In this tech article, we will let you know the zoom tips and tricks which will help you in using zoom like pro know zoom tips and tricks. From recording your calls as videos to enabling a waiting room for your guests, the application has many tools available.
The best video conferencing apps can do more than just enable a virtual face-to-face meeting. They allow you to show what’s on your screen to everyone else on the call, seamlessly hand over control of the meeting to someone else, and record the call as a video.
The Zoom teleconferencing service offers these features and more, some of them options hidden in advanced menus. The following tips and tricks will show you how to best use the app to work, learn, and communicate with others virtually.
Create recurring meetings with saved settings and a URL
For weekly meetings, monthly check-ins, and other regularly scheduled calls, Zoom lets you create a recurring meeting. There are two benefits to using this configuration.
First of all, it allows you to lock all the call settings you want once and have them in place every time you meet. Second, recurring calls use the same join URL every time, so you never have to send a new one to attendees.
Also, if you meet with the same group regularly but not on a regular schedule, you can choose an option called No Fixed Time , which allows you to use the same settings and meeting ID over and over with the same group, no matter when they arrive. . This option is popular with educational groups that use Zoom as their virtual classroom.
How you do it will depend on the platform you are using, but you can consult the Zoom documentation to set up your recurring meeting. One thing to keep in mind: all recurring meeting IDs expire after one year, so you’ll need to generate a new one at that time.
See who attended
Let’s say you use Zoom to host a required event, such as a college conference or security training session. You probably need to know who is attending. You can get that information from a report after the meeting is over.
The list of attendees for all meetings is located in the Account Management section of Zoom> Reports . Find Usage Reports, then click Meeting to find the meeting you want, select the report type and date range, and generate the report.
To generate a list of attendees , you must be:
- The host of the meeting.
- Have a role with Usage Reports enabled.
- Be an administrator or owner of the account.
- You also need a Pro, API Partner, Business, or Education plan.
Collect information from attendees
In addition to getting a timesheet, you can also gather information about meeting attendees before joining the call. For example, you may want to request that attendees provide their name, company or industry affiliation.
To collect this information, you must first request registration, an option found on the My Meetings tab of the Zoom web app. Next, you need to set up a form that attendees must complete before they can join the meeting.
For the registration form, Zoom provides standard fields, such as company name and title, that you can add using checkboxes. To add new questions or fields, go to the tab called Custom Questions .
However, if you are using Zoom to execute a digital event as a seminar web, you may want to allow attendees to register through a form on your site web or application event management.
Automation is an excellent way to ensure that all who sign up for your seminar web registered in Zoom. To request information about attendees in Zoom, the host must have a Pro account. Also, the meeting cannot be your personal meeting ID.
Record the call as a video
Zoom allows you to record your web conference calls as videos, a useful feature for sharing the meeting with people who may have been lost or to review what was said.
When you record, you must choose whether you want to use the local or cloud option. Local means that you store the video file yourself, either locally on your computer or in other storage space that you provide.
With Cloud, which is only for paying members, Zoom stores the video for you in your cloud storage (different types of accounts come with different amounts of storage).
An advantage of the cloud option is that people can stream the video in a web browser once it is ready. When creating a video from a conference call, you make a big difference in the final quality by optimizing some settings beforehand.
For example, some calls may be broadcast style, where only the host appears on the screen. In that case, set Zoom to only record the host’s video and audio.
Other calls can be in the style of a collaborative meeting , in which case you want to record everyone. Make sure to explore the Zoom settings for at least a few minutes before recording a call.
To record videos, you need Zoom on macOS, Windows, or Linux. If you don’t see the option to record, check your settings in the web app (under My Meeting Settings) or ask your account administrator to enable it. If you record video or audio of meeting attendees, it is a courtesy, and in some places a requirement, to inform them before you do so.
Have a collaborative annotation session
Screen sharing allows the host of a call to show what is on your screen to everyone else on the call. Annotation tools allow all meeting participants to draw and highlight what is on the screen, which can be of great help when discussing visual materials such as mockups, graphic designs, etc.
To annotate while viewing someone else’s shared screen , select View option at the top of the Zoom window and then choose Annotate. A toolbar appears with all the options for making annotations, including text, drawing, arrow, and so on.
The presenter can use the Save button on the toolbar to capture the entire image with annotations as a screenshot . You can also disable attendee annotation entirely.
Call co-hosts
Meetings can have more than one person at the helm. A public relations representative may need cooperative control of a meeting with an executive, or a team with more than one leader may prefer each co-host to choose one person over the other.
Whatever your circumstances, you can initiate a Zoom call and have more than one person in charge. To use the co-hosting tools, you must first enable it in the Zoom meeting settings.
Find 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 they hover over your video frame.
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.
To use co-hosting, you need a Pro, Business, Education, or API Partner account with Zoom, and you must run on macOS, Windows, Android, or iOS (not Linux or the web ). If the option doesn’t appear, ask your account administrator to enable the setting on the Meeting tab for co-hosting privileges.
Give attendees a waiting room
Zoom allows attendees to participate in a video call with or without the presence of the host. Small groups sometimes like this option because they can have a few minutes to chat before the meeting officially begins.
In some situations, however, it might be inconvenient 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 all in at the same time or one by one.
Enabling a waiting room depends on the type of account you have . However, when you set one up, you can customize what attendees see while they wait for your input.
Delegate someone else to schedule your meetings
People who work with an assistant will love this option in Zoom that grants scheduling privileges to someone else . Whoever manages your calendar can now schedule Zoom calls for you.
To set up the scheduling assistant, log in to 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 in their email addresses and finish by clicking Assign.
After adding your scheduling assistants , they must log out of Zoom and log back in for the feature to take effect. From now on, attendees can create meetings for others using the Schedule tool.
Find Advanced Options or Meeting Options (depending on the version of Zoom you use) and following the prompts to create a new meeting. The primary Zoom account holder and everyone who receives scheduling privileges must have Pro or Corp licenses. For webinars, both the account holder and the developer must have webinar licenses.
Learn some essential keyboard shortcuts
If you use Zoom more than once a week, there are a couple of keyboard shortcuts worth learning to save you a lot of time :
- I am to invite. Press Cmd + I (macOS) or Alt + I (Windows) to go to the Invite window, where you will need to take the link to the meeting or send invitations to other people by email.
- M is for dumb. Press Cmd + Ctrl + M (macOS) or Alt + M (Windows) when you are hosting the meeting and want to mute everyone else on the line.
- S is for sharing. Press Cmd + Shift + S (macOS) or Alt + Shift + S (Windows) to share your screen.
We hope this article will update you with the latest zoom tips and tricks.