagnosis of the engine 10.

  When the printer controller maintenance transmission function setting 104 is “Yes”, the maintenance information, the communication method setting 102 and the setting contents of the destination setting 103 are transferred to the maintenance information transfer unit 22 as usual (S105). 22 transmits the received data to the printer controller 30 through the printer controller communication unit 15 (S106).

  On the other hand, when the printer controller maintenance transmission function setting 104 is “none”, the data that has been conventionally transferred to the maintenance information transfer unit 22 is transmitted to the scan image transfer unit 14 (S107). The scan image transfer unit 14 that has acquired the maintenance information confirms the communication method 402 and, when the communication method is E-mail, notifies the printer controller 30 through the printer controller communication unit 15 of a Scan To E-mail start notification. Subsequently, each maintenance information is transmitted as scan page data to the printer controller 2 (S108). At this time, the image size (vertical and horizontal) transmitted together with the page data is a size that matches the data size. For example, if the data size is 100 bytes, the notification is 8 pixels vertical by 100 pixels horizontal.

  The operation of S108 (method of transmitting maintenance information as scan page data to the printer controller 30) will be described in detail.

  FIG. 5 is an example of a data communication sequence between the printer controller communication unit 15 of the engine 10 and the engine communication unit 31 of the printer controller 30 when scanning (Scan To E-mail) is performed. FIG. 16 is an example of a data communication sequence between the printer controller communication unit 15 and the engine communication unit 31 in the conventional remote diagnosis system.

  As shown in FIG. 16, in the conventional sequence, after notification of scan start is notified from the engine side, the communication method for transmitting the scan data and the destination are notified, and then the scan image is transmitted page by page as page data. Finally, a scan end notification was sent.

  On the other hand, in this embodiment, as shown in FIG. 5, after notifying the scan start notification from the engine 10 side, the communication method and destination with the management server 50 are notified, and then the page data is transmitted. The header information (Header Info) of the maintenance mail is transmitted as the page data of the predetermined page (here, the first page), and the maintenance information is transmitted as the page data of the second and subsequent pages.

  In this case, since the data communication sequence is the same as that of the conventional scan, the printer controller 30 performs the same process as the conventional scan data reception process. Specifically, the printer controller 30 (scanned image receiving unit 32) that has received the maintenance information as scan data sends the received data to the image file generation unit 34 and the communication method and destination information, as in the conventional scan processing. Transmit to the scan function control unit 33. The image file generation unit 34 that has received the data generates an image file in the same manner as in the conventional scan process.

  FIG. 6 is an example of an image file (TIFF file) generated when maintenance information is received as scan data. As shown in FIG. 6, conventionally, maintenance information is stored in a location where image data is stored, and an image file is generated.

  When the image file is generated by the image file generation unit 34, the completion of file generation is notified to the scan function control unit 33 as in the conventional scan processing. Upon receiving the notification, the scan function control unit 33 notifies the Scan To E-mail generation unit 35 of the mail transmission instruction and the destination as in the conventional scan processing.

  Upon receiving the mail transmission instruction, the Scan To E-mail generation unit 35 acquires an image file from the image file generation unit 34 and creates an E-mail to be transmitted to the designated destination, as in the conventional scan processing. It transmits to the E-mail transmission part 36.

  The E-mail transmission unit 36 transmits the E-mail received from the Scan To E-mail generation unit 35 through the network communication unit 37.

  Here, since the printer controller 30 converts maintenance information into a scanned image file in the same manner as in the conventional scanning process, a method for determining whether the generated image file is maintenance information in the management server 50 is necessary. Become. This method will be described.

  The scan image transfer unit 14 that has received an instruction to transmit the maintenance information as a scan image, as shown in FIG. 6, uses the Header as the data (first IFD (Image File Directory)) of a predetermined page (here, the first page). Send Info. Header Info is a maintenance information identifier for indicating that this image file is maintenance information.

  An example of Header Info is shown in FIG. The Header Info (maintenance information identifier) in FIG. 7 is composed of 32 bytes. This size is an example, and the size of the maintenance information identifier may be any number of bytes. The maintenance information identifier in this example is defined to be a meaningful word such as “KONICAMINOLTA_MAINTENANCE_DATA” after ASCII conversion. Since the actual image file cannot have such a small size and such a word after ASCII conversion, by embedding this maintenance information identifier as data of a predetermined page (for example, the first page), the image is received on the receiving side. It is possible to determine whether the file is maintenance information.

  The operation of the management server 50 (maintenance information acquisition unit 53) when an e-mail attached with an image file including the maintenance information identifier is received will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

  When the management server 50 receives the mail, it checks whether it is a normal maintenance mail (S201). If it is a normal maintenance mail, a normal maintenance mail analysis process is performed (S206), and the maintenance information is recorded in the maintenance information holding unit 54 (S207).

  On the other hand, if the received mail is not a normal maintenance mail, it is checked whether there is an attached file in the mail (S202). If there is no attached file, exit without processing anything.

  If there is an attached file in the mail, the attached file is analyzed (S203), and it is checked whether the above-mentioned maintenance information identifier is included in the attached file (S204). If the maintenance information identifier is not included, the process ends without performing any processing.

  When the maintenance information identifier can be detected from the attached file of the mail, the maintenance information is acquired from the page data of the second to Nth pages (N is a positive number of 2 or more) of the attached file (S205). Maintenance information is recorded in the maintenance information holding unit 54 (S207).

  As described above, the engine 10 transmits maintenance information including the maintenance information identifier to the printer controller 30 in the same format as the scan data, and the printer controller 30 converts the scan data into an image file in the same manner as the normal scan processing. The management server 50 has only the scan image transmission function in order to acquire maintenance information from the image file when the maintenance information identifier is included in the image file. Even when the maintenance information transmission function is not provided, the maintenance information can be transmitted from the engine 10 to the management server 50.

  In addition, this invention is not limited to the said Example, The structure and control can be changed suitably, unless it deviates from the meaning of this invention.

  For example, in the above embodiment, the image file is attached to an e-mail and transmitted to the management server 50. However, in the case of Scan To FTP, the image file may be transmitted to the management server 50 as it is, or in the case of Scan To WebDAV. The image file is stored in the WebDAV server, and the management server 50 can acquire the image file from the WebDAV server. In the case of Scan To FAX, the image file is converted into FAX data and transmitted to the management server 50. Then, the management server 50 may restore the FAX data and acquire the image file.

  In the above embodiment, the maintenance information identifier is embedded in the first page of the image file so that it can be identified whether it is a maintenance mail. However, specific information (for example, identification information of the engine 10 or Status information), it can be identified whether the maintenance information is based on the presence or absence of the specific information.

  The present invention can be used in a remote diagnosis system including an image forming apparatus, a printer controller, and a management server.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Engine 11 Image reading part 12 Image processing part 13 Scan image control part 14, 25 Scan image transfer part 15 Printer controller communication part 16 Operation part 17 Panel control part 18 Job list holding part 19 Setting holding part 20, 23 Maintenance information transmission control Units 21 and 24 Maintenance information generation unit 22 Maintenance information transfer unit 30 Printer controller 31 Engine communication unit 32 Scan image reception unit 33 Scan function control unit 34 Image file generation unit 35 Scan To E-mail generation unit 36 E-mail transmission unit 37 Network communication unit 38 Maintenance information reception unit 39 Maintenance mail generation unit 40 Maintenance function control unit 50 Management server 51 Network communication unit 52 E-mail reception unit 53 Maintenance information acquisition unit 54 Maintenance information holding unit 60 Network 70 engine 80, 81 printer controller 90 management server 101 function setting 102 communication method setting 103 destination setting 104 printer controller maintenance transmission function setting

Claims (10)

An image forming apparatus having a function of reading an image of a document and outputting it as scan data, a printer controller having a function of acquiring the scan data from the image forming apparatus, converting it into an image file, and outputting the image data, and the printer controller In a remote diagnosis system comprising a management server that manages maintenance information acquired from the image forming apparatus via
The image forming apparatus outputs maintenance information of the apparatus to the printer controller in the same format as the scan data,
The printer controller converts the scan data into the image file and outputs it to the management server;
The remote diagnosis system, wherein the management server acquires the maintenance information from the image file. The image forming apparatus includes:
In the scan data, an identifier indicating that the scan data is the maintenance information data is embedded,
The management server
The remote diagnosis according to claim 1, wherein it is determined whether the identifier is embedded in the image file, and the maintenance information is acquired from the image file when the identifier is embedded. system. The printer controller attaches the image file obtained by converting the scan data to a mail and outputs it to the management server,
The remote diagnosis system according to claim 1, wherein the management server receives the mail and acquires the maintenance information from the image file attached to the mail. In an image forming apparatus having a function of reading an image of a document and outputting it as scan data,
An image forming apparatus comprising: means for outputting maintenance information of the apparatus in the same format as the scan data. The means is
The image forming apparatus according to claim 4, wherein an identifier indicating that the scan data is the maintenance information data is embedded in the scan data. It is possible to set whether a printer controller having a function of converting the scan data into an image file and outputting it has a maintenance information transmission function,
6. The maintenance information is output as the scan data when the printer controller that transmits the scan data is set not to have the maintenance information transmission function. Image forming apparatus. In a management server that manages maintenance information of an image forming apparatus having a function of reading an image of a document and outputting it as scan data,
A management server comprising: means for acquiring an image file generated based on scan data in which the maintenance information is embedded, and acquiring the maintenance information from the image file. The means is
Determining whether an identifier indicating that the scan data is data of the maintenance information is embedded in the image file, and acquiring the maintenance information from the image file when the identifier is embedded; The management server according to claim 7. A control program that operates in an image forming apparatus having a scan function of reading an image of a document and outputting it as scan data,
The image forming apparatus;
A control program for causing maintenance information of the own apparatus to function as means for outputting the same in the same format as the scan data. The means is
The control program according to claim 9, wherein an identifier indicating that the scan data is the maintenance information data is embedded in the scan data.

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