Joining, Hosting & Securing Zoom Meetings

Ways to Join

YOU DO NOT NEED A LINK! YOU DO NOT NEED TO SIGN IN!

Have I made myself clear? A link can provide an easy way for someone to gain access to a Zoom meeting because it contains the meeting ID (and sometimes the password as well). A link also saves the participant from having to copy and paste the meeting ID (and password) or manually type them.

However, Zoom links may also lead to confusion among participants who don’t realize that the meeting is running in a separate app on their computer instead of the web browser, where they see a message that the meeting is happening or a continuous invitation to launch it. These folks often carry the belief that the browser window is required for the duration of the meeting, because, after all, they clicked a hyperlink to get there.

Instead, I teach clients how to locate and open the Zoom application on their device, copy the meeting ID and password if necessary, and manage their audio and video settings during the meeting. In the process, I indicate that they need not sign in and may simply join. Signing in is only necessary for hosts. [Update: The only exception to this rule is when the host as set their account to require attendees to be signed into an account of their own.]

Ways to Host

You must have a Zoom account, whether free or paid, in order to host a meeting. The following scenarios apply:

1. Only the host needs to sign into Zoom to do so and they will generally do so in the Zoom app
2. Participants may be signed into their own Zoom accounts, but this will have no bearing on their ability to join someone else’s meeting
3. The host may make any participant a co-host; while there can be only one host, there can be unlimited co-hosts in a meeting
4. Only the host can manage live-streaming, breakout rooms, and waiting rooms, assign co-hosts, or end a meeting. Co-hosts can do everything else, including managing audio, video, and screen sharing privileges.

While it may be possible for multiple people to sign into a single Zoom account user concurrently, they will not all be able to simultaneously host a meeting of the same ID (or even of different IDs). Any user after the first should join as a participant and then receive co-host privileges if appropriate.

Some People Go Both Ways

Suppose you schedule a meeting and give someone else your account login so they can host it, such as to teach a class. That person, once logged into Zoom, will find the meeting listed in the Meetings section of the Zoom app and can start it from there.

If you then need to enter the meeting room, such as to monitor the teacher’s engagement or to take stock of the participants in attendance, you should do so via the meeting link or by opening the Zoom app, clicking Join, and entering the meeting ID.

Enhanced Meeting Security

Are you concerned that unwanted guests may attend your meeting? Zoom has just instituted some new protocols to try to prevent trolls from showing up unannounced. As of April 5, the meeting password and waiting room features have been turned on by default and also enabled for previously scheduled meetings.

These are still settings you can change in your account settings or on a per-meeting basis. However, it’s important to be aware that even future meetings that you scheduled prior to April 5 will have a password and a waiting room unless you turn them off.

To be sure, invitations you sent without the password previously will not get participants into the meeting unless you either disable the password requirement or provide it to attendees first.

Here are some best practices I recommend:

• Don’t widely share your 10-digit Personal Meeting ID, except among people you trust
• Use instant and scheduled meetings with their generated 9-digit meeting IDs, of which there a billion possibilities
• Use a waiting room to manage who gets admitted and when
• If you don’t want participants to be able to unmute themselves, such as in a webinar, you can disallow it
• Use a breakout room to segregate certain participants, such as event leaders who need to commiserate separate from other attendees