Using Zoom: Documenting Process for Community Forum and Onboarding Calls

[aleesteele]

Summary

In January 2024, we switched our event management platform from Eventbrite to the built-in Zoom platform. This has changed the workflow for setting up events, which I'll be documenting here as a checklist at the advice of @malvikasharan (thank you! 🙏)

Checklist for using Zoom platform

Before event

• Create event at set time
• Add co-hosts to call (Note: co-hosts cannot edit settings and/or register if they are made co-hosts)
• (If applicable): Double-check with co-hosts that they have accepted the invitation to co-host, as they cannot register for the event
• (If applicable): Add in description for event (Note: for data protection, we need to add the statement: "Data collected through this form is subject to the Alan Turing Institute's privacy policy. Learn more here: https://www.turing.ac.uk/privacy-policy".
• (If applicable): Check 'Registration form' option
• (If applicable): Check 'Close registration after meeting date' if applicable
• (If applicable): Upload banner (check if banner is right size and resolution)
• (If applicable): Manually add additional questions to sign-up form (we usually add: "What are you most interested in learning about during this call?"
• (If applicable): Manually move sign-up information to 3rd party storage platform for archiving (no option to export to csv file)
• (If applicable): Customise email for registrations (Note: the option here is to add a line of text – not a custom message).
• (If applicable): Manually send automatically-generated reminder email from Zoom platform
• (If applicable): Use manually-exported list of registrations to send a reminder/invitation email to registrants before the event (if wanting to use a custom email - not template from Zoom)

During event

• Make people/trainers/etc co-hosts of call (will have to manually do so if co-hosts have not accepted invitation to host call, and/or registered as attendees and not as hosts)
• Turn on transcriptions (used for subtitles)
• (If applicable) Ask for consent and share information about recording

After event

Note: sometimes video and/or zoom events are deleted, so it's important to archive quickly.

• Download video and subtitles
• Upload to Youtube or other
  • Add chapter markers
  • Add designed thumbnail
  • Add in event information to description
  • Correct transcriptions/subtitles

What needs to be done?

• Add in the full workflow for using Zoom

Who can help?

• Am I missing anything?

[aleesteele]

Adding in some problems we've had here with the built-in Zoom platform over the past few months of using it for registrations after moving away from Eventbrite:

• Collaborative editing: Only the event host/owner is able to edit details. The event co-hosts are not able to see registrations, edit event information, and/or change anything about the event itself.
• Zoom registration loop: At the February 2024 Community Call/Forum, participants were asked to sign-up, and then received a link that sent them back to the registration form. This is a documented problem according to the Zoom community forums.
• Zoom registration error: The Zoom form remained open for registrations after the event had started, instead of automatically changing into a splash page where people could join the meeting page automatically. The "close registration after meeting date" option was selected.
• Renaming participants: During the Onboarding call in March 2024, the Zoom room automatically renamed all participants in the call to one person. The link from the registration form
• Follow-up emails to participants: While there is an option to resend the Confirmation of Registrations, there is no able to send custom emails to participants as confirmation. In the confirmation of registration email, there are limited options in what can be sent. Custom message texts can be lost in the GUI of the automatic zoom message.
• Customising form for registration: There are limited options of what can be added to a Zoom registration form (i.e. no multiple choice answers). Adding custom messages.
• Keeping track of registrations: There are a few issues with this that we had used with Eventbrite. The sign-up list cannot be easily exported for others to view or edit. Co-hosts cannot see the list of people who have signed up to be able to review registrations or answers (especially important if person who has created the zoom link, who may be hosting) needs support during the call.
• Archiving event information more broadly: As of 2 April, the Zoom archive of the zoom link and other registration information has disappeared for Community Call (TTW Community Call plan (15 Feb) #3510), but remains for Onboarding call (Welcome! Onboarding Call - 27 March 2024 #3586).
• No calendar invite:

My suggestion here would be to switch to another platform for registrations – so we can avoid all of these inner-platform issues on Zoom, but will check back with the delivery team!

[aleesteele]

Notes from discussion with @vhellon (thank you for your help! 🙏 ):

• Possible to add a custom banner to email confirmation to keep branding similar
• Make sure everything is sent through zoom platform (may be responsible for some of the zoom)
• Search by meeting ID number to get archive
• Registration reports, attendees, attendance time, countries

[aleesteele]

Note from 1:1 check-in with @AoifeHughes: need to change documentation in the Community Handbook from Eventbrite to Zoom

[AoifeHughes]

I'll have a look at this later in the week, information is in the TTW hackmd