Zoom: Controlling Participants in your Meeting

Task: This article provides a list of recommended Zoom settings that enables a host to control how participants interact in a meeting. The intended purpose is to prevent unwanted material from being shared by students and unwanted guests from accessing the meeting room.

Instructions:

Recommended Settings for those NOT Teaching:

  1. Add a Meeting Password - when creating a Zoom meeting from your Canvas course, check the Require Meeting Password setting. This will allow you to set a custom password that your students will use to join.
    Meeting Options on Zoom

Zoom - Updating password setting for previously scheduled meeting

  1. Enable a Waiting Room - the Waiting Room feature can be enabled at the time the meeting is scheduled from within the Zoom integration with Canvas or after starting a meeting. The join before host option is disabled when the waiting room feature is enabled. The following two options apply:
    • Scheduling from Canvas
      • Check the Enable Waiting Room option
        Enabling the waiting room in meeting options
      • See Article:  Zoom: Waiting Room  for more information

  • Enabling during a Session
    • Click on Manage Participants > More > Put Attendee in Waiting Room on Entry
      enabling waiting room during a live zoom call
       

Waiting Rooms: 

The Waiting Room feature allows the host to control when a participant joins the meeting by placing participants in a Waiting Room prior to joining the session. It is recommended that you review your Waiting Room selections and options for ‘join before host’ and which participants to place in the Waiting Room.

waiting rooom options

For a detailed overview of how to allow domains to bypass the Waiting Room and other Waiting Room features, please see this Zoom support article.

  1. Prevent Participant Screen Sharing - to prevent participants from sharing their screen during an online session, toggle the Who Can Share? option to Host Only. This is found under the host controls at the bottom of the Zoom window by clicking the arrow next to Share Screen and selecting Advanced Sharing Options.


  1. In Meeting Security Options - The host of the meeting has options at thier finger tips using the Security Icon at the bottom of the screen. 
    1. If needed, the host can lock the meeting, this will prevent people from entering or changing settings
    2. If the host feels that the meeting has lost control or that to many people are being disruptive, they can use the Suspend Participant Activity, this will mute all users and turn off all video of attendees.  The host can then methodically start turning attendees back on.

Meeting Security Options

   5.  Participants Panel:

  • Using the Participants icon at the bottom of your screen, you can see participants in the side panel.  Moving your mouse over a participants name will allow the host to Unmute, Mute or using the More option make others a Host or Co-Host. 
  • At the bottom of the participants panel there are 3 dots that Allows the host to access additional options that allow you to control participants

Optional Settings

  1. Disable Private Chat functionality
  2. Disable the ability to Remote Control another user’s device
  3. Confirm that the Allow Removed Participants to Rejoin option is disabled

Outcome:

Users should be able to control the participants in their meetings.

Need additional help?

Please fill out the Zoom Web Conferencing help form with as much detail as possible.

Please use this link to the Technology Help Desk to locate your local campus contact information.  Use the “Submit a Question” for your campus to enter an online support request. 

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