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Zoom Waiting Room Requirements FAQ

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Overview


To control who can join your Zoom meeting and when they join, Zoom Waiting Rooms provide you the control to admit people to your meeting individually or in a big group all at once. 

Starting December 21, 2020 UC San Diego Information Technology Services (ITS) incorporated a default Waiting Room configuration for all Campus (non-Health) Zoom users. In doing so, Zoombombing opportunities are significantly reduced. Users are able to choose to leave the settings as we have enabled them, make their Waiting Room settings more restrictive, or they can switch to Passcodes.  

General


What are Waiting Rooms and how do they work?

The Waiting Room feature allows the host to control when a participant joins the meeting by placing participants in a Waiting Room prior to joining the session. It is recommended that you review the above Waiting Room selections and which participants to place in the Waiting Room. Once Waiting Room is turned on in your meeting settings, Join Before Host will not work for your meetings.

Why?

We have the option of having allowing Zoom to dictate the terms and require everyone to go into waiting rooms, or we can try to closely emulate the current UCSD model; UCSD-account holders and users from trusted domains should be able to continue entering meetings unhindered unless the Host has configured a more restrictive control for their meetings.

Why not Passcodes?

Enabling Passcodes requires that existing/recurring/future scheduled meetings be rescheduled and/or re-sent with new invitations which include the new passcodes. The potential for creating a large administrative overhead for UC San Diego campus Zoom users poses a significant risk. There are many UCSD Zoom users currently utilizing Passcodes for their meetings, due to security needs or publicity requirements. However, there have been mixed reactions from users who have tried Zoom Passcodes but who do not require the additional effort or protection.

Who is able to bypass the default Waiting Room?

UC San Diego ITS will be allowing logged-in Zoom users from the following domains to bypass the Waiting Room:

If I already have a Passcode or Waiting Room enabled, will anything change?

No, we have assurances from Zoom that your settings will remain the same for your current selection.

Do I need to do anything additional?

No, you should experience minimal disruption. Some of your attendees may experience being placed in your Waiting Room unless they are logged in to the UCSD Zoom campus instance (or their UC-trusted domain).

Any host or co-host can admit participants from the Waiting Room, along with anyone who bypassed due to their domain association.

How do I admit attendees from my Waiting Room?

When the Waiting Room feature is enabled, people trying to join the meeting are automatically put into a waiting room. They will see a notice asking them to wait for the meeting host to let them in. (Individuals who are only connected by phone will hear a message saying the host has put them on hold.)

To admit these individuals to the meeting, the meeting host, co-host, or those who have bypassed the Waiting Room need to:

  1. Click Manage Participants in the Zoom application.
  2. In the Participants pane, either click Admit for individual attendees, or Admit All to let everyone in from the Waiting Room.

Note: If the host doesn’t have the participant panel open, when a participant enters the waiting room, the Manage Participants icon will flash and a pop-up window will provide an option to admit them.

How do I manage my Waiting Room or Passcode options?

Modify Waiting Rooms on your account

Enable Passcodes on your account

Important: If you add Passcodes to an existing meeting, calendar invites will need to be re-sent to include the Passcode.

How will Waiting Rooms affect participants joining the meeting by phone?

For meetings with Waiting Rooms, participants will dial in as they normally do. They will hear a prompt that they are in the Waiting Room and the host will have to admit them.

If the meeting has Waiting Rooms enabled and ‘join before host’ is disabled, then the host will be able to start the meeting and disable the Waiting Room by entering their host key. The host will hear audio prompts indicating that the Waiting Room has been disabled, all attendees will be admitted, and they can lock or unlock the meeting by pressing * 5.

What happens if my admin locks a selection?

You cannot disable your admin’s locked selection. This feature has not changed.

Can I see which of my meetings have Waiting Rooms or Passcodes enabled?

Yes. Users can log into their web portal, and in the “Meetings” tab see a list of meetings that have been scheduled without a Passcode. This is indicated with a red warning icon.

Will this affect all users?

This will impact all UCSD campus users, unless they already have Waiting Rooms or Passcodes enabled. For those primarily meeting with UCSD or UC attendees, there should be little to no effect.

Those hosts meeting with external/public teams will have the additional step of admitting those attendees to the meeting from the Waiting Room. This will affect all meetings for those users, but they can still customize the settings on the meeting level during scheduling.

Can I disable this Waiting Room requirement?

ITS is not locking the setting, so yes, you can disable it. However, if you do not have Passcodes enabled as an alternative, Zoom will automatically default your account to a standard waiting room where all users are placed into the Waiting Room. All meetings must have either a Passcode or Waiting Room, so if a meeting has neither, Zoom will enable a Waiting Room.

Will the UCSD ITS Waiting Room selection override a campus user’s previously selected option?

If a user has already selected a security option, the ITS configuration will not supersede.

Does this information apply to LTI integrations?

Yes.

What are the trusted domains?

UCSD Trusted Domain List:

Resources


If you still have questions or need additional assistance, please submit a ticket or a Zoom Request Form