Scheduling Meetings
If you prefer to keep your teaching schedule consolidated within Zoom, you can use the Schedule feature keep tabs on your lessons. Note that using Zoom's scheduling does NOT automatically start or host a meeting at the designated time. You can however designate an alternate host who can start the meeting in your absence.
Scheduling Meetings on Windows/Mac
To use the scheduling feature on Windows/Mac, first open Zoom and sign in to your account. After signing in, you will be brought to the Home Screen. To schedule a meeting, click the Schedule icon below New Meeting.
A new window with all the scheduling options should appear. The Topic is the meeting room title/label which you can change accordingly to reflect a student's or group's lesson. The Start date, time, and duration can be set.
You can turn on Recurring Meeting to have the scheduled meetings repeat as desired, but this requires access and integration to your Outlook or Google Calendar. If you chose to use the recurring meeting feature, select your appropriate calendar app under Calendar and follow the prompts that appear after you click the blue Schedule button. Depending on your calendar selection, you may need to log in to your Outlook or Google account to continue with scheduling a recurring meeting.
Under Meeting ID, you can choose to use a randomly generated ID (and password), or choose to use your Personal Meeting ID and your designated PMI password.
Under Password, you can change your password or disable it (which is not recommended).
You can also set the default Video and Audio options for the meeting, such as connecting with video automatically or connecting audio through your preferred method (Internet Audio is highly recommended).
If you click Advanced Options, you will have access to a few more specific settings.
It is recommended to Enable Waiting Room for security purposes.
Enable join before host allows students to join and wait before you start the meeting (enable this at your discretion).
Mute participants upon entry will automatically mute students who join, and you will have to manually unmute them in your meeting's Participants window.
Only authenticated users can join means that students will require a Zoom account to join, and cannot use a guest account (joining a meeting without sign in).
Automatically record meeting will record the audio content of the meeting and place the resulting file in your documents folder, although for privacy and hard disk space concerns, it is recommended to disable this.
Enable additional data center regions for this meeting allows off shore servers to manage meeting data if needed, although we also recommend that this setting is disabled unless you are teaching students in another country.
Alternative Hosts allows you to enter emails of colleagues that are also allowed to start the meeting in your absence, such as a teaching assistant for a group class.
Once you click Schedule, the window will close and you can find your scheduled meeting information in the Meetings menu along the top of your Zoom app.
Your scheduled meetings will be shown below your PMI along the left side of the window, and upon clicking a meeting, its information will be shown to the right. You will have the option of starting the meeting with the blue Start button. You may also click Copy Invitation to copy the meeting information and link into an email. Edit will open the scheduling settings window as shown when initially creating the meeting, and Delete will allow you to remove the meeting from your schedule.
Scheduling Meetings on a Mobile Device
Scheduling meetings on the mobile version of Zoom is very similar to the Windows/Mac version. First, open your Zoom app and sign in. After signing in, you will be brought to the Meet & Chat Screen. To schedule a meeting, tap the Schedule icon along the top of your screen.
A new screen with all the scheduling options should appear. You may change the meeting room title to reflect a student's or group's lesson. The Start date, time, and duration can be set. Your Time Zone should already be set appropriately based on your device's time settings.
You may make recurring meetings by tapping the Repeat option, and select your method of Calendar integration (which is must more straight forward on a mobile device such as an Apple or Android device). You may set your recurring meeting interval (such as daily or weekly), and upon tapping Done on the Schedule Meeting screen, your device's calendar app will automatically open to add the meeting as an event reminder.
Similar features to the meeting settings on Windows/Mac are also present on this screen. You can set the host/participant video to automatically connect upon joining, choose your preferred Audio connection (Device Audio Only is recommended), and Enable the Waiting Room (which should be on by default since version 5.0).
If you tap Advanced Options, you will have access to a few more specific settings.
Allow join before host allows students to join and wait before you start the meeting (enable this at your discretion).
Allow Join Meeting will allow you to enable guest accounts to join (by setting to Everyone) or only allow those with authenticated Zoom accounts to join (which requires students to sign in to Zoom first).
Automatically record meeting will record the audio content of the meeting and place the resulting file in your documents folder, although for privacy and space concerns, it is recommended to disable this.
Alternative Hosts allows you to select contacts that are also allowed to start the meeting in your absence, such as a teaching assistant for a group class.
Once you are finished, tap Done and follow any prompts for Calendar integration or email invitations. You scheduled meetings will appear in the Meeting menu along the bottom of your device's screen. Here you may edit your meetings by tapping the desired meeting time, which will return you to the Schedule Meeting screen above.
Remember that scheduling a meeting DOES NOT automatically start the meeting at the desired time. It is simply a reminder and organizational feature. You still have to start/host the meeting by tapping the Start button to the right of your scheduled meeting, as shown below.