Set Up a Zoom Meeting That AAD IT Will Support

If AAD IT or the AV team will be in the room running your Zoom, let IT create the link. Email aadithelp@vt.edu or open a ticket with the date, time, room, who is speaking, and who should own the calendar entry. We send you the link and hold the controls. That is the whole procedure for dean’s-office events, auditorium events, and anything with outside guests.

Creating the link yourself and want IT’s help on the day? Set these five options when you schedule at virginiatech.zoom.us. Once the meeting starts, IT cannot change any of them unless you have already handed IT the host role.

1. Add the IT person as an alternative host

Alternative host is the only role Zoom lets you assign ahead of time: “You can’t assign a co-host ahead of time. The host has to promote a participant to a co-host during the meeting” (Enabling and adding a co-host). An alternative host “can start the meeting on the host’s behalf” (Designating an alternative host).

On the schedule form, open Options, find Alternative Hosts, and enter the IT person’s VT email. Per 4Help, “Alternative hosts must have a licensed account with Virginia Tech and be logged in to start the meeting” (Having Others Schedule or Start your Zoom Meetings). If Zoom rejects the name as “not licensed,” ask the person to sign in at virginiatech.zoom.us once, then add them again.

2. Turn Waiting Room off and keep the passcode on

Under Security, check Passcode and uncheck Waiting Room. Keep the passcode because a Zoom rule can quietly undo your change: “If no security option is enabled, Zoom will automatically secure all meetings with Waiting Room” (Requiring meetings to have one security option). A waiting room with nobody watching it is how attendees end up stuck outside your meeting.

Making IT a co-host after the meeting starts is not a substitute. Zoom’s list of what a co-host cannot do includes “Start waiting room” and “Make another participant a co-host.”

3. Allow participants to join anytime

Under Options, check Allow participants to join anytime so the room and IT can connect before you arrive. Step 2 matters here too: “If Waiting Room is enabled in your meeting settings, join before host will not work for your meetings, unless you have waiting room set to allow certain users to bypass” (Allowing participants to join before host).

4. Do not require authentication if outside guests are coming

Leave Require authentication to join unchecked when anyone from outside Virginia Tech will attend. With it on, “If a participant does not have a Zoom account, they will not be able to join the meeting or webinar” (Allowing only authenticated users in meetings).

5. Send IT the link and your host key

Reply to your ticket with the join link and your host key, which Zoom describes as “a 6-digit PIN used to claim host controls a meeting” (Using your host key). It lets IT take over if everything else fails. To find it, sign in at virginiatech.zoom.us, click Profile, scroll to Meeting, and use the eye icon next to Host Key.

If the same person helps you regularly

Give them scheduling privilege once instead of repeating step 1. Per 4Help, this lets another VT user “Manage and act as an alternative host for all your meetings.” It lives under “Settings, then on Meeting, then Other,” in the Schedule Privilege section.

On the day

• If you are the host, stay in the meeting on a device with a keyboard, or hand the host role to IT: open Participants, choose the IT person, and pick Make host. Zoom’s participant management guide: “Make host (only available to the host): Assign this participant to be the host.”
• Join from one device only, so there is no question which screen is running the room.

Who to contact

• Creating the link or event-day support: contact AAD IT or email aadithelp@vt.edu.
• Zoom sign-in or license problems: 4Help at 4help.vt.edu or 540-231-4357.