Among all the applications to make video calls or conferences, Zoom has made a place for itself in recent years; becoming a tool for distance education, teleworking, certain virtual events and meetings with friends. It is likely that your interest in Zoom is linked to telecommuting, because it is a model that has been strong in many companies. Knowing how to schedule a meeting on Zoom has become a necessity. It is advisable to have some experience on the subject, since it is not known what day a meeting will have to be arranged.
When you are a user or administrator with a basic plan within Zoom, you are allowed to invite a maximum of 100 people in each meeting. If there are three or more people, the meeting will end after 40 minutes (if that's not enough, the duration can be extended with a special license).
With the above in mind, I will now explain how to schedule a meeting on Zoom.
Download the Zoom app on Android
Any device running Android version 5.0 or higher can install the latest version of Zoom from the Play Store. It does not take up as much space when downloaded as other applications.
If you don't have an account on this platform, you can sign in with Google. Upon completion of registration, you will be able to sign in with Google from both the mobile app and the version of Zoom on another operating system.
Free version and Zoom licenses
As I mentioned before: if the meeting you are holding has three or more users in it, it will end automatically after about 40 minutes (if the administrator has not terminated it before). At least if your account is free, without any license or plugin.
To get around that problem, Zoom allows a team admin to assign licenses to a user. These can range from 15 to 50 USD per month, depending on what each one offers. With an eg "Large Meetings" license, the 100 user limit can be increased to 500 or 1000 when you schedule a meeting.
A Zoom Pro license can also come in handy when we need conference room correctors and other meeting add-ons: like cloud recording and saving, special features for webinars, conferences, more storage for file sharing, etc.
For more information you can read about what is Zoom.
How to schedule a meeting on Zoom
Only administrators can schedule a meeting on Zoom, so pay attention so that everything goes to the first. If the people you plan to invite have different schedules, try to have the meeting at a time where all or most people can participate.
I am going to schedule a meeting from two different devices: first I will use the Android app and then the web version of Zoom, for those who prefer to use the mobile app only to join meetings:
How to schedule a Zoom meeting from Android
- Open the Zoom app and sign in to your account.
- On the main “Meeting & Chat” screen, tap a calendar icon button that says “Schedule” on the carousel above.
- On the new screen, indicate the topic of the meeting, the start date and time. Then it will ask you for the approximate time of the meeting. Without a license the maximum is 40 minutes. You must also select which time zone will be taken into account. You can use “universal time”, that is, UTC (before choosing the time zone, you have to discuss it with the people who are going to participate in the meeting).
- In the Android app there is the possibility to use your personal ID as the ID of this meeting. I recommend you to have this option deactivated, so a new ID will be generated for each meeting.
- You can customize the access code to the meeting and enable the waiting room, by default it is disabled. When activated, the administrator must manually allow them access (during the meeting).
- In the advanced options you can activate one to record the meeting locally. These are more secondary options that may or may not be useful to you.
- Save the schedule for this meeting. You will go to a screen with the information of the meeting that you just scheduled, remember to have the ID and the access code at hand, you have to send them to the participants.
- When it's time, go to the meeting screen and look for the topic in question. Tap on “Start” and wait for everyone to enter.
How to schedule a meeting on Zoom from the computer
- Open the page zoom. us in your favorite browser and log in to the previously registered account. This process is also very similar if you have the Zoom desktop app.
- In the left panel, select “Meetings” and press the “Schedule meeting” button, which is located on the right side.
- On the new page, indicate the topic of the meeting, the date, start time and estimated duration. Without a license, Zoom will tell you that the maximum is 40 minutes. You must also select which time zone will be taken into account. You can use “universal time”, that is, UTC (before choosing the time zone, you have to discuss it with the people who are going to participate in the meeting).
- There are two options that may interest you: Meeting ID (later you can share it with guests) and Security. The latter is to prevent people with the meeting ID and password from entering directly; if enabled, the host or administrator must manually allow them access (during the meeting).
- You can also automatically mute people who join, record the meeting locally, etc. These are more secondary options.
- Save the schedule for this meeting. You will be transferred to a page with the information of the meeting that you just scheduled, remember to have the ID and the access code at hand, they must be sent to the participants.
- When it's time, go to the meetings page and look for the topic in question. Press the “Start” button and wait for everyone to enter.