Anyone at the University with Onyen access will be able to access their Zoom profile.

There is no cost to users.

Please visit the article Zoom: Comparing Meetings and Webinars.

The web client (i.e. the website accessible from unc.zoom.us) is better suited to adjusting settings, scheduling meetings, and managing recordings. The desktop client (i.e. the app you put on your computer’s desktop or mobile device) is better suited for joining and hosting meetings. For a full comparison of the features available to each, please consult this article from Zoom support: Desktop client, mobile app, web client, and PWA comparison

View the Roles in a Meeting information on Zoom’s help page  to determine the best use of host, co-host, and alternative host.

Yes! Zoom Learning Center is a site that provides additional FAQs, quick video tutorials, and in-depth training sessions (both live and pre-recorded) to users of all roles and ability levels. Be sure to click “Sign in” in the upper right of the screen to ensure you’re accessing your UNC Zoom account.

Click on the “Create Account” button at the top of this page or go to unc.zoom.us, click “Sign in,” and enter your Onyen and password. Your Zoom account will then be created.

Step-by-step instructions for accessing Zoom that are applicable to all UNC Zoom users are included in the help article Zoom: Logging into a Meeting Client with UNC SSO.

No. Zoom runs on multiple devices – including mobile phones and tablets. In fact, one great way to practice managing a Zoom meeting is to launch the meeting on one device and then sign into that meeting from a second device. Remember to mute one of them though – or you’ll get audio feedback. If you want to annotate during a meeting, you can present from your computer and annotate from your mobile device.

Zoom does have a web-based application that can be viewed on any browser, but downloading, installing, and using the desktop application will always give you the best experience. Visit the Zoom Download Center to install Zoom on your device.

Please consult the Microsoft Outlook Plugin information on the Zoom support page.

Visit the UNC Help site at help.unc.edu for assistance.

You can customize many aspects of your profile to fit your needs, including your name, profile picture, department, and contact information.

Please view this quick one-minute video for a walk through of scheduling a meeting. Be sure to log into your UNC Zoom account.

As a default, all users can host up to 300 participants in one meeting. If you need to host more participants than this, please contact zoom@unc.edu with details about your needs in order to request a larger meeting license.

Zoom meetings can last up to 24 hours at a time.

UNC Zoom users, by default, do not have the ability to host webinars. ITS has a limited number of webinar licenses available for use upon request. Please email UNC Zoom Support at zoom@unc.edu to discuss having a webinar license attached to your Zoom profile.

1. Navigate to your Zoom Settings and scroll down to the In Meeting (Advanced) section
2. Ensure that Closed captioning is enabled (toggled blue) and “Allow live transcription service to transcribe meeting automatically” is checked
3. Then, within your Zoom meeting, click on the CC Live Transcript icon on the bottom menu
4. Under Live Transcription, click Enable. Voice recognition software within Zoom will then create approximate transcriptions of what is being said within your meeting and display it on the screen in real time.

No, these transcriptions are not compliant with UNC Accessibility Guidelines. Please contact the Digital Accessibility Office (DAO) for more information about obtaining quality captions.

When you schedule or edit a meeting, you can require registration or require a meeting passcode. You can edit any meeting and check Enable Waiting Room to admit people individually to your meeting. Alternatively, you can Admit All with a single click.

For more recommendations, please refer to Zoom’s suggestions for securing meetings.

Waiting rooms can be set to restrict outside users from entering but allow UNC users to bypass the waiting room, as a convenience for large meetings. To change this, please alter your default waiting room setting in your Zoom Settings.

Current ITS policy requires Zoom meetings to have either waiting room OR a passcode enabled. If you’re interested in keeping your meeting as secure as possible, we recommend turning both on.

Authentication is a security feature within Zoom. If enabled, authentication requires meeting participants to be logged into their Zoom account in order to join a meeting. On an individual meeting’s settings page, you can check (or uncheck) a box under the Security header labeled Require authentication to join. If enabled, this will open a drop-down which will allow you to permit only UNC users (i.e. anyone with a UNC Zoom account) any Zoom user (i.e. anyone with any Zoom account) or UNC Zoom SSO users (i.e. only users using UNC Onyen-protected Zoom profiles.) Default settings for meetings you schedule can be set up on your Zoom settings page, under Only authenticated users can join meetings. Keep in mind this will only be the default, and authentication can still be turned on or off for any individual meeting as needed.

We do not recommend having authentication turned on If you frequently have guest speakers or external users joining your meetings, as this may cause problems with them trying to join your meetings.

We do recommend turning on authentication with the UNC Zoom SSO option applied if any of these situations apply to you:

• You do not plan on having external users (e.g. a guest speaker) join the meeting
• You plan on using pre-assigned breakout rooms
• You plan on relying on poll reports for grading
• You plan on taking attendance via gathering attendance reports after your meeting

Review the Keep Teaching guide to Securing Your Zoom Meeting.

You can’t disable private chat when setting up the meeting, but you can once you’re in the Zoom meeting.  You can find the instructions for controlling the meeting chat on the Zoom support page.

1. Ensure under your Zoom Settings in the In Meeting (Basic) section that Co-host is enabled (blue.)
2. Then when scheduling or editing a meeting, click Show next to the Options heading at the bottom of the page
3. In the Alternative Hosts field, begin typing the user’s name and select them as they appear
4. Save. The person will then appear in your Zoom meeting as a co-host.

First, make sure you are entering the person’s onyen@email.unc.edu address. Onyen@live.unc.edu, alias@unc.edu, or any other email address will not be recognized as a valid email. If you are sure you have the correct onyen@email.unc.edu address, it’s likely that you and the intended alternative host are in different sub-accounts. Some users are in a HIPAA-compliant sub-account, which precludes them from seeing or being seen by non-HIPAA protected users. If it is essential for a person to be designated as an alternative host, please submit a help request, and we can identify which sub-accounts you and/or the users belong to and work towards getting you both on the same account.

Alternative hosts are limited to UNC users. Additionally, if you and the prospective alt-host are in different sub-accounts (e.g. you are in the HIPAA-protected sub-account, and they are not) you will not be able to designate them as an alt-host. Fortunately, you can still designate any participant as a co-host once they join the meeting.

Any user can assign scheduling privilege to another user within the same account or sub-account by following these steps:

1. Go to your Zoom Settings
2. Scroll to the very bottom of the page to “Assign scheduling privilege to” and click the plus sign
3. Start typing their name or their onyen@email.unc.edu email address, and select them as they appear
4. Click Assign. Now when this person schedules a new meeting, they can select whether they are scheduling for themself or for you.

This is not recommended. The PMID is best used for impromptu meetings, so as to avoid having to send out invitations to a newly-created meeting. Using it for a recurring class or meeting is ill-advised, because colleagues, students, or friends who have previously met with you using the PMID could accidentally “walk in” to that meeting space, interfering with meetings or classes, and potentially compromising confidential information.

You can set up a meeting template that you can use when creating meetings. See instructions on the Zoom guide Meeting templates.

Recurring meetings, while scheduled to occur at certain times on certain dates, theoretically always exist in the digital cloud as a meeting that could begin at any time. For this reason, you can’t alter certain settings of just one occurrence of a meeting, as it would be impossible to do this to one occurrence without affecting all other occurrences.

If you need to adjust settings and are unable to do so for just a single occurrence, wait until shortly before the planned occurrence. Then, when clicking the “edit this meeting” icon, select “All” when asked if you’d like to edit only this occurrence. Change your settings as needed, and then hold your meeting as planned. Then, immediately after the meeting, alter your settings back to their original state, and adjust future meetings as needed.

Ensure that every email address is in the form of onyen@email.unc.edu. @live.unc.edu, @ad.unc.edu, @unc.edu, will not work for users logged into their authenticated accounts. Ensure that you are saving your file in “CSV (Comma delimited)” file format. If you’re using Microsoft Excel to create your list, we advise saving as both a .csv and a .xlsx file, as the .xlsx file is easier to edit and correct with Excel. See instructions on the Zoom guide for breakout rooms

1. Navigate to your Zoom Settings
2. In the In Meeting (Basic) section, locate Meeting Polls/Quizzes and ensure it is enabled (blue)
3. Navigate to an individual meeting’s settings page by clicking Meetings in the left menu
4. Click on your upcoming meeting’s title
5. At the bottom of the page, you will see a Polls heading and a + Create button, which will allow you to create poll questions to use within your meeting
6. Create and edit your question as needed
7. To add another question, click + Add Question at the bottom of the pop-up window
8. When finished, click Save. These polls will then be available in the meeting.

First, you’ll need to establish a YouTube channel for Live Streaming, and plan to do this at least 24 hours in advance of your event. Next, follow these steps to enable live streaming on your Zoom profile and to get started with streaming from Zoom.

Please view this quick one-minute video for a walk-through of joining a meeting.

1. Log into your Zoom profile at unc.zoom.us
2. Select Meetings on the left menu
3. Click on the title of your meeting (do not click Edit or Start when hovering your mouse over the meeting name)
4. Look for the Invite Link section about halfway down the screen
   • You can copy the Invite Link URL (will look similar to “https://unc.zoom/us/123456789”) OR
   • Click Copy Invitation and select the Copy Meeting Invitation button from the pop-up menu
5. Paste the Invite Link URL or Meeting Invitation into an email, Canvas announcement, text, etc. to share it with others as needed

Yes! Zoom currently allows users to join from one computer (like a laptop or desktop) AND one tablet (like an iPad) AND one phone, all at the same time. You can only join from one of each kind of device at any given time.

If you need to join from more than one of the same type of device (i.e. a desktop AND a laptop), we recommend logging out of Zoom on one of the devices, and joining the meeting from that device by clicking “Join a meeting” and entering the meeting ID and passcode (if applicable).

Up to 300 participants can participate in a standard UNC Zoom Meeting, including hosts. Contact UNC ITS Zoom Support at zoom@unc.edu if you have a need to accommodate a larger number of participants.

The most likely reason is that you are not logging in to your UNC-authenticated, licensed account. Follow these steps on logging into the Zoom Meeting Client with UNC SSO to get logged into your licensed UNC account, which will allow you to host up to 300 participants. If you need to host more than 300 participants, please contact zoom@unc.edu to discuss your needs.

Certainly! We recommend that authentication settings for each meeting be limited to UNC-only, as a security measure, but when guest speakers or other outsiders are invited to the class, that setting can be altered for a meeting, or a single occurrence of a recurring meeting. When you do not have “”Require authentication to join” enabled for your meeting, we recommend having both a passcode and the waiting room enabled, as this will ensure your meeting remains secure from nefarious actors, while also being accessible to invited participants.

It is likely that you’re not signed in to your UNC Zoom account, so the meeting views you as a Participant, rather than the host. Leave the Zoom meeting, sign in through UNC SSO, and join your meeting again.

It’s likely that the host created a meeting that is restricted to UNC users only. To get in, you’ll need to log into your secure UNC Single Sign-On (SSO) Zoom account before joining the meeting.

If you have a business need for toll-free calling within Zoom, please contact zoom@unc.edu to request enabling toll-free calling within your Zoom profile.

1. Sign in to your Zoom profile at unc.zoom.us
2. Click Reports on the bottom of the menu on the left
3. Select Usage Reports

This will display a list of all your previous meetings, along with the number of participants in attendance. By clicking on the number of participants, you can see names and emails of all participants in attendance for that particular meeting, which can then be exported as a .csv (Excel/Numbers/Sheets) file.

1. Once in your Zoom meeting, click the Share Screen button on the bottom menu of the Zoom window
2. A pop-up window will then ask if you’d like to share your full desktop (if enabled) or an individual application window you have open. Select the app or screen you want to share.
   • Share sound: Check this box if you plan to share any audio
   • Optimize for video clip: Check this box if you plan on showing a video
3. Click the blue Share button to begin screen-sharing

Your regular Zoom view will change when you start sharing. Instead of seeing the full Zoom window of meeting participants, you will see a green box around the window or screen you selected to share. You will also see the Zoom menu bar at the top of your screen, which you can click-hold-and-drag to reposition on your screen. Select the following buttons from the Zoom menu as needed:

• Pause Share/Resume Share
• New Share
• Stop Share

Navigate to your Zoom Settings and find a setting called Disable desktop screen sharing for meetings you host. Ensure this setting is turned off (gray,) as having it turned on (blue) will prevent you from sharing your full screen.

1. Click the small arrow on the right of the Share Screen button on the bottom of your Zoom window menu
2. Choose Advanced Sharing Options
3. Under Who can share? in the pop-up menu, select All Participants
4. Close the menu. Other participants can now share their screens as needed.

1. Click Participants on the Zoom menu (usually located on the bottom of the Zoom window, or at the top if you are sharing your screen.), which will bring up this menu on the right
2. Click Invite at the bottom of the Participants menu to bring up your meeting invitation window
   • Meeting ID: Series of eight, nine, or 11 digits at the top of this window
   • Passcode: Located in the bottom right corner of this window. If you don’t see a passcode in the bottom right, there is no passcode for this meeting.

1. Once you’re in your Zoom meeting, click Participants on the Zoom menu (usually located on the bottom of the Zoom window, or at the top if you are sharing your screen)
2. Find the user you want to grant co-host privileges. Hover your mouse over their name, and click the More icon that appears.
3. Select Make Co-Host, and click Yes to confirm the action. The participant will then be granted co-host privileges within that meeting.

Private chats can only be viewed or saved by the two parties involved. Any host or participant who is not one of those two parties will not be able to view or save the chats. Note if you save and share your meeting chat, the original chat text file will include your private chats, so be sure to delete them before sharing.

1. Once in your meeting, click Polls at the bottom menu of the Zoom window
2. Use the drop-down menu at the top of the pop-up window to select which poll question you’d like to activate
3. Click Launch in the bottom right corner
4. When you’ve allowed enough time for responses, click End Poll
5. You can then share the response results with your meeting participants by clicking Share Results, or download the results by clicking the ellipses (…) and clicking Download Results

Notes

• Be sure to create your poll questions before your meeting starts. See the “How do I create polls ahead of my meeting” question in Section 3: Scheduling Meetings, Sharing Meetings, & Meeting Settings.
• If you are relying on polling within a Zoom meeting for grading purposes, we recommend turning on authentication for your meetings. This will ensure individual users are logging into their licensed UNC Zoom profiles before the meeting, allowing you to identify their responses.

You may need to set up permissions on your computer to allow the screen to be shared. Please see Zoom’s help article Using the Zoom client and Zoom Rooms with macOS.

The most likely reason is that you are not logging in to your UNC-authenticated, licensed account. Follow these steps on logging into your licensed UNC Zoom account, which will allow for meetings of up to 24 hours in length.

Unfortunately, due to copyright laws, you cannot play a DVD that is not downloaded to your computer. It will appear as nothing more than a black screen to your meeting participants. Zoom can only show video clips from the web (e.g. YouTube) and files that are saved to the device from which you are presenting.

Yes! Tips for Attending Class in Zoom is packed with information students can use to get ready for online classes.

You will need to be a co-host for the meeting, which can be accomplished either by the host designating you as an alternative host in the meeting settings or designating you as co-host from the Participants list once the meeting has started. Then, the host will need to assign you to a breakout room, and you will need to go to it (if prompted.) After that, you should have the ability to select any breakout room by clicking on the Breakout Rooms icon at the bottom of the screen, and “float” around to any room you choose.

 At this time, Zoom does not support this feature. We recommend sharing classroom materials that students would need to work on via Canvas before the class and instructing the students to open those files on their individual computers.

Please consult our video Using Zoom in General Purpose Classrooms and these accompanying points on recording with Zoom, which will walk you through setting your Zoom meeting up in a classroom. If you have additional questions once in the classroom, please pick up the Hotline phone in the room, which will dial directly to the Classroom Hotline.

UNC’s network architecture does not allow users to share wireless devices (e.g. an iPad) through a wired device (e.g. the classroom computer) in the same manner in which you might be accustomed to doing in your home’s wireless network. Please see our help article Using Zoom in General Purpose Classrooms on joining a meeting from multiple devices, which will mimic the share iPad/iPhone capability. Mirroring360 can also be used via the classroom computer to wirelessly connect mobile devices to the classroom computer and share within Zoom. For details on connecting with Mirroring360 please see this help document Display wirelessly with Mirroring360.

Most users will be able to record both to the device they’re using (local recording) as well as recording to their online Zoom profile, which can be accessed from any computer or mobile device (cloud recording). Please view this quick one-minute video on recording a Zoom meeting. We recommend recording your meeting to the cloud. Your cloud recordings are saved to Zoom Recordings. Click the Share button next to a recording to see the options for sharing that recording. Zoom cloud recordings are automatically transferred to UNC Panopto, the University’s centrally supported video storage and management system for users on the main UNC Zoom account (I.e., non-HIPAA protected users).

To share your Zoom cloud recordings:

1. Log into your profile at unc.zoom.us
2. Click Recordings on the left, after which you will see a list of your cloud recordings
3. Click Share on the far right of any individual recording, will allow you to adjust the sharing settings, such as whether the recording will be:
   • Locked down only to UNC users or not
   • Downloadable by the viewers or not
   • Protected by a passcode
4. After your settings are adjusted, click the Copy Sharing Information button in the lower left. A link to the recording will be copied, which can then be pasted into an email, Canvas announcement, text, etc., to send to others as needed.

Note that Zoom cloud recordings are automatically deleted after 30 days, and we actually recommend sharing Zoom recordings through UNC Panopto, the University’s centrally supported video storage and management system. All users on the main UNC Zoom account (i.e., non-HIPAA protected users) have their cloud recordings automatically transferred to Panopto, where they will be available for at least two years. Once you have logged into UNC Panopto, select My Folder from the left menu, and click on the Meeting Recordings folder to locate your Zoom cloud recordings. See the Panopto help article How to Share a Panopto Video. If you need to share recordings with students, see our EdTech blog post Sharing Zoom Recordings through Panopto in Sakai.

Note: Sakai entered Restricted Access on May 15, 2024 and may no longer be used actively for teaching.

Your Zoom Recording Settings can be adjusted to record many different camera, screen, and audio sources. Please adjust them as best fit your needs.

The most likely reason is that you are not logging in to your UNC-authenticated, licensed account. Follow these steps on logging into your UNC Zoom account, which will allow you to record to the cloud.

Cloud recording processing time can vary greatly, depending on your recording settings, meeting length, and Zoom’s current cloud recording capabilities. Most recordings for typical one-hour meeting are available within an hour or two after ending the meeting, but it can range from a few minutes to a few days, in extreme cases. Transcripts typically take longer than the recordings themselves. If it’s been more than 24 hours since your meeting ended and your recording or transcripts are still unavailable, please contact the ITS Service Desk.

To conserve finite cloud recording space within Zoom, recordings older than 30 days will be deleted. Fortunately, all users on the main UNC Zoom account (I.e., non-HIPAA protected users) will have their recordings backed up to Panopto, wherein they will remain available for no less than two years. Please consult Zoom Cloud Recordings Auto-Deletion FAQs for help concerning the deletion of certain cloud recordings, and visit UNC Panopto for more information.

First, ensure you’re using the latest version of Zoom’s software. Second, check your network connection speed, and understand that wired networks are almost always going to be faster than wireless connection. Third, close down any applications on your computer that you don’t need during your meeting.

We recommend wearing headphones whenever possible. Additionally, external microphones frequently provide better quality audio, as they are able to be moved closer to the person speaking than the internal microphones on a typical laptop or mobile device.

Try uninstalling Zoom and re-installing the 64-bit version of the software.

Yes, read our help article Improving your Zoom Connection for several tips to Zoom successfully even with a slow internet connection.

It’s certainly possible. Please check status.zoom.us to see if there are currently any wide-ranging problems with Zoom.

Please ensure you’re signing in correctly through UNC SSO. If, for some reason, you are unable to enter “unc” as the company domain, please uninstall and reinstall Zoom.

Zoom’s Host and Co-Host Controls in a Meeting guide reviews the menu and most of the functions you will need to know. Also, Zoom has a robust Zoom Support Center where you can search for detailed instructions and troubleshooting, or you can browse by topic. They even have short, one minute training videos on the most common things you can do in Zoom. Here are some of the most commonly handled issues and Zoom’s guides to help you solve them.

My Video/Camera Isn’t Working is helpful for:

• Students and Instructors who are unable to see the instructor’s webcam (if shared) or be seen
• Instructors who are unable to be seen by students

Testing Computer or Device Audio is helpful for students and instructors unable to hear others or be heard

Attendee Controls in a Meeting (including mute and unmute) is helpful for:

• Instructors who need to Mute All to control background noise, but then unmute as needed if they want students to be able to speak
• Students who cannot be heard or whose microphones are transmitting background noise

Audio Echo in a Meeting is helpful for instructors with students whose microphones are causing an echo

Sharing Your Screen is helpful for instructors who want to share their screen

Using annotation tools on a shared screen or whiteboard is helpful for instructors who want to annotate their slides

Zoom has several useful built-in features that are turned off by default. To enable them, log into your Zoom Settings and click the toggle to turn them from grey to blue. You only need to do this once for each feature. Two examples of features you can turn on are Polling and Waiting Room. If you are interested in using a Zoom feature that you cannot enable for your profile, please contact zoom@unc.edu or create a help request.

Polling
Once you have enabled polling in your Zoom profile, you can add poll questions before the meeting begins or you can manually create poll questions during the meeting by clicking the Polls icon in your Zoom meeting menu. You can only create a maximum of 25 polls for a single meeting.

Waiting Room
To have a waiting room added to all of your meetings, go to your Zoom Settings (Security section) by toggling on the Waiting Room setting. However, if you just want a waiting room for a specific meeting there is no need to enable the feature. You can edit the specific meeting you want to have a waiting room for and click Enable Waiting Room.

Breakout Rooms
Once you have enabled Breakout Rooms in your Zoom profile, you can either pre-assign students to breakout rooms before class begins or manually create breakout rooms and assign students to them during class. Zoom’s Managing Breakout Rooms guide will show you how to create breakout rooms, assign students to rooms, manage breakout rooms, broadcast a message to your breakout rooms, and end a breakout room session.

Breakout Rooms do have their limitations though. There is no way to pre-populate your breakout rooms with content or instructions before class begins. In addition, when your class meeting ends, the breakout rooms that you create in Zoom disappear and will not appear in your next class meeting. Unfortunately, we are not aware of any workaround for these issues.

If your Zoom profile is in the main UNC Zoom Account, app integrations must follow this process:

1. Requested app must not require administrative access to the entirety of Zoom’s system, which can be checked via the Zoom App Marketplace.
2. Requested app needs to have passed a risk assessment through ITS Security, which will need to be initiated by the requesting unit.
3. Once the risk assessment is complete, requestor should email the UNC Zoom Team with the integration request.

Some applications may already have been pre-approved, in which case users should be able to install them without issue. This should include all applications created and managed by Zoom (i.e. applications that say “By Zoom” underneath the app name in the Zoom App Marketplace.

If your Zoom profile is in the HIPAA-protected sub-account, the University must have a Business Associate Agreement signed with the application vendor before any application can be installed.

Only if your profile is in the HIPAA-protected sub-account.

Please contact zoom@unc.edu well before your meeting(s), and we can confirm whether your profile is in the HIPAA-protected sub-account.

If you never discuss PHI within Zoom meetings for which you are the host, please contact zoom@unc.edu to be removed from the HIPAA-protected sub-account.