Zoom meetings have become the new normal form of communication, but do you know the best way to set one up?
For work, school or fun, we’ve all been Zooming the days away. But chances are we’re not always doing it the best way. So we called on a Zoom expert (ok, Esti’s brother) to help guide us all through the basics.
- All meetings should be scheduled as recurring meetings. This way, if you have to disconnect before the meeting actually starts, you won’t be forced to send out a new meeting ID at the last minute.
- Name your meeting. People are getting many Zoom links and naming them helps keep track.
- Never use your personal meeting ID for a public meeting.
- Meeting Password:
a) Chances of getting zoom-bombed are very slim. Meeting passwords adds another step to the login process. People that are not familiar with attending online meetings have a hard enough time logging in. If anyone joins the meeting that shouldn’t be there, the moderator/host can remove them. Consider not setting a password. However, if either of these is true, always use a password:
i) Children will be on the meeting
ii) You won’t have anyone other than the presenter moderating the meeting
b) Edit the password to make it something easy to remember
c) Do not use non-numeric characters if there is a chance anyone will want to join from a phone. Often attendees that log in to the video on a smartphone or computer will still connect to the audio part by phone. This will force your users to use one password for logging in by app and another by phone.
- Video should be turned off for participants by default unless it’s a small crowd you know will want their video on, like a family chat. Work meetings are usually better off defaulting to video off, though in any meeting, participants have the option to turn on video when joining the meeting.
- There is no way to block participants from showing their video unless you pay for the Webinar feature.
- If there will be more than a few participants, set audio to be muted by default
- If the host mutes a participant, the participant can unmute himself. If the host mutes all, nobody can unmute themselves unless the host allows it. This is particularly helpful for classes or Tehillim groups.
- Enable waiting room will be turned on by default. If the presenter is the only host, turn it off.
- If you have a paid account, set meetings to record automatically on the cloud.
- By default, recorded meetings will require a password when sharing. This can be turned off in your account settings (not a meeting setting). It can be disabled after the meeting for any specific recording.
These are just some basic tips. If anyone has specific questions, please leave them in the comments and Shmuly will help us answer them for you.
How do I set it not to record a meeting by default?
By default meetings will not be recorded automatically. If you your meetings are recorded automatically, there are two settings you have to check. On a scheduled meeting, there is a setting to record automatically (look for “Record the meeting automatically”). There is also a setting on the account level (look for “Record meetings automatically as they start” in the Recording section of the settings).
Thank you. This was very helpful and informative. How can I get a playback of a meeting through the phone? For those who missed a meeting but don’t have zoom access.
Unfortunately, there is no way to play back by phone. If they have internet access, you can share a link to the recording. This link is not available immediately after the meeting. During busy hours it can take an hour or so until the recording is processed.
You can set the meeting to store the recording on your computer. Then you will see in the download an audio file, you can upload it to the broadcast feature in freeconferencecall and share the conference number
A word of caution before making recording the default in professional settings- some states have laws where the parties need to give consent to have their conversation recorded.
When recording a meeting, the app will show a message stating that the meeting is recorded. There is also an option to play an audio message when a user joins and the meeting is being recorded. If the user joins by phone and not the app, this message will always play. I believe this satisfies the legal requirement of notification (I’m not a lawyer 🙂 )
I also thought zoom bombing was a joke but it seems it’s happening more and more often. A rabbi was recently giving a class when 10 guys came on and were shouting heil hitler among other obscenities, while they filled the screen with inappropriate images. We’ve also seen random people on my preschoolers zoom, they were not doing any harm but refused to leave while we were waiting for the host to join. Be careful!
How do I allow ppl to call in to the zoom using a phone for those without a computer?
When creating a meeting, you are given the option to use computer audio, phone or both. The default is both. To see the call in information, you can click the arrow near Mute (when in a meeting). You will have an option to “Switch to phone audio”. This will show call in numbers, meeting ID and password. The meeting password for call in might be different than the password used for joining the meeting in the app.
I am a therapist using zoom for teletherapy. When I try to screenshare, my connection slows and the audio and video gets choppy. I live in a basement. Is there anything to do about this? I don’t have problems with my optimum wifi otherwise.
Screen sharing while sharing video requires lots of bandwidth. If the situation allows it, consider turning off video sharing while screen sharing. Also make sure your video setting is not set to HD. HD video also requires more bandwidth.
I keep trying to set my zoom account to not allow the participants to join before the host, and yet every day my students are continuing to to join before I do and I receive emails which say my participant is waiting… and many times they are using the account off of our regular class hours which I also occasionally do and don’t want to run into them… how do I set it to stay permanently so they don’t join before me? I was originally directed to allow them to join before me by someone when I set up the account but I quickly regretted it.