Zoom meeting security - waiting rooms, passcodes, and authenticated users

As a Zoom meeting host, you have options to add security measures to your meetings to minimize disruption and unwanted guests. Below are tips to help make the experience of joining meetings as smooth as possible for hosts and attendees.

Claiming your Michigan Tech Zoom account

As a meeting attendee, be sure to sign in and claim your Michigan Tech Zoom account. By signing in at the Michigan Tech portal, Zoom will recognize you as a Michigan Tech member. 

Meeting security settings 

You can view any existing meetings by signing in at the Michigan Tech Zoom page. Once you are signed in, you will see a list of your personal meetings. If you'd like to add an additional measure of security to your meeting with a passcode or waiting room, select the topic name to edit the settings to make those changes, described below.

Passcode

You can choose to add a passcode to your meeting as an alternative to a waiting room. You will need to give this passcode to your attendees or include it within your meeting link. Zoom can auto-generate this passcode, or you can choose your own. For example, if your Zoom meeting is for your FW9000 course, you could set the passcode to FW9000 or 9000.  

Once a passcode is set, a link for the meeting is generated with the passcode embedded in the link. This does not change the meeting ID.  Anyone using the new link will go directly to the meeting.

Waiting room

Waiting rooms require the host or co-host to admit attendees into the meeting room.  If attendees arrive late, they will not be in the meeting until they are admitted into the room. The host will receive a notification that members are in the waiting room. Please refer to Zoom’s support article on waiting room functionality or FAQ on waiting rooms and passcodes for more information. 

Authenticated users only

When scheduling your meeting, you can require your attendees to join with their Michigan Tech Zoom account to prevent outside attendees. Enable this option in the Security section of the Schedule a Meeting window. It is advisable to use this setting for Zoom meetings whose participants are all members of the Michigan Tech community.

Meeting registration

Another option for controlling your meeting attendance is by using the registration option. Enabling this feature requires participants to register with an email address. You can specify other information you'd like to capture about your attendees. This feature lets you manage your registrants, resend confirmation emails, and also gives you the option to generate meeting registration reports. More information on meeting registration is in Zoom's support article on setting up registration for a meeting.

Screen sharing

For security reasons, the screen sharing ability on Michigan Tech’s Zoom account is set by default to host only. This can be changed for your meeting by selecting the arrow next to Screen Sharing at the bottom of the meeting window. You can change this for your events in your settings at the Michigan Tech Zoom Page.

Once the meeting has started

Occasionally, a meeting may have participants who behave inappropriately during a meeting.  There are a number of controls available to the meeting's host or co-host to deal with any unwanted behavior once a meeting has started.   Many of these can also be used after the meeting has started but before participants are invited into the meeting from the waiting room to add additional controls to the meeting.

Clicking on the Security icon will bring up a number of options to consider:

• Lock Meeting: This option will stop any additional participants from joining a meeting once it has started.
• Enable Waiting Room: This option will enable the waiting room for any new participants if the meeting was not created with the waiting room enabled.
• Hide Profile Pictures: This option will disable the display of all participants profile pictures.
• Share Screen: This disables the ability of anyone other than the meeting host or co-host to share their screen.  Screen sharing is disabled by default for all meetings.
• Chat: This disables the in-meeting text chat option.
• Rename Themselves: This will prevent participants from changing their displayed name during the meeting.
• Unmute Themselves: This prevents users from enabling their microphone if it is turned off.  This will mute all participants if it is turned off prior to inviting them in from the waiting room.
• Start Video: This prevents participants from enabling their camera if it is turned off.  This will mute all participants if it is turned off prior to inviting them in from the waiting room.
• Suspend Participants Activities: This will turn off the video and audio feeds from all participants including the host and co-host.  This can be used to temporarily suspend the meeting if you need a few moments to determine what is going on.

While the options above act on all participants, you can also disable or re-enable a user from the Participants panel.  This can be used to re-enable a host’s video and audio feed if the “Suspend Participants Activities” control has been used.

If you have questions about Zoom, we can help.  Contact us at it-help@mtu.edu or call 7-1111.