How Do I use Zoom Meetings with Sakai?

A Zoom session with Duke professor Charles Becker's class, with 16 faces on individual video screens.

Zoom Meetings is a tool which faculty, students and staff can use for video and audio conferencing, collaboration, chat, and webinars across mobile devices, desktops, telephones, and room systems. 

What is the benefit of using Zoom Meetings in Sakai?

The Zoom LTI integration with Sakai allows students and faculty to start and join Zoom meetings via easily accessible links.
You can also easily and automatically share Zoom cloud recordings. We recommend that you enable the Panopto tool in Sakai for a superior experience with cloud recordings.

Schedule A Zoom Meeting in your Sakai site

A screenshot of the Zoom meetings interface in Sakai, featuring the schedule a New Meeting button in bright blue.
  1. From the Tools Menu, select the Zoom Meetings tool.
  2. Click Schedule a Meeting.
  3. Select the desired settings for the meeting. 
    • Topic: Choose a topic/name for your meeting.
    • Description: Enter in an option meeting description.
    • When: Select a date and time for your meeting. 
    • Duration: Choose the approximate duration of the meeting. Note that this is only for scheduling purposes. The meeting will not end after this length of time.
    • Time Zone: By default, Zoom will use the time zone that you set in your Profile. Click on the drop down to select a different time zone. 
    • Recurring meeting: Check if you would like a recurring meeting, i.e. the meeting ID will remain the same for each session. This will open up additional recurrence options.
      • Recurrence: Select how often you need the meeting to recur: Daily, Weekly, Monthly, or No Fixed Time. It can recur up to 50 times. If you need more than 50 recurrences, use the No Fixed Time option.
      • The other recurrence options will depend on how often the meeting recurs. You can configure the meeting to end after a set amount of occurrences or have the recurring meeting end on a specific date.
    • Registration: Check this option if your meeting will require registration. Instead of a join link for your participants, you will be provided a registration link. Read more about meeting registration.
    • Host Video: Choose if you would like the host video on or off when joining the meeting. Even if you choose off, the host will have the option to start their video. 
    • Participant Video: Choose if you would like the participants' videos on or off when joining the meeting. Even if you choose off, the participants will have the option to start their video. 
    • Audio Options:  choose whether to allow users to call in via Telephone only, Computer Audio only, Telephone and Computer Audio (both), or 3rd Party Audio (if enabled for your account). 
    • Dial in From: If Telephone only is enabled for this meeting, click Edit to select the dial-in countries that you would like included in the invitation. By default, this includes your Global Dial-In Countries listed in My Meeting Settings
    • Require Meeting Passcode: You can select and input your meeting passcode here. Joining participants will be required to input this before joining your scheduled meeting.
    • Enable join before host: Allow participants to join the meeting without you or before you join. The meeting will end after 40-minutes for Basic (free) subscribers.
    • Mute Participants Upon Entry: If join before host is not enabled, this will mute all participants as they join the meeting.
    • Use Personal Meeting ID: Check this if you want to use your Personal Meeting ID. If not selected, a random unique meeting ID will be generated.
    • Enable Waiting Room: Check this if you want to enable Waiting Room for your meeting to manually admit attendees. Learn more about Waiting Room.
    • Record the meeting automatically: Check this if you want the meeting to be automatically recorded. Select if you want it to be recorded locally (to your computer) or to the cloud (zoom.us/recordings). 
    • Alternative Hosts: Enter the email address ([email protected]) of another Zoom user with a Pro license on your account to allow them to start the meeting in your absence. Read more about Alternative Host.

Starting or Joining a Meeting

When it is time for the scheduled meeting, students and instructors can access the Zoom meeting through Sakai. 

  1. In your Sakai course, click the Zoom link.
  2. Next to the scheduled meeting, the instructor can click Start to launch Zoom and begin the meeting.
  3. Next to the scheduled meeting,  students can click Join to launch Zoom and join the meeting.

*Note: an instructor must be listed as a host or alternative host in order to start the meeting. The meeting host can also set the meeting to "join before host" to allow the Zoom meeting to begin before the host arrives.

Quick start: Set up and start a virtual class session in Sakai using Zoom Meetings

Access Meeting Cloud Recordings

Select the Cloud Recordings tab in the Zoom Meetings interface. Your previously recorded course-related Zoom meetings are displayed.

We recommend enabling the Panopto tool in Sakai to allow your recordings to transfer automatically. This provides for easier course video management and an optimal educational video experience for students.

Add the Zoom Meetings tool to your Sakai site.

Not seeing the Zoom tool in your Sakai site yet? You may need to re-add the Zoom meetings tool to your site in order for it to appear in the Tools Menu. Learn how to add a tool in Sakai.

Go to Site Info.

Shows the location of the site info tool.

Choose Manage Tools.

Shows the location of the site info tool in the manage tools option.

Scroll to External Tools and check Zoom Meetings. Select Continue.

Shows manage tools menu and how to check the Zoom meetings tool and select continue,

Upon confirming your selection, the Zoom Meetings tool will be displayed in the tools menu.

Adding a Zoom Room or Zoom Room Cart to Sakai

Zoom Rooms can be added to any meeting created through the Zoom Meetings for Sakai tool. This allows your students benefits such as joining a meeting and accessing meeting recordings directly through Sakai.

Please see the Zoom Room Cart / Sakai Integration article for detailed instructions, and contact your local IT group with specific questions or concerns on using the Zoom Room cart with Sakai.

Add a passcode or waiting room to a meeting

All Zoom meetings (including meetings created through Sakai and Personal Meeting Rooms) require a Passcode or Waiting Room.

If you wish to disable waiting room, you will need to enable passcode for your meeting. If you have a recurring meetings, you can do this once for all upcoming meetings. Be sure to share the updated passcode and invite link with your Sakai site participants using tools like Announcements or Email.

When you are scheduling or editing a Zoom meeting, the options to add Passcode and Waiting Room appear as checkboxes in the "Security" section of your meeting settings.

Learn more at "OIT Help: Zoom Meetings: Passcodes and Waiting Rooms."

Passcode or Waiting Room: Which is best for me?

You may enable passcode for your Zoom meeting to provide some additional security to your class session. It reduces the possibility chance that an uninvited guest can join your meeting by simply guessing the Meeting ID or Personal Meeting ID.

You can also add waiting room to ensure meeting privacy if it isn't too distracting or if you have a co-host who can help monitor and admit users from the waiting room. 

Make sure to remind students to avoid sharing meeting ID, invite link and passcode beyond the classroom. For more information, see "Zoom Meetings: Security and Privacy in Your Meetings."

If an uninvited participant manages to join your meeting, the meeting host and co-hosts have the option to admit or remove them from the Waiting Room. If you prefer to not use this feature, you can instead enable Passcode before the meeting begins in order to disable waiting room during the meeting.

Furthermore, you can share an Invite Link which, by default, includes the passcode "hashed" at the end of the link. Sharing this link (only within the course) allows students to join the meeting and bypass the step to enter the meeting passcode.

Enabling Passcode for a Zoom meeting created in Sakai doesn't significantly alter the user experience, since participants only need to select the Join button to enter the meeting. It's still a good practice to share the Invite URL in case a participant saved the old meeting link elsewhere and typically joins meetings from outside Sakai.

Explanation: Invite link includes a "hashed" passcode by default. Users join the meeting using the invite link. No typing needed.

Personal Meeting ID is disabled

Screenshot of Zoom interface. Personal meeting ID is disabled, and the Start button is disabled.

If the Start button is disabled (gray) and the meeting ID shows as "Personal Meeting ID is disabled," follow these steps to resolve the issue.

  1. Select the Topic of the affected meeting.
  2. Scroll down and choose "Edit this meeting."
  3. Select Save (no need to make changes).

The Start button will be re-enabled for instructors and students. 

Error: "Unauthorized.  Sorry, your session was expired."

When attempting to start or join a Zoom meeting through Sakai, you may see this message: "Unauthorized. Sorry your session was expired.  Please refresh the page or log in again" when trying to start or join a Zoom Meeting. This appears to be a known bug in Zoom's integration with many LMS providers like Sakai and Blackboard.

If you're experiencing this error in Mozilla Firefox, Firefox Enhanced Tracking Protection is causing your session to expire. To resolve the issue, you can disable this feature.

  1. Choose the shield icon in the address bar at the top of the screen
  2. Toggle the slider to the left to disable Enhanced Tracking Protection.

You can find full steps on how to disable this feature for specific sites on Mozilla's support page here.

If you're experiencing this error in Google Chrome, an easy fix is to enable cookies in your browser settings.

  1. Under "Privacy and security," click Site settings. Click Cookies.
  2. At the top right, click More︙> and then Settings.
  3. In the left menu, choose Privacy and Security and then Cookies and other site data.
  4. To enable cookies, Choose the "Allow All Cookies" option.
  5. You can allow cookies only for "duke.zoom.us" and "sakai.duke.edu" by following these directions: Allow or block cookies for a specific site