Issues with new Zoom -> meet.churchofjesuschrist.org

[brad_p]

I received the email about changes to broadcasting. Two sentences quoted below raised a few questions. After that are my initial issues, inserted with edits with what I've found so far answering those issues:

The Church created a portal for managing Zoom licenses called “Church Meet”, which can be found at meet.ChurchofJesusChrist.org.... To more easily inform Church members about local Zoom broadcasts, events created using a Church Zoom license are now automatically imported into the Church Meet “Events” section.

Issue #1: I cannot access meet.churchofjesuschrist.org. I get 403 forbidden, despite being logged in. Is there a workaround or a fix for this?

Partial answer: If I go into my browser's Private/Incognito mode, then re-log in, then I get it to work. Seems this is a bug on the church's end.

Issue #2: I went into my ward's church enterprise Zoom and created both a Meeting and a Webinar for tomorrow. I was not given an event code, and nothing shows up at broadcasts.churchofjesuschrist.org. About 10 minutes later I did a refresh just to check. It still says "Local Broadcasts - No upcoming broadcasts." How do you get something to show up at broadcasts.churchofjesuschrist.org? Is it just currently broken?

Partial answer: You have to manually approve them first. They come default to unpublished. However, when I published one, then went to broadcasts.churchofjesuschrist.org, I got a message saying I had to log into my account, despite being logged in (seems this is another bug on the church's end). Two minutes later, the page itself refreshed and then I got the link. See broadcast_page.png screenshot.

Issue #3: The letter says "broadcasts", but Zoom calls it "Meetings" or "Webinars". Which is that referring to? If meeting are automatically published, we're in trouble because our stake routinely has unit leaders setting up Zoom meetings for things that shouldn't be publicly listed. If it's Webinars, that should be ok.

Answer: You choose to publish Meetings and/or Webinars. So "broadcast" is a good term because it can be either one. Confidential meetings stay confidential unless someone goofs and manually publishes it. See meet_page.png screenshot.

Issue #4: Can we disable this? This proposal creates more problems for us from a ministering standpoint than it helps. The current church setup frankly has poor attendance gathering capabilities. We have a front end where we ask the individual(s) for names and number of people watching that broadcast. That helps us tremendously as we generate weekly reports that we disseminate to ward leaders which they then act on. If we can't disable the broadcast.churchofjesuschrist.org local zoom meeting link, then we will have users slip through our tracking systems.

Answer: Yes, they come defaulted to not published.

Issue #5: This is probably a stretch, but is there a way to somehow target one broadcast for *three* wards? For example, we have one building with three wards attending. To make the broadcast flow smoother, we simply create one broadcast that starts around 8:30 AM and ends around 1:30 PM. All three wards get the same broadcast link, and all we do is simply put an overlay in between meetings. That way we don't have to set up three meetings per day, and we don't have to manually stop and start webinars three times per Sunday. We just start it at 8:30, stop it at 1:30 PM, and we're golden. I'd prefer to not have to go back to the old days of managing one broadcast per ward.

Answer: Doesn't look to be possible based on what I see so far.

[russellhltn]

Issue #1: I cannot access meet.churchofjesuschrist.org. I get 403 forbidden, despite being logged in. Is there a workaround or a fix for this?

Try Incognito mode.

Issue #2: I went into my ward's church enterprise Zoom and created both a Meeting and a Webinar for tomorrow. I was not given an event code, and nothing shows up at broadcasts.churchofjesuschrist.org. About 10 minutes later I did a refresh just to check. It still says "Local Broadcasts - No upcoming broadcasts."

Because you didn't set them to "publish" in "meet" due to Issue #1.

our stake routinely has unit leaders setting up Zoom meetings for things that shouldn't be publicly listed.

There's a slider in "meet" that says "publish". Don't publish and you're fine.

[sbradshaw]

Issue #5: This is probably a stretch, but is there a way to somehow target one broadcast for *three* wards? For example, we have one building with three wards attending. To make the broadcast flow smoother, we simply create one broadcast that starts around 8:30 AM and ends around 1:30 PM. All three wards get the same broadcast link, and all we do is simply put an overlay in between meetings. That way we don't have to set up three meetings per day, and we don't have to manually stop and start webinars three times per Sunday. We just start it at 8:30, stop it at 1:30 PM, and we're golden. I'd prefer to not have to go back to the old days of managing one broadcast per ward.

It sounds like you're a stake leader or technology specialist setting up broadcasts for all of the wards yourself. I don't have access to the system, but are wards able to set up their own broadcasts? It seems like a lot of work for someone in the stake to manage all of the ward meetings every week – and it's possible that some wards don't have members who need a broadcast at all.

[dwsmith2]

I don't see our meetings on the Meet-Events page. In an image brad_p posted, the events were listed with an option to publish, but I don't see that for our ward.

Anyone know how I can get that view?

[russellhltn]

From the FAQ: "If meeting data from a recurring series is not returned to the “Events” section of the Church Meet portal, event managers will need to create a new recurring series."

I'm guessing the importing of events had limited "reach", requiring some to be re-created.

But it also raises the possibility that some wards are somehow not using the zoom license/login assigned to them by the STS. No one would realize it until this tool came along.

[Cyberjunkie]

I'm the STS for our stake and I'm having problems with meet.

We have several units in our building that broadcast with Zoom. And My ward and another of the wards nothing was populated over, based on what I have seen in here I will have to recreate the zoom meetings. I will probably wait until next year when we change our meeting schedule.

It looks like in Broadcasts.ChurchOfJesusChrists.org that it only shows events out for two weeks. I tried publishing a new Stake Conference meeting the middle of next month, but it isn't showing up yet.

It will take some time to get used to the new setup.

[joeneuman]

Attempt to connect on a Sunday and you get "Endpoint request timed out"

[joeneuman]

We also just do one broadcast for the entire Sunday and use the same streaming key to YouTube Live. All we need to do each Sunday is just push "ON AIR" and we are live. I could not imagine going back to using a laptop. This would be plagued with many more technical issues and currently anyone can put the "ON AIR" button.

I'm not quite sure why we would want to restrict who can watch or make it more difficult for some. The broadcasts have been great for inactive and non-members. It seems that everything is moving to access only for those who are active or at least gatekeeping only for active members.

[russellhltn]

I'm not quite sure why we would want to restrict who can watch or make it more difficult for some. The broadcasts have been great for inactive and non-members. It seems that everything is moving to access only for those who are active or at least gatekeeping only for active members.

I'd suggest reading General Handbook 29.7
"Streams and virtual meetings are not meant for the convenience of those who could reasonably attend in person."

We're no longer in "pandemic" mode. The streams can continue for the shut-ins, but it's not intended for the inactive or non-members. Maybe that will change, but that's the current status.

[joeneuman]

I'd suggest reading General Handbook 29.7
"Streams and virtual meetings are not meant for the convenience of those who could reasonably attend in person."

Very helpful. Today I was talking with a member and they mentioned that a leader shared their disdain for something that was said in a sacrament meeting and then removed the post when he realized the problems that it might cause. It made me realize how quickly things in our modern world can become distorted and people start pulling out pitchforks and torches. For this very reason, we need to keep our meetings sacred and secure.