Zoom Meetings: Etiquette and Best Practices

Manage Your Participants

  • Allow only signed-in users to join
    This feature can be useful when you want to control your guest list and invite only certain individuals (for example, students or colleagues). If someone tries to join the meeting who isn’t signed in to a Zoom account, they will receive a notice indicating the meeting is open only to authorized attendees, and they will have the option to sign in with an authorized email address.
  • Lock the meeting
    Locking a Zoom meeting in progress prevents new participants from joining, even if they have the meeting ID and password (if you have required one). In the meeting, click Participants at the bottom of the window, then click the Lock Meeting button in the pop-up window.  
  • Set a meeting password
    This option requires attendees to enter a password that you provide before they can join the meeting. Requiring a password makes it easier to share the Meeting ID publicly (for example, on Twitter) because you can send the meeting password privately (for example, via email or a Twitter DM).
  • Remove unwanted or disruptive participants.
    Navigate to the Participants menu, mouse over a participant’s name, and click Remove. They will not be able to rejoin unless you allow them to do so (see below).
  • Allow removed participants to rejoin.
    If you remove the wrong person from a meeting, you can allow them to rejoin. Sign in to pitt.zoom.us and click Settings. On the Meetings tab, ensure Allow removed participants to rejoin is toggled on.
  • Place participants on hold
    You can put everyone else on hold, and the attendees’ video and audio connections will be disabled momentarily. Click on someone’s video thumbnail and select Start Attendee On Hold to activate this feature. Click Take Off Hold in the Participants list when you’re ready to resume the meeting.
  • Disable video
    As a meeting host, you can turn off someone’s video. This will allow hosts to block unwanted, distracting, or inappropriate gestures on video.
  • Mute participants
    You can mute/unmute individual participants or all participants at once. This allows you to block unwanted, distracting, or inappropriate noise. To mute everyone, click Manage Participants and select Mute All. You can also enable Mute Upon Entry in your settings to keep noise at a minimum during large classes or meetings.
  • Turn off file transfer.
    In-meeting file transfer allows people to share files through the in-meeting chat. Toggle this off to keep the chat from getting bombarded with unsolicited pics, GIFs, memes, and other content.
  • Turn off annotation
    You and your attendees can doodle and mark up content together using annotations during a screen share. You can disable the annotation feature in your Zoom settings to prevent people from writing all over the screens.
  • Disable private chat
    Zoom has an in-meeting chat for everyone, or participants can message each other privately. To cut back on distractions, you can restrict participants’ ability to chat amongst one another while your event is in progress. This also helps prevent anyone from receiving unwanted messages during the meeting.
  • Review Zoom’s best practices for securing meetings
    Zoom has compiled a list of pre-meeting and in-meeting settings you can use to protect your meetings. 

Tips for Meeting Attendees

  • Mute your microphone
    To help keep background noise to a minimum, make sure you mute your microphone when you are not speaking.
  • Be mindful of background noise.
    When your microphone is not muted, avoid activities that could create additional noise, such as shuffling papers.
  • Position your camera properly
    If you choose to use a web camera, be sure it is stable and focused at eye level, if possible. Doing so helps create a more direct sense of engagement with other participants. 
  • Limit distractions
    You can make it easier to focus on the meeting by turning off notifications, closing or minimizing running apps, and muting your smartphone.  
  • Avoid multi-tasking
    You’ll retain the discussion better if you refrain from replying to emails or text messages during the meeting and wait to work on that PowerPoint presentation until after the meeting ends. 
  • Prepare materials in advance.
    If you share content during the meeting, make sure you have the files and/or links ready to go before the meeting begins.

Additional Meeting Tips

  • Use poll questions periodically to engage your audience and keep them focused.
  • Monitor the chat function for questions as they come in, see if people are expounding on something you covered, or see if people express poor understanding.
  • Enable video only for the presenter. You can only see a limited number of participants anyway, depending on your screen size, and enabling video gobbles up network resources. If you plan to lecture without feedback (e.g., for a large seminar), you can also disable participant audio.
  • Schedule one or more feedback breaks. In a physical classroom, you can see raised hands or observe confused looks. It’s important to assess understanding and allow students to ask questions. An audio free-for-all can be a nightmare, but dedicated Q&A periods work really well.
  • Address Internet disruptions: Many network providers are seeing massive increases in residential bandwidth use during the day, and many users are being throttled. If participants are experiencing lagging or skipping, suggest that they use their computer to access video while simultaneously dialling in by phone for the audio.