When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more. Pocket-lint – Zoom is one of the leading video conferencing software apps. It enables you to virtually interact with co-workers when in-person meetings aren’t possible, and it thas been hugely successful for social events, too. Make no mistake: Zoom is an essential tool for small-, medium-, and large-sized teams who want to keep in touch and continue their daily workflows with minimal disruption – as well as becoming a firm favourite with individuals, especially around holidays like Thanksgiving in the US and Christmas around the world.

Zoom is a cloud-based video conferencing service you can use to virtually meet with others – either by video or audio-only or both, all while conducting live chats – and it lets you record those sessions to view later.

Over half of Fortune companies reportedly used Zoom in and during it hit even greater heights, racking up per cent growth over the year. When people are talking about Zoom, you’ll usually hear the following phrases: Zoom Meeting and Zoom Room. A Zoom Meeting refers to a video conferencing meeting that’s hosted using Zoom. You can join these meetings via a webcam or phone.

Meanwhile, a Zoom Room is the physical hardware setup that lets companies schedule and launch Zoom Meetings from their conference rooms. Zoom Rooms require an additional subscription on top of a Zoom subscription and are an ideal solution for larger companies. Zoom allows one-to-one chat sessions that can grow into group calls, training sessions and webinars for internal and external audiences, and global video meetings with up to 1, participants and as many as 49 on-screen videos.

The free tier allows unlimited one-on-one meetings but limits group sessions to 40 minutes and participants. The desktop app offers the best experience. All the apps let you join a meeting without signing in, but also let you sign in using a Zoom account, Google, Facebook, or SSO. If you’re a desktop user, you can also start a local recording, create polls, broadcast your Facebook live on Facebook, and more.

In other words, the desktop app is more fully featured, although, if you’re a free user, you can still get a lot of mileage from the mobile app. As well as the various other Zoom app downloads, it is also possible to use Zoom in other ways.

For example, there’s a Zoom Outlook plugin that’s designed to work directly in your Microsoft Outlook client or as an Add-in for Outlook on the web. This Outlook plug drops a Zoom button right into the standard Outlook toolbar and lets you start or schedule a Zoom meeting with a simple click. Another tool for quickly starting or scheduling a Zoom meeting comes in the form of an extension for your favourite browser.

A simple click on the Zoom button and you can start a meeting or schedule one for later with all the information on the meeting being sent via Google Calendar to make it easy for participants to join.

If you don’t have access to any apps – or haven’t installed one – you can run Zoom in a browser. Even if you do have Zoom apps, you can run Zoom in a browser instead. When you click on a Zoom link on a desktop, it will open a quick browser tab that will then launch the app on your device. You can bypass the app and run it directly in the browser instead if you prefer.

You might try this if your app isn’t working, or if it’s out of date or if you’re having login problems. You just have to close the app and return to your browser showing this dialog – and you’ll see the link to join in the browser. It is actually possible to get Zoom working on your TV so you can have a video call on the big screen. We’ve written a detailed guide on the various ways you can get Zoom on your TV that is worth checking out.

You can download the Zoom app on your computer or phone and join any meeting with a supplied meeting ID. You can disable audio or video before joining. You can create a free Zoom account and from there you can create a new meeting, schedule one, join a meeting, share a screen, add contacts, and so on. You can sign up and download Zoom onto your computer using your work email if your system administrator has a Pro, Business, or Enterprise account.

You’ll then want to sync Zoom to your calendar so you can schedule Zoom meetings and invite remote participants to join. If you’re setting up a Zoom Room, you’ll need a computer to sync and run Zoom Meetings and a tablet for attendees to launch the Zoom Meetings.

You’ll also need a mic, camera, and speaker, at least one HDTV monitors to display remote meeting participants, and an HDMI cable to share computer screens on a display, as well as an internet cable for your connection.

You’ll also need to download “Zoom Rooms for Conference Room” on the in-room computer and “Zoom Room Controller” for the tablet in the meeting room. You can then sync those rooms to your company’s shared calendar so employees can see which meeting rooms are available. Early in , concerns were raised about Zoom both in terms of security and problems with unwanted guests known as Zoombombers.

The company made moves to counter these issues and reassure users about the importance of security and privacy. This includes simple things like removing the meeting ID from the title bar of the call so if users share screenshots online the meeting isn’t exposed to future abuse.

The rise in prominence of Zoom lead the service to being abused by internet trolls and people with too much time on their hands. Some individuals were hunting down public and insecure Zoom meetings and letting themselves in, then “bombing” other people on the call with graphic videos, pornography and other inappropriate content. We wrote a guide on how to stop Zoombombing a while back and there are various ways you can prevent this from happening, including securing your calls, preventing screen sharing and even disabling video.

The team behind Zoom made improvements to secure your calls and keep them safe, and as far as we know, Zoombombing is no longer an issue.

Zoom has been updated with security changes to reassure users. One of these has been the requirement for a password as default for Zoom meetings. This, combined with virtual waiting rooms , ensures that only those people who have been invited to the call are actually allowed in. Zoom has made it easy to manage and secure your meetings when they’re happening. There are a range of security tools you can now access with a couple of clicks including the ability to lock the meeting when it has started so no new people can join, remove current participants on the call, muting participants and disabling private chat too.

To access the Zoom security tools, you can simply click on the security button that appears in the window when the call is happening or hover over a participant to interact with them specifically – to remove them from the call for example.

It’s now possible to report participants on the call who aren’t welcome or are causing trouble. As well as removing them from the call, you can now send a report to the Zoom Trust and Safety team to handle misuse of the system. This will help block them from the service in future and interfering with other calls too. In October , Zoom unveiled the public beta for OnZoom.

It is described as an online events platform and marketplace that allows paid Zoom users to create, host, and monetise events such as fitness classes, concerts, stand-up or improv shows, or music lessons. When business owners, entrepreneurs, and organizations of all sizes had to find some way – any way – to stay the course and continue providing services to their customers, many turned to Zoom,” Zoom explained. Visit onzoom. In October , Zoom announced Zapps, or apps that both free and paid Zoom users will have access to within the Zoom platform.

For example, you can use the Dropbox Zapp to share the document you’ve been working on, or you can put up a poll using the Slido Zapp, or you can pull up the Asana Zapp and do updates on team projects. The first of these Zapps will land by the end of Zoom plans to open the ability to offer a Zapp to more developers in the future.

Users will be able to search and add approved Zapps and integrate them directly into their Zoom accounts. Visit zoom. Zoom lets you create recurring meetings. You can set the call settings you want once and have them be in there every time you plan to meet, and you can join calls using the same URL each time. In the Zoom mobile app, just log in, click schedule, tap the Repeat option, and select a recurrence. For more info on scheduling meetings in general and all of the meeting settings, see Zoom’s FAQ on scheduling meetings.

Zoom lets you record calls as videos. You do need permission to do so though. The meeting host will have to enable recordings in settings. It’s worth checking your account settings to make sure recording is enabled before you get started. It’s worth noting that Zoom admins can activate recording for everyone, for users or groups. There’s more guidance on recording settings here. In order to record a Zoom meeting, you must choose whether to use the local or cloud option.

Local means you store the video file yourself on your computer or in another storage area. With Cloud, which is for paid subscribers only, Zoom stores the video for you in its cloud storage.

When you record a meeting and choose Record to the Cloud, the video, audio, and chat text is recorded in the Zoom cloud. When the Zoom call begins you should see an option to record on the bottom of the screen. Fair warning that for any recurring meeting, you cannot schedule it with your Personal Meeting ID also called PMI in Zoom; it’s a virtual private meeting space for you, and the link never changes.

Also, know that all recurring meeting IDs expire after one year, so you’ll have to generate a new one then. Say you’re using Zoom to hold a mandatory event, like a university lecture or a safety training session. You probably want to know who attends.

You can get that information from a report once the meeting is finished. Look for Usage Reports, and then click Meeting to find the meeting you want, select the report type and date range, and generate the report.

Requirements: To generate an attendee list, you need to be the 1 the host of the meeting, 2 in a role with Usage Reports enabled, or 3 an account administrator or owner. In addition to getting an attendance sheet, you can also gather information from meeting attendees about themselves before they join the call.

For example, you might want to require that attendees provide their name, company affiliation, or industry. To collect this information, first you need to require Registration, an option found in the My Meetings tab of the Zoom web app.

Then, you can set up a form that attendees must fill out before they can join the meeting. For the registration form, Zoom provides standard fields, such as name and company affiliation, that you add using checkboxes.

To add new questions or fields, jump over to the tab called Custom Questions. If you’re using Zoom to run a digital event like a webinar, however, you might want to let attendees register via a form on your website or an event management app. Automation is a great way to make sure that everyone who signs up for your webinar is then registered in Zoom. These pre-built Zaps are perfect for getting started:.

You can make this automation even more powerful by making sure that any registrant information you collect is also added to your CRM or email marketing tool, so you can follow up more easily. Requirements: To require attendee information in Zoom, the host must have a Pro account. Additionally, the meeting cannot be your Personal Meeting ID. Zoom lets you record your web conferencing calls as videos, a handy feature for sharing the meeting with people who may have missed it or for reviewing what was said.

When you record, you must choose whether to use the local or cloud option. Local means you store the video file yourself, whether locally on your computer or in another storage space that you provide. With Cloud, which is for paying members only, Zoom stores the video for you in its cloud storage different account types come with different amounts of storage. One convenience of the cloud option is that people can stream the video in a web browser once it’s ready.

When creating a video from a conference call, it makes a big difference in the final quality to optimize a few settings in advance. For example, some calls might be broadcast-style, where only the host appears on screen.

In that case, set Zoom to only record the audio and video of the host. Other calls might be in the style of a collaborative meeting, in which case you want to record everyone. Be sure to explore Zoom’s settings at least a few minutes before recording a call. If you don’t see the option to record, check your settings in the web app under My Meeting Settings or have your account administrator enable it.

If you need to share the recording later, try one of these Zaps to automatically share once the recording has finished. If you record meeting attendees’ video or audio, it’s common courtesy—and in some places a requirement—to inform them before you do. Screen sharing allows the host of a call to display whatever’s on their screen to everyone else on the call.

Annotation tools let all the meeting participants draw and highlight what’s on screen, which can be immensely helpful when discussing visual materials, such as mockups, graphic designs, and so forth. To annotate while viewing someone else’s shared screen, select View Option from the top of the Zoom window, and then choose Annotate. A toolbar appears with all your options for annotating, including text, draw, arrow, and so forth.

The presenter can use the save button on the toolbar to capture the complete image with annotations as a screenshot. You can also disable attendee annotation altogether. Meetings can have more than one person at the helm. A PR rep might want to cooperatively control a meeting alongside an executive, or a team with more than one lead may prefer to each co-host rather than choose one person over the other. Whatever your circumstances, you can start a Zoom call and have more than one person be in charge.

To use co-hosting tools, you first must enable it in Zoom’s Meeting Settings. Look for the Meeting tab and choose the Co-host option. Then, when you start a meeting, wait for your co-host to join, and add the person by clicking the three dots that appear when you hover over their video box.

Alternatively, you can go to the Participants window, choose Manage Participants , hover over the co-host’s name, and select More to find the Make Co-Host option. If the option doesn’t appear, ask your account administrator to enable the settings in the Meeting tab for co-hosting privileges. Zoom lets attendees get into a video call with or without the host being present. Small groups sometimes like this option because they can have a few minutes to chit-chat before the meeting officially kicks off.

In some situations, however, it could be in poor form to have attendees in a virtual room together, waiting for you to start. A better solution is to create a virtual waiting room, where attendees remain on hold until you let them in all at the same time or one by one. Precisely how you enable a waiting room depends on the type of account you have.

When you set one up, however, you can customize what the attendees see while they await your grand entrance. People who work with an assistant will love this option in Zoom that gives scheduling privileges to someone else. Whoever manages your calendar can now schedule Zoom calls for you. To set up the scheduling assistant privilege, log into Zoom, open Meeting Settings , and look under Other. You’ll see a plus sign next to Assign Scheduling Privilege.

Add your scheduling assistants by typing their email addresses and finish by clicking Assign. After you add your scheduling assistants, they must log out of Zoom and log back in for the feature to take effect. From this point on, assistants can create meetings for others by using the Schedule tool.

Look for Advanced Options or Meeting Options depending on which version of Zoom you use , and follow the prompts to create a new meeting. Requirements: The primary Zoom account holder and everyone who receives scheduling privileges must all have Pro or Corp licenses. And for webinars, both account holder and scheduler must have webinar licenses. If you use Zoom more than once a week, there are a couple of keyboard shortcuts worth learning to save you oodles of time.

I is for invite. M is for mute. S is for share. For more inspiration on how to use Zoom more efficiently, explore more Zaps you can create with Zoom and Zapier. The Zapier editorial team is an experienced group of writers and editors who want to help people be more productive at work. A freelancer’s simple project management template for Notion.

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– What is Zoom and how does it work? Plus tips and tricks

 
The attendee list for all meetings lives in the Zoom Account Management > Reports section. Look for Usage Reports, and then click Meeting to find the meeting. Whatever the truth of the matter, users participating in Zoom calls from 2 May will be forced to create and join a new meeting once they. Free users. You can download the Zoom app on your computer or phone and join any meeting with a supplied meeting ID. You can disable audio or video before.