IMPRINT allows users to create discrete-event simulations as visual task networks with logic defined using the C# programming language.

IMPRINT is primarily used by the United States Department of Defense to simulate the cognitive workload of its personnel when interacting with new and existing technology to determine manpower requirements and evaluate human performance.

In the Operations module, IMPRINT users develop networks of discrete events (tasks) that are performed to achieve mission outcomes.

The Forces module allows users to predict comprehensive and multilevel manpower requirements for large organizations composed of a diverse set of positions and roles.

This information, when modeled, helps predict the manpower needed to perform the routine and unplanned work done by a force unit.

In addition, IMPRINT can help predict the effects of training or personnel factors (e.g., as defined by Military Occupational Specialty) on human performance and mission success.

[3] Functions and tasks in IMPRINT models usually represent atomic units of larger human or system behaviors.

[4][5] The IMPRINT tool grew out of manpower, personnel, and training (MPT) concerns identified in the mid-1970s by the U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Army.

To directly remedy this shortcoming, the U.S. Army began the development of a set of software analysis modules in the mid-1980s.

[8] HARDMAN III was government-owned and consisted of a set of automated aids to assist analysts in conducting MANPRINT analyses.

As PC DOS-based software, the HARDMAN III aids provided a means for estimating MPT constraints and requirements for new weapon systems very early in the acquisition process.

IMPRINT has over 800 users supporting the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, NASA, DHS, DoT, Joint, and other organizations across the country.

IMPRINT also includes more low level features such as global variables and subroutines called macros.

[9] Events are occurrences that happen in an instant of simulated time within IMPRINT that change the global state of the system.

IMPRINT allows the modeler to create custom global variables that can be accessed and modified in any task node.

[9] IMPRINT's workload management abilities allow users to model realistic operator actions under different work overload conditions.

[4] The VACP method allows modelers to identify the visual, auditory, cognitive, and psychomotor workload of each IMPRINT task.

[9] IMPRINT has been used by scientists at the Army Research Lab to study Unmanned Aerial Systems,[12] workload of warfighter crews,[13][14] and human-robot interaction.

The Air Force Institute of Technology in particular is using IMPRINT to research the prediction of operator performance, mental workload, situational awareness, trust, and fatigue in complex systems.