Tech Forum

The letter that came from the Church said this about the Zoom Account that would be created:

a Church-provided Zoom license can be requested that:
• Can be shared within a unit.
• Can host two concurrent meetings.
• Does not limit meeting duration.
• Can be used for both interactive and noninteractive meetings

One of the wards in my stake such a Zoom account. It was apparently created by changing something in the old account that they had. It is configured as a "Basic" (i.e. free?) account with up to 500 attendees and a 40-minute time limit.

It also requires a passcode.

The ward would like it to be an account as advertised above - especially removing the limit to meeting duration. They would also like to be able to remove the requirement for a passcode for at least some meetings, but that is currently locked by an administrator.

The Church does not have support for these Zoom accounts. How do I rectify this situation?

Rick Winterton
Midland Michigan Stake
Stake Technology Specialist

Go to meet.churchofjesuschrist.org, and create the account.

At the point, I'd advise against trying to upgrade their existing account - too many have come back and reported problems with the process. I'd also suggest you create an email to use with the account, rather than trying to use someone's personal account. At some point that person is going to move on, perhaps sooner than expected. Currently, I'm not seeing a authorized process for moving the Zoom account to a different email without breaking the license.

Rick.Winterton wrote:They would also like to be able to remove the requirement for a passcode for at least some meetings, but that is currently locked by an administrator.

Having a passcode is best practice. There have been countless incidents of Zoom meetings being joined by individuals with malicious intent just by guessing the meeting number. If it were a webinar it wouldn't matter as much since they couldn't do anything, but still not the best route. They could make the passcode as simple as "1234" or the name of the ward though. The link in the meeting invitation contains the passcode in a hashed format so just sending the link out would also connect directly to the meeting without a passcode.

Thanks for the suggestion. I deleted the old account and recreated an account using a new email address.

Rick Winterton

New STS here... Can someone point me to the handbook / instructions / directions for administering the Zoom accounts for Wards?

Thanks!

dtavres wrote:New STS here... Can someone point me to the handbook / instructions / directions for administering the Zoom accounts for Wards?

This is all too new for any of that. All you've got in a letter announcing the availability of such licenses. As far as "administering": you create the license, hand over the credentials, and answer any questions.

In theory, you could upgrade an existing license they have, but there seems to be a lot of pitfalls with that. Especially if they have more than one login associated with the license. I'd suggest going over the various zoom threads to get an idea.

russellhltn wrote:This is all too new for any of that. All you've got in a letter announcing the availability of such licenses. As far as "administering": you create the license, hand over the credentials, and answer any questions.

Thanks... Am I correct in guessing that the "https://meet.churchofjesuschrist.org/" page is where you grant / edit the licenses? I'm still getting "Authorization failed", but I'm guessing that's because MLS has not updated yet. The Stake President updated my record and it shows the STS calling, but I don't have access yet. I'm guessing a day or two, and the data should sync in MLS.

Am I correct in guessing that the "https://meet.churchofjesuschrist.org/" page is where you grant / edit the licenses?

That is a "yes", that is correct.

The Stake President updated my record and it shows the STS calling, but I don't have access yet.

It shouldn't take more than an hour - usually much less time than that - especially if they go to https://lcr.churchofjesuschrist.org/ and make the change there. If they do it in MLS (can you still do that?), they have to do a "Send/Receive Changes", and it might take until the next day.

dtavres wrote:Am I correct in guessing that the "https://meet.churchofjesuschrist.org/" page is where you grant / edit the licenses?

Try incognito mode. Church websites have a lot of problems with stale cookies.

As far as "meet" is concerned, it should know about your new calling right away, as long as they recorded you as a standard position. Note that "assistant technical specialist" will NOT have access, only "Stake Assistant Clerk--Technology Specialist". You might want to verify your calling in the directory or member tools.

I was recently added as an STS, access to the webcast site was pretty quick but it took until the next day for access to meet and TM to recognize the new calling