Keep in touch with your colleagues and create a video meeting in seconds from your PC.
Confinement requires, telework has exploded among many employees. But while working from home is a definite advantage, managing a team or a project remotely can be more complicated than it seems. Fortunately, there is a plethora of tools that allow you to maintain a link with your office colleagues. This is the case of Zoom, a videoconferencing application that allows you to create, in a few seconds, a video meeting during which you can see your colleagues, send text messages and files, but also share the desktop view. and applications from your PC.
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In its Basic version offered free of charge, Zoom offers the possibility of holding video meetings that can include up to a hundred participants, within the limit of 40 minutes. To go further, you will have to put your hand in the wallet and opt for a professional offer. Here’s everything you need to know to get started with Zoom.
1. Register on ZOOM
Before you can use it, you will first need to register with Zoom.us to use the app. The registration and use of Zoom in its Basic offer is completely free. It offers all the essential functions and will suffice for the greatest number in the majority of cases.
Once on the Zoom home page, click the Subscribe button, enter your work email address and click Subscribe. You will then be invited to create your password before definitively validating your registration. You will also need to validate your account by clicking on the link received by e-mail.
Choosing to sign up for Zoom using your work email address is not trivial. Thanks to it, the program will be able to find all your employees already registered, allowing you to contact them easily, without having to send them an invitation to join the tool.
2. Download the client
If Zoom allows from its site to join a meeting, it is actually to redirect the user to its client software, the installation of which is essential.
- Download Zoom for Windows (Free)
- Download Zoom for macOS (Free)
- Download Zoom for Linux (Free)
- Download Zoom for Android (Free)
- Download Zoom for iPhone / iPad (Free)
Once the client is installed, launch it and log in using your username and password.
3. Take control of the interface
Zoom’s interface is built around four tabs: Home, Chat, Meetings, and Contacts.
The home page of the application will allow you to initiate a new meeting, join or schedule one, or even share the screen. The Chat section, as the name suggests, groups together all the text conversations held in the app, while the meeting tab will allow you to schedule a meeting.
Finally, the Contacts page groups together all the contacts added in Zoom, whether they are corporate contacts automatically detected by the application, or contacts added manually.
4. Create a meeting
To create a video meeting, go to the Home tab and click New Meeting. Your PC webcam should activate and the meeting viewer window opens. In the pop-up that appears, click Join audio by computer to enable audio and microphone in the conversation. When you create a meeting, you are the host and have full control over the meeting.
At the bottom of the window, you will find the general toolbar that will allow you to manage the image and sound, share your screen, display the textual conversation associated with the meeting, or even record the video stream. of your videoconference.
It is also from this toolbar that you can invite participants. A new window will then open and allow you to select the contacts invited to join the meeting. You can also choose to send the invitation by email via the dedicated tab, or copy the meeting URL or the invitation text to the clipboard, to send them manually yourself.
The people invited to join your meeting will then get the direct access URL, the video meeting ID number (meeting ID) and the access password that will allow them to connect and join the meeting. video conference. This data is unique and changes with each new meeting.
If you need to hold frequent meetings with the same people, you can use your personal meeting ID to create an instant meeting.
To do this, click on the New meeting drop-down menu and select Use my personal meeting ID. If it is easier to use because it is unique, it should only be shared with your trusted contacts. Because once this ID is known to third parties, they can join current meetings at any time unless you activate the Waiting room function, which allows participants to be accepted one by one. .
5. Join an existing meeting
If you receive an invitation to join a meeting, and the application is already installed on your PC, you will normally only have to click on the URL to automatically join the meeting.
You can also join from the Zoom Home tab, click Join, then in the pop-up that appears, enter the meeting ID or URL to access it and confirm by clicking Join.
6. Schedule a meeting
Zoom also offers to schedule meetings. To do this, from the Home tab of the application, click Schedule.
In the window that appears, you can fill in and configure all the parameters of your meeting: subject, start date and time, duration of recurrence, configuration of an access password, etc. Once all your parameters have been entered, click on Schedule.
Zoom should then automatically open your email software to send the invitation to your collaborators. They will only have to click on the invitation link and enter the password indicated in the message to join the meeting at the indicated time.
7. Exchange messages and files
Zoom also integrates instant messaging, where you can send text messages in conversations or chat channels.
To do this, go to the Chat tab, then in the left column, click on the + button next to Recent to create a new Chat, create a channel or join an already existing one.
8. Record video of a meeting
When doing a video meeting with Zoom, you can optionally keep a complete record of the video meeting by recording it. To do this, press the Save button displayed in the Zoom toolbar.
To stop recording, you will need to click on the Stop button displayed at the top left of the viewing window.
The file will be automatically converted to MP4 format after ending the meeting, by clicking the End Meeting button. The video file is saved in the directory C: Users YourPC Documents Zoom of your Windows session.