Tech Forum

wfindlay wrote:Ok thank you. I mostly wanted to ask them how they would recommend from a technical standpoint setting up Sunday school with multiple 30 minute classes being run simultaneously.

If the class is only 30 minutes, then the free 40 minute account would work. I think you'd need multiple accounts - one for each class. But since they're free, it wouldn't be much of an issue.

Keep in mind, by holding the classes simultaneously, you're assuming every household has enough devices and bandwidth for all members to be in a class at the same time.

marnofi wrote:Doesn't everyone in a Zoom meeting need a Zoom account, too?

No, you just use the link and enter the name you want displayed. If you create an account it remembers your name and settings, but it isn't required to join a zoom meeting.

In my Stake each Ward has a Pro Zoom account and it is used for Sacrament, SS, PH, RS at different times. We are a very transit Stake and some Wards Branches don't have much of a budget for anything so the Stake pays for an annual Pro account. The cost is minimal and very beneficial. The Stake has a Pro account also for Presidency, HC, etc meetings.

The Church will begin offering Zoom accounts to local units. The official communication hopefully will be sent to STS's in the next week or two. Some initial information is available in the following posts:

viewtopic.php?f=146&t=38067

viewtopic.php?f=146&t=38066

These will be less expensive overall for the Church than locally purchased accounts. If a stake or ward paid the annual licensing costs, Zoom will provide a refund.

As you know, this was released yesterday. At least some of the announcements were received yesterday. here are a few highlights from testing we did earlier in the week.

These accounts support both meeting (full interactivity) and webinar (one-way) activities. You can choose which type of activity suits you best.

Meetings but not webinars have the option to use breakout rooms. However the allocation of people to the breakout rooms is not user activated. It's either automated (200 people, 10 rooms, 20 people get assigned to each room) OR the administrator must manually assign people to the rooms one by one.

You can have * 2 * concurrent activities with these accounts. Normally Zoom only allows one. So you can have an RS and EQ second hour meeting occurring concurrently. HOWEVER, only one person can be logged into the account at a time to start the activities. In this example, the RSP logs in to start the RS activity. When the EQP logs into start the EQ activity, the RSP IS logged out of the account. The RS activity will continue since it's started and the host can still manage it like normal. The EQP can start his activity and manage it. If the RSP logs back into the account, the EQP is logged out. So be nice to each other.

Each activity CAN support its own RTMP feed to the Church or other system (Facebook/Google). This has been tested and it works.

If you're using paid accounts now, they can be transferred to the Church system. There is an option for that. This is of value if you've prepaid for them. You have the option of getting a refund or donating the refund amount to the Church to help pay for this service.

Finally, I have two personal recommendations, one for accounts and one for account management. #1. If you have a prepaid account, transfer the account to the church then either take the refund or donate. Once the account is set up and operational in the Church system and refund/donation confirmed, cancel the account in the church system and re-add a new account using the suggestion in #2. If you month-to-month licenses, cancel them and set up new accounts using the recommendation in #2.

Recommendation #2: use a single, stake controlled email account for these church licenses. This is simple and easy to do giving the STS control over the accounts. See the discussion in this thread for more information.

This will become interesting if we conduct separate meetings or breakout rooms for EQ, RS, YM, and YW classes at the same time. I am thinking about a large family which is at their home, and each member of the family wants to connect to his or her own meeting or breakout session. Laptops or Tablets for everyone! What a great Christmas idea.

;TLDR

1. Create or use *1* gmail account for the Stake.
2. Go to https://meet.churchofjesuschrist.org and sign in with your account. (This is for the Stake Tech Specialist, other may not have access.)
3. Click on the zoom portal and then from the drop down, sign up each ward/branch and the stake a zoom account with uniques email addresses from the main address by adding a "+unitname" [Example: fxbgvastake+spotsyward@gmail.com]
4. Go to the main stake email account and "Activate Your Zoom Account" and set up a password for each ward/branch.
5. Email all the Bishops/Branch President/Stake President their unit Zoom username/Email account.
6. Text or call each of them their password. For security reasons, it's best not to send the username/email account AND password in the same email.

lfanelli wrote:;TLDR

1. Create or use *1* gmail account for the Stake.
2. Go to https://meet.churchofjesuschrist.org and sign in with your account. (This is for the Stake Tech Specialist, other may not have access.)
3. Click on the zoom portal and then from the drop down, sign up each ward/branch and the stake a zoom account with uniques email addresses from the main address by adding a "+unitname" [Example: fxbgvastake+spotsyward@gmail.com]
4. Go to the main stake email account and "Activate Your Zoom Account" and set up a password for each ward/branch.
5. Email all the Bishops/Branch President/Stake President their unit Zoom username/Email account.
6. Text or call each of them their password. For security reasons, it's best not to send the username/email account AND password in the same email.

Note, unless I'm missing something, this process will not get a refund from any paid accounts. In order to do that, the new account email had to match the old one - at least initially.

Also, the email used will be the "login" for the Zoom account - so you probably want to keep the email a reasonable length. SpringfieldWestUtahStake+Highlands1stWard@gmail.com could get old quick.

russellhltn wrote:Also, the email used will be the "login" for the Zoom account - so you probably want to keep the email a reasonable length. SpringfieldWestUtahStake+Highlands1stWard@gmail.com could get old quick.

I'd "shorten it to "SpringfieldWUTstake+HL1ward@gmail.com", but I do agree, it could get old pretty quick. Dropping a few vowels to shorten up email addresses work to. I actually added "VA" to my stake because there is a Fredericksburg, TX too. I shorten it to FxbgVAstake+4digitWard@gmail.com

Thanks to all those previous posts that was able to help/suggest the unique email idea and setup.

Well, you could use the unit number as the username. Rumor has it that all lower 48 states have a city named Springfield.