Important Zoom Changes

Archive for September, 2020

Important Zoom Changes

Last week, we announced that we were moving forward with forcing passcodes on all NEW Zoom sessions since Zoom was going to force the same change at the end of the month to all existing meetings. Once we turned this on, it started creating some unintended issues with recurring meetings and we immediately rolled the change back to allow things to continue as normal.

After working with Zoom, they identified a bug that causes a problem with recurring meetings and in response to schools like TCU, they have retracted their plans to force this requirement at the end of the month.

While this means that you are not required to take any action, we encourage you to review some of the security settings below.

What can you do to protect your meetings?

We still recommend that you add a passcode, turn on a waiting room, or limit your meetings to only TCU users in order to minimize Zoombombing attempts.

If you would like to address this change on any pre-existing meetings, you can do the following:

Open the Zoom app and login with your TCU username and password.
Click on Meetings at the top.
Select the meeting that you want to update and then click Edit.
Check the boxfor Passcode, Waiting Room, or Only authenticated users can join under Advanced Options(make sure to set it to Only TCU accounts) in order to add an additional level of security to your meetings.
Communicate the change to your attendees so they are prepared.

What if I created a recurring meeting for my class?

If you created a recurring Zoom meeting in TCU Online, you have a few options since the course calendar will not update in TCU Online when you modify an existing meeting:

You can delete the existing recurring event and create a new one with a passcode turned on. This will update the TCU Online course calendar which many students use but we recommend that you notify your students once you do this.

You can manually add a passcode using the instructions above and just communicate the passcode to each class. They will still be able to use the link in the course calendar and will be prompted for the passcode when they join.

You can go into your meeting in Zoom and turn on a waiting room or check the requirement so only authenticated users can join (make sure to set it to Only TCU accounts). This will add an extra layer of protection to your Zoom sessions but will not require the course calendar to be updated as the students will be able to join with the existing information.

Note: You will have to manually admit each student into the session if you enable the waiting room option.

Zoom Now Requires Passcodes

On Sunday, September 27^th, Zoom will be adding a requirement that all meetings have a passcode enabled for each session. To prepare the campus for this change, we are turning that requirement on NOW (for new sessions) so meetings that you create going forward will have this functionality in place.

Zoom is adding this requirement to help enforce some best practices that limit Zoombombing and protect your meeting.

If you have any existing meetings that are planned to occur after September 27^th, please review the information below as you may have to take action to address this change.

Preparing For This Change

Once Zoom puts this requirement in place (on September 27^th), any existing meetings that don’t have a passcode turned on will automatically have a waiting room enabled.

Note: This means that if you don’t take action, you will need to be prepared to manually allow each of your users into your session(s).

If you would like to address this change on any existing meeting that you have, you can do the following:

Open the Zoom app and login with your TCU username and password
Click on Meetings at the top
Select the meeting that you want to update and then click Edit
Check the box for passcode (modify the code if you wish)
Communicate the passcode to your attendees

What if I created a reoccurring meeting for my class?

If you created a reoccurring Zoom meeting in TCU Online, you have three options since the course calendar will not update when you modify the meeting:

You can delete the existing reoccurring event and create a new one with a passcode turned on. This will update the TCU Online course calendar which many students use but we recommend that you notify your students once you do this.
You can manually add a passcode using the instructions above and just communicate the passcode to each class. They will still be able to use the link in the course calendar and will be prompted for the passcode when they join.
Take NO action and just allow Zoom to force the addition of a waiting room after September 27^th. If you select this option, you will have to manually allow each student into your class sessions.