Zoom

Activate & Sign In

There are two ways to sign into your Zoom account: the web portal or the Zoom app for desktop or mobile. The Zoom web portal is primarily used to activate your account, access your recordings, change your meeting settings, and manage scheduled Zoom Meetings. The app is the most convenient way to participate in a meeting.

Important: If you are invited to a Zoom meeting or webinar that requires a Smith login, we recommend signing into Zoom with your Smith username and password prior to the event to avoid any issues or delays. 

If you have not downloaded the Zoom app, it is important to download and sign into the app at least an hour before the scheduled event to ensure that your account is activated and propagated into the system.

Smith Computers

The ITS team updates Zoom on Smith-assigned computers automatically via weekly managed patching. There is no need to manually update your Zoom application on a Smith computer.

Personal Computers

Automatic Updates

1. Open the Zoom app on your computer.

2. Select the gear icon in the top right corner under your initials/profile picture to open your settings menu.

3. Under General, check the box for Automatically keep Zoom desktop client up to date. A drop-down menu will appear after you check this box. Leave the Update Channel set to Slow for the best experience.

Manual Updates

1. Open the Zoom app on your computer.

2. Select your profile picture/initials to display your account settings menu.

3. Select Check for Updates at the bottom of your account settings menu.

4. You will either get a screen that says You are up to date, or a screen that says Update Available. If you are up to date, select Done. If there is an update available, select Update.

5. Select Install. Follow the prompts on your computer to install the update.

Publicly Sharing Meeting Links

You may want to advertise, publish, or post your meeting link somewhere public. Locations like eDigest, departmental or personal websites, and institutional or personal social media accounts are all ways of reaching large numbers of the community. But, they are also public-facing forms of communication, which means anyone with internet access has the potential to find and gain access to your meeting.

With this in mind, it’s important to make sure your meeting has been secured for public posting. Only post publicly if you can answer “yes” to any one of the following criteria:

• The meeting has been set up with “Smith login required” authentication.

• The meeting has been set up to require registration AND you or an assistant are actively screening registrants before the meeting.

• The meeting has been set up with a Waiting Room AND you are confident in your ability or your assistant’s ability to monitor the Waiting Room and admitted participants for disruptive behavior.

• If you are posting your meeting link publicly, we strongly recommend learning about the in-meeting security controls for preventing and managing Zoom attackers.

Privately Sharing Meeting Links

The most secure way to share your Zoom meeting link is to send it directly to your participants or post it somewhere only your intended participants can access. Moodle course pages, Slack workspaces and channels, Google Calendar invites, Google Drive folders, and email are all ways to share your meeting information with a controlled group.

In the unlikely event your meeting information spreads beyond your intended group of participants, in-meeting controls are available to help prevent or manage Zoom attacks (intentional, unwanted, disruptive intrusion into a video conference call). You can find more information about in-meeting security controls in the Zoom Security and Privacy guide.