Shared Calendar for Zoom Group Meetings

A number of departments/projects use a shared group Zoom meeting room, set up with one meeting ID that everyone uses to have their meetings. These types of meeting rooms are associated with a functional/departmental account such as zoom_hr@sil.org. They normally have the option Enable join before host turned on, since these types of meetings will usually not have an official host. A Google calendar room resource is set up for people to schedule their meetings so that people can avoid entering someone else’s meeting. Here are the steps to effectively manage a group account:

Create a recurring meeting with password (this is a one-time procedure).
Request a Google calendar for your Zoom “room” by filling out the SIL Calendar Resource Request form. Below are tips for what options to choose:
1. Calendar Name should start with (Zoom) then the name of your department, location or entity, for example: (Zoom)-HR.
2. Description - for example “Virtual Conference Room for HR personnel”
3. Type of calendar is Conference/Meeting Room.
4. Visibility - choose whether the calendar will be available exclusively for anyone in the SIL organization or public. For most groups, it should be SIL.
5. Sharing Permissions - choose whether people can see all the event details or only whether the room is free or busy.
6. Conflict Scheduling - Auto-accept events that do not conflict.

People will now be able to schedule events on their own Google calendar and reserve that room resource. If the room has already been scheduled, they will not be able to add the room. The room reservations will appear on the Google calendar associated with the group account.

3. Post/distribute the meeting link (URL) where only the members of your group can find it.

Note that there is only one meeting room and reserving the room on the Google calendar does not actually prevent two different groups from trying to use the meeting room at the same time. The calendar is only a way to try to efficiently manage when the room will be used.