Enhance Your Zoom Experience with these New Features

Have you always wished that you could allow another participant to advance slides while you are presenting on Zoom? Or maybe you want to get feedback from a meeting or workshop by directing people to a survey when the meeting ends. Well now you can do that and more with these additional features. 

On 8/8/2022, Tufts Technology Services (TTS) will enable the recently added Zoom features listed below as default settings for all existing Zoom accounts putting them at your fingertips whenever you might need them. 

Zoom Interface  

• Zoom Apps – Zoom Apps Quick Launch Button – "Zoom Apps" – will show in the Zoom interface (at bottom of Zoom screen) for quick access to productivity tools before, during, or after meetings. 

Meeting Scheduling  

• Allow participants to join before host – Default set to “Participants can join 15 minutes before start time”. Schedulers can also choose the 5 minute or 10-minute option or can stay at the previous default of “Join any time before start”. 

• Meeting Survey – Hosts can configure post meeting surveys; much like you can in webinars (e.g., evaluations after a workshop). Learn more about surveys in Zoom. 

In Meeting Controls 

• Slide Control – Allows presenters of PowerPoints to give another participant the ability to advance slides in a meeting. Learn more about the Slide Control feature. 

• Waiting Room Options 
  • Renaming participants – Allow Host or co-host to rename participants in the waiting room. 
  • Replying to hosts and co-hosts - Allow participants to chat back and forth with participants in the waiting room. Waiting room messages can be sent to all participants in the waiting room or just individual participants. Only the host/co-host can see responses from those in the waiting room. 
     
• Breakout room activity – Allow host to view activity statuses of participants in breakout rooms enables hosts and co-hosts to quickly view participants' audio and video status, if they are sharing their screen, and any active reactions or nonverbal feedback. (Note: This feature requires hosts and participants to have client version 5.10.3 or higher for activity statuses to appear and does not apply to participants joining on certain devices such as phone, H.323, and SIP.) 

• Language Interpretation - Users that would like to include interpreters in their meetings or webinars now can enable Language Interpretation. This allows the host to designate up to 20 participants as interpreters on the web portal or during a Zoom session. Learn more about the language interpretation feature. 

• Immersive View – Recreate the feel of your class or conference room by placing up to 25 video participants onto a single virtual background. Participants are automatically placed onto provided scenes and the host can adjust the arrangements as needed. The host can also use their own custom background for a unique scene. Learn more about Immersive view.  

• Focus Mode – Focus mode was designed with the digital learning environment in mind, allowing students to stay attentive or work on their tasks while under supervision, without being distracted by others and their tasks. This feature gives the host and co-hosts view of all participants’ videos without other participants seeing each other. Learn more about the Focus mode feature. 

• Identify guest participants in the meeting/webinar – This feature allows you and participants who belong to your account to see that a guest is participating in the meeting/webinar. A guest is identified as someone who is not signed into a Zoom account or is signed with an email address outside of the Tufts network. (Note: The guest does not see they are listed as a guest when using this feature.) Learn more about identifying guest participants in meetings/webinars. 

• Setting Custom Gallery View – Allows you to click and drag videos to create a custom video order. After the first change, all other participant tiles will remain in place until moved. New participants will be added to the bottom-right, on the last page if multiple exists. Your custom order will be seen only by you, or the host can deploy their custom view to all participants. (NOTE: This order can be released, and the order will revert to the default.) Learn more about changing and saving gallery view. 

Notifications for cloud recordings

Once you delete a cloud recording, it goes into the trash for 30 days before it is permanently deleted. Hosts will be notified 7 days before the 30 days ends that it will be permanently deleted in the event you deleted it by mistake.  

Captioning Policy

Reminder all videos and audio files created or posted after June 30, 2022 and created for use by the university community must include closed captioning. To learn how to do this, please visit the Captioning Policy page. For details on the new policy, see Captioning Policy (pdf). 

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact a Zoom administrator by emailing it@tufts.edu.