Zoom Master – Tips & Tricks

It’s always more complicated than you think it is

- Jon Leland

When I took over the Zoom Master responsibilities for this Toastmasters club, I had no idea what I was doing. To prevent you from being in the same situation, I decided to give you these tips and tricks. I’m going to start with the basics and build to the more advanced things you need to know. Caveat: there are hundreds of additional features in Zoom meetings that I have not included here. I have focused on the basics and any tips I would have found helpful to know earlier.

Image by Alexandra_Koch from Pixabay

Setting up meetings

To set up a meeting, there are two options – a one-time meeting or a recurring meeting. In Raising Champions, we have decided to use a recurring meeting. This enables us to use the same Zoom link for every meeting. We use this same link for regular meeting meetings and executive meetings. For that recurring meeting, which has no date or time specified, the zoom link can be used at any time. The settings are the same as for a one-time meeting except for no date/time specified and the “recurring meeting” enabled.

If you need to have a one-time meeting, maybe for a special event, then log into the Zoom account, click on Schedule a Meeting, and fill in the template such as the meeting topic, the date/time, the duration, and the time zone. You can also indicate whether registration is required. You might want to use this feature for a special event such as an open house where you expect a lot of guests and want to capture their contact information (more about this later). Next, you can generate the meeting id automatically or use your personal id. For a special event, I would use the “generate automatically” option. That will give you a unique Zoom link for that meeting. The rest is about security. I would recommend requiring a passcode but for a special event, I may not use the waiting room. I’ll get to that later but unless you have a co-host who can monitor the waiting room for you, you will likely be too busy with your other responsibilities to manage the waiting room properly for lots of guests.

The last few options are related to video and audio. Under Video, decide whether to start the meeting with the video turned on or off. I recommend setting it off. You want to leave it up to the individual whether they want their video on. For audio, allow both telephone and computer audio. Some people will join from their phones, for various reasons, so enable both. The “dial from United States” controls the phone numbers listed in the invitation. There are some additional options, which you can choose to enable or not, depending on the event.

Once you have the meeting set up, you will need to invite participants. To do that, click on the “copy invitation” button located on the same line as the URL. That URL is long, but it contains an encrypted passcode so potential participants need only click on that URL. Otherwise, they will need to enter the meeting id and the passcode on their Zoom page.

The copied invitation contains that Zoom link plus all the information they need to join by phone from various locations. From here, you have several options. You can copy the link into an email and send it to your targeted participants, you can copy the Zoom link (and possibly the entire invitation) to social media such as Facebook to advertise the special event, and you can include the link on a flyer advertising the special event, and you could copy it to Eventbrite if you choose to user Eventbrite instead of Zoom registration. I need to point out here that Eventbrite is NOT accessible to the visually impaired but Zoom registration is accessible.

If you are having a special event and expect a lot of guests, your Vice President Membership will want to capture their contact information. The best way we have found to do that, having tried several different methods, is through Zoom registration. It automatically captures their email address and first name. You can set it up to capture plenty of other information starting with their last name. There are about a dozen items to choose but you can also enter your questions. Two that we often use are “are you a Toastmaster?” and “what is the name of your club?” As an advanced club, we want to make sure that we only invite people who join who meet our eligibility criteria – a Toastmaster who has completed the first two levels in Pathways or has their Competent Communicator from the old education program. After they register, they will be automatically sent the Zoom link.

Audio

There are a few tips to list here. If someone is having trouble with their sound, they may reach out to you for help. If they call you, which some will do, mute yourself while you try to help them. There are several places where their volume is controlled. The volume on their device (laptop, phone, whatever) might be turned down or muted; their volume controls in Zoom might be low or muted; the volume on their headphones might be turned down or muted. I’ve even seen a case where their second monitor had a volume control, and it was muted. Remember, though, you are not their tech support. Your job is to manage the meeting. Help them if you can but get back to the meeting as soon as you can.

Sometimes there will be an echo in the meeting. That is caused by two devices in the same room connected to the same meeting. It may be two people both using their laptops in the same room; it may be one person logged in on both their phone and their computer (maybe the microphone on their laptop isn’t working (see the above paragraph) so they’re using their phone to be heard). Tell them to mute one of their sessions. The echo will disappear.

If there is distracting background noise, as the Zoom master you can go to that participant and mute them. You’ll know who to mute because their video box will be highlighted. This is very important to do when someone is giving a speech. Sometimes people forget that they are not muted when they start to have a conversation with someone in the room or the dog starts barking, the baby cries, or any one of a dozen other causes. Concerning the speaker, mute the disrupting individual. They can unmute themselves when necessary. The only time I would not mute someone is if they are blind since it is very difficult for them to unmute themselves unless there is a sighted person to help them.

If someone starts to speak and they are muted, people usually verbally tell them “You’re on mute’ but they don’t always hear that. In that case, you can hover over their video window and click on “ask to unmute”. A pop-up will appear on their screen, and they just need to press enter to unmute. Or they can simply unmute themselves.

There may be a time when you need to “mute all”. Those times are very rare, thankfully, because that mutes all participants, even the person who is meant to be speaking. They will then have to unmute themselves to continue. This would only be used in a very disruptive meeting, which is rare, or in the case of a Webinar format, where only the panelists are unmuted. I’m not going to go into Webinars in this blog post. Look for a separate post about that.

Video

I highly recommend testing your video before starting the meeting. To do that, after logging into Zoom, click on your profile picture in the upper right-hand corner of the Zoom window. The same dialog box pops up as does when you click on your audio or video settings during the meeting. Go to the Audio section and make sure that you’re happy with your image, such as the angle of the webcam, your background, etc. You want to look professional, after all.

During the meeting, you and all the participants control things such as the video background, and the layout of the meeting video (speaker view versus gallery view, etc.). I won’t go into the details here because they are not specific to being the Zoom master.

Screen sharing

As the Zoom master, you may be asked to share something during the meeting. To do that, click on “share screen”. A dialog box will pop up asking you what you want to share. Whatever you want to share needs to be already open on your computer. You won’t be able to go open a file from within that pop-up. You’ll be given a grid of thumbnails showing every window currently open on your computer. Select the one you want to share and click on Share in the lower right-hand corner.

There are a couple of tips here. First, if you are sharing a video, be sure to click on the “share sound” in the lower left-hand corner. Otherwise, no one will hear the sound but you. Second, if you are sharing a slide show, such as from PowerPoint, be sure to start the slide show in PowerPoint, which opens it in a separate window, and share that Slide Show window, NOT the PowerPoint itself.

If someone else in the meeting needs to share their screen, a common request, then you need to enable sharing. Otherwise, you are the only one who can share. You can do that in several ways. The simplest way is to click on the up arrow for the Participants button at the bottom of the screen and under “allow participants”, click on “share screen”. This will allow any participant to share their screen. Another way is to make that person a co-host (more about that later), which will allow them to share. You can then revoke their co-host capability after they are done. The third method is to click on the up arrow for the Share Screen button and click on “allow multiple participants to share their screen”.

The last few tips in this section are related to sharing music or sound effects, which we do at every meeting of Raising Champions Advanced Toastmasters. To share your computer sound without an accompanying video, go to the Share Screen dialog box, click on the Advanced tab, and click on “computer audio”, then click Share. You need to know, though, that if you are sharing your computer sound and you give someone else the ability to share their screen, your sharing will be kicked out. You’ll have to enable your sharing after they’re done.

Managing the Meeting

There are times when you want or need to add another participant as a cohost. For example, as mentioned above, if you are expecting a lot of guests, you may need someone to monitor the waiting room to free you up for your other responsibilities. Also, if you want to let one participant share their screen without opening it up to all participants, you can make that person a cohost while they share, then revoke it afterward. To make someone cohost, hover over their video, click on the ‘***’ in the upper righthand corner and select “make cohost” from the dropdown. Only the host can make someone a cohost.

There are certain controls that only the host and co-host can see (and some are restricted to the host).

From the Security tab, you can lock the meeting, enable/disable the waiting room, hide profile pictures, and allow participants to share their screens, chat, rename themselves, unmute themselves, and start their video. There are times when each of these might need to be disabled but they are all enabled during an RCAT meeting. Lastly, you can remove a participant.

Other tabs include polls, recording, closed captioning (only the host can start it, but it is not used yet in RCAT even though we’re looking into it), breakout rooms (used for contests and such), the reactions, apps (we have no apps enabled yet), and “more”. Lastly is the END button. As the host, you can end the meeting for all or simply leave the meeting, in which case you will be asked to assign a new host.

You may be wondering why you would want to enable the waiting room. The main reason we started using it was because of “zoom-bombers” – people who join a public meeting to disrupt the meeting. By using the waiting room, the host/cohost has the option of vetting someone before they are admitted to the meeting. Luckily, if you admit a person, assuming that they are a well-intentioned guest, but they start disrupting the meeting, you have the option of removing them from the meeting, either back to the waiting room or removing them completely. You may want to disable the waiting room once all the expected members are admitted. Be careful, though. This allows anyone with the link to join the meeting without being vetted.

One word of caution, though. If you are not going to be available to “start” the meeting from the RCAT profile, NO ONE will be able to enter the meeting. There is an option to specify an “alternative host” but I have not used it and it is unclear on the Zoom support site as to whether or not the alternative host can start the meeting.

There are a lot of options in Zoom for the waiting room such as putting all RCAT “on your account” and they will bypass the waiting room. In that case, only guests will be stopped at the waiting room. This needs more investigation and may be the best solution.

When someone enters the waiting room, you will receive a pop-up message, even if you are not focused on Zoom at the moment (maybe looking for the agenda to share it in the chat). You are given the option to admit them or not. Maybe you will want to chat with them, asking them where they heard of the meeting or who invited them before you admit them.

Once you have the participants in the meeting, you could “lock the meeting”, which we don’t do but that will close the waiting room. Generally, I have found that sometimes someone will drop off the meeting because of a technical issue and they need to reconnect. If the meeting is locked, they will not be able to rejoin.

During the meeting, you can click on the “Participants List” and a list of participants will pop up on the right side of your Zoom window. I have not found a need for that feature, but it is possible. In that window, you can see who has their video and microphone on or off, but you can see that in their video window.

When a member is giving a speech, you can make sure that their video window is focused (think of “speaker mode”) for everyone by spotlighting them. To do that, click on the ‘…’ in their video window and click on “spotlight for everyone”. I would do the same for the Timer. When the speech is done, you can remove the spotlight from them. I should note that spotlighting is different than pinning them. When you pin a speaker, Zoom brings that speaker to the top of the grid but only on your own display. You can also drag-and-drop video windows to reorder the participants but that is also only on your display.

Security

Allow participants to share their screen, chat, rename themselves, unmute themselves, and start their video. There is also the ability to share a whiteboard, but we haven’t used that in RCAT yet. I mentioned that you can remove a participant or move them to the waiting room and this is where you do that.

Recording

There are times when you want to record the meeting or parts of the meeting. A speaker may request that their speech and evaluation be recorded, especially if they are practicing for a speech contest. You have the choice to record to the cloud or record to your computer. I’ve been told that it is better to record to the cloud because if you record to your computer, you have an increased chance of your connection to the meeting locking up when you record to your computer at the same time. This is because every function that your computer executes during a meeting requires your computer’s resources. If possible, always record to the cloud. That also makes it easier to share the raw recording with the speakers. if possible, because you can simply give them a link to the recording.

After the meeting is closed by the host, Zoom will automatically start converting the recording. Until the recording is converted, you cannot edit it. Depending on the length of the recording(s), this conversion may take quite a while. See a separate Chronicles of Champions blog post with more details on how to manage the recordings.

Chat

You or anyone can save the chat to their computer. It will be saved into the Zoom folder in a subfolder with the date and time of the meeting. Saving the chat will only save what the saver has seen in the chat window, but only the text, without the files. If there have been private chat messages between other participants, they will not be saved.

Allowing in-meeting chat is another toggle option – allow or disallow. RCAT always allows the char except for contests and special events. One of the ways members give a speaker pointers is through the chat feature.

In-meeting file transfer – to allow this, which is RCAT’s default, allows the VPE to share the meeting agenda in the chat.

One caution, be aware of the timing of posting in the chat. Participants do not see any chat posted before they join the meeting so if the agenda or a link is posted too early, then it may have to be posted again.

Polls

Only the meeting owner can create a poll. There is a poll saved in the club’s Zoom profile. Either the host or the cohost can launch the poll but RCAT uses it for the vote for the best Table Topics speaker so the poll as it is saved will list previous Table Topics speakers. The host can modify it before launching it but the cohost cannot. One option is to use generic names, like “table topics speaker 1”, “table topics speaker 2” and so on but members will likely have trouble remembering the speaking order, so I don’t recommend it.

To poll in a meeting, click on the Poll tab, update the names on the poll, and launch it. The participants will see a pop-up window where they pick their choice. The results go back to the host (or cohost if they launched it). The host can set up a poll for other things and allow multiple choices when updating the poll.

Breakout Rooms

Breakout rooms are used or anything where certain members need to go to “another room”, perhaps for privacy, to have a separate discussion or any other reason. They are used in contests, in club officer training, and as an option when the club needs to vote on something such as a new member. In that last case, you could launch breakout rooms or, what I often do, put the non-members in the waiting room, then bring them back after the vote. Note that when they are in the waiting room, they cannot talk to each other so it is a special situation.

To create breakout rooms, as the host you click on “breakout rooms”. A dialog box will pop up and you specify how many rooms you need, whether you want participants to be automatically assigned to the rooms (good for randomly splitting up a group), to assign them yourself (such as in a contest when you assign the judges to one room and the contestants to another) or let them self-select the breakout room.

In this same dialog box, you can rename the breakout rooms, which I would do if you want them to self-select, such as in club officer training. In the case of a contest, you may not want to rename the rooms with words such as “judges”, since the names of the judges are to be secret.

When you create the breakout rooms, if you have participants automatically assigned, you can still move people from one room to another by drag-and-drop their names from one to the other. As the host, you can also do that even after you launch the breakout rooms. No one but you will see the rooms and the assignments so move people around until you’re happy with the distribution, then launch them. It is only after you launch the breakout rooms that the tab shows up on the participants’ screens.

Bonus tips

I’m not a Mac user but I have been told that there is added security to screen sharing. According to the Zoom Community, the user needs to go to Systems Preferences / Security and Privacy / Screen Recording and grant Zoom access to their camera and microphone.

I hope some of these topics and tips help you become more comfortable in your new role as Zoom master. The good news is that the RCAT members are very forgiving as you learn your role. You will not be expected to be an expert right away. I’ve done this role for about 8 months and I’m still learning

Karen MacNeil, DTM