Configuring & Using a Department Zoom Account

zoommgr_sil@sil.org

October 2022

A licensed SIL Zoom account can be used as a department resource. One person “owns” the account and manages the scheduled meetings for the department. [Per the Zoom license agreement, do not share the account credentials (password)!] Think of the Zoom account like a physical conference room for which people are given ‘numbered keys’ (meeting IDs) to access the room. A shared calendar resource will need to be used to schedule meetings so that each person/team that has a ‘numbered key’ doesn't interrupt another meeting that’s already using the room.

Creating a Shared Google Calendar Resource

A Google calendar room resource can be created for people to schedule their meetings so that they can avoid entering or blocking someone else’s meeting. Scheduling meetings on the calendar does not stop others from using a meeting ID in the Zoom account, in the same way that reserving a physical conference room does not prevent someone else just walking into the room.

Request a Google calendar resource for the Zoom account ‘room’ by filling out the SIL Calendar Resource Request form. Below are tips for what options to choose:

Calendar Name should start with (Zoom) then the name of the department, location or entity, for example (Zoom)-HR.
Description - for example “Virtual Conference Room for HR personnel”
Type of calendar is Conference/Meeting Room.
Visibility - choose whether the calendar will be available exclusively for anyone in the SIL organization or public.
Sharing Permissions - choose whether people can see all the event details or only whether the room is free or busy.
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 by selecting that resource as the meeting room (see section below).

Setting up the Zoom account to be a department ‘conference room’:

The account owner will need to schedule one or more Recurring Meetings according to the needs of the department/group. Each recurring meeting will have its own meeting ID (numbered key), and configured to allow participants to join before the host.

Signing into the account on the Zoom web portal, to schedule a recurring meeting, click on Meetings, then on the right side click on + Schedule a Meeting. Fill in the Topic, then check Recurring meeting (green oval below).

Fill in the rest of the meeting details (When, Duration, its recurrence pattern). Scroll down to Options and click Show, then check Allow participants to join anytime (green oval below).

Then click Save. Scroll back up to the top of the webpage. The meeting ID and passcode (click on Show to see it) can now be copied (green ovals below). The invite meeting link can also be copied, or click on Copy Invitation to get the full meeting invite information in plain text format into your clipboard (orange ovals). This information can now be given to the person responsible for that recurring meeting.

This process can be repeated for each person/team that needs a recurring meeting ID.

The reason why it is recommended to assign each person/team their own recurring meeting ID is to prevent accidental drop-ins to the wrong meeting. If there’s only one recurring meeting ID which the entire department uses among its teams, if team “A” has a meeting from 2:00 - 3:00, and team “B” has their meeting from 3:00 - 4:00, if members of team “B” join their meeting early (before 3:00) they could be interrupting the end of team “A”’s meeting. Or if team “A”’s meeting runs past 3:00…! Some departments have a rule to leave a 5 - 15 minute gap between meetings on the calendar for this reason.

NOTE: Just because the meeting is scheduled for a specific day and time does not mean that no one else can use the meeting “room” (remember the ‘numbered key’ concept to access a single conference room). The recurring meeting ID can still be used AT ANY TIME to start a meeting regardless of what is ‘on the calendar’. It is the responsibility of all meeting attendees to respect what is scheduled on the calendar, and to put meetings on the calendar. ALSO, the scheduled meeting in Zoom is NOT the same as scheduling the meeting in the Google calendar resource.

Scheduling Meetings on a Shared Calendar Resource

Now that the recurring meeting has been created in Zoom, it will also need to be scheduled in the Google calendar resource. The following example is using the Google calendar pop-out from Google Docs rather than opening G-Calendar in its own browser tab. Clicking on the Calendar icon (green oval below), fill in the meeting title, time, and repeat frequency.

Next, click on Add rooms (orange oval) then either type in the desired Zoom calendar resource name in the search field, or scroll down to “(Zoom)” and expand that group to find your Zoom calendar resource, then select it.

Add any meeting guests as desired. (If there are privacy/security concerns, do not add guests to the calendar.) Do NOT click on “Add video conferencing” as that would either create a Google Meet meeting or a different unique Zoom meeting ID (if you have the Zoom calendar plug-in installed). The desired recurring meeting ID information (e.g. Zoom meeting link, and/or meeting ID and passcode, created in the above section) could be added into the meeting description field if there are no privacy/security concerns. Click Save. If the room resource already has a meeting scheduled for that time, the room can’t be added to the meeting reservation - either find another available time slot or manually add the meeting to the calendar resource (see Advanced Situation, below).

Distribute the meeting information, including the Zoom meeting link, meeting ID and passcode as necessary.

As configured, there will be no meeting host unless the account owner is signed into the account when joining the meeting. If meeting host powers is desired (recording the meeting, ability to mute participant mics, manage screen sharing, etc.) then the designated person to be the meeting host will need the “host key” from the account owner to be able to claim host powers for the meeting. The host key can be found in the account owner’s Profile when signed in to the account. The designated person will join the meeting, click on Participants, click on Claim Host in the bottom right of the participant panel, then enter the host key.

Advanced Situation - Two Concurrent Meetings

While a Google calendar resource will only auto-accept a meeting invitation when there is no conflicting meeting already scheduled (as configured in the above section), concurrent meetings can be scheduled in the calendar. The concurrent meeting will need to be manually scheduled in the calendar resource.

But wait! Zoom only allows one meeting at a time in an account! Yes and no. For individual Zoom accounts, only one meeting can be active at a time. SIL’s corporate Zoom account is at the Enterprise level, which now has the ability for accounts to have two concurrent meetings. There are nuances for this situation that cautions us to not recommend depending on this feature, that a nuance may catch people by surprise and not start a meeting at the wrong moment. In limited testing, two concurrent meetings seem to work fine, including claiming host in both meetings after joining the meetings as participants.

Here’s Zoom’s support webpage describing hosting concurrent meetings:

https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/206122046-Hosting-concurrent-meetings