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Schedule a meeting or create an instant meeting

Note! By default, we no longer require authentication with Diak credentials in order to join Zoom meetings.

Creating your own meetings however requires a Zoom account. You can do that either with your Diak credentials with the help of the previous guides, or your own personal Zoom account.

Scheduling guide

Student Zoom licenses (Basic) differ from staff licenses (Licensed) in a few ways:

  • Meeting durations are max. 40 minutes when there are more than two participants. This means meetings will automatically end for everyone at the 40-minute mark, but they can be started again instantly.
  • Polls, surveys, registration for meetings, and changing your Personal Meeting ID are not available.
  • You can only set co-hosts and hosts during a meeting, and not beforehand from the meeting options.
  • Only one meeting created by you can be started concurrently, compared to two for staff (although you can create unlimited meetings).
  • A maximum of 100 participants can join your meetings, compared to 300 for staff by default.

Schedule a meeting

To schedule a new meeting, go to your Zoom account at diak-fi.zoom.us, and click "Schedule a meeting" on the upper menu.

You'll be taken to the meeting settings menu as below, see instructions below the image.

Write down (1) the event's topic and description that you wish to show to the participants. For one-off events, (2) select the day and starting time and set up a meeting duration.

If you are using the AM/PM hour format on the Zoom web portal, select 12:00 PM to book a meeting at noon. To book a meeting starting at midnight, select 12:00 AM. You can also switch to the 24-hour format at diak-fi.zoom.us/profile > Time Format > Edit, select Use 24-hour time and press "Save".

(3) This notification hints that it may be possible to upgrade your license type. However, this is unfortunately not possible in our environment.

(4) Recurring meeting: Select the recurring meeting option if this meeting is a regular booking and set up the regularity of the meeting. A recurring meeting can always be joined from the same link. Select Recurring meeting > Recurrence: "No Fixed Time" to create a meeting room that can be reused without preset starting and ending times.

(5) Meeting ID and Passcode: Select whether you want to generate a new Meeting ID, for increased security, or use your personal Meeting ID. You can change the passcode into something easier to remember (e.g., ourcourse, YHT876, etc.). The passcode can be max. 10-digit long. Participants who have the invite link usually do not need to enter the passcode when joining a meeting, but some devices like mobile phones or iPads might require it.

(6) Waiting room: If you enable the waiting room, the host or a co-host will have to let participants in. When the participants click the invite link to join the meeting, they will receive a message to wait. The host in the meeting will receive a message to let the participant in, which includes the participant's name. This feature gives the host more control over who can attend the meeting.

(7) Video: The participants and host join the meeting with the cameras switched off by default, but this can be edited.

(8) Meeting options: From "Allow participants to join ... before start time", you can adjust how early the participants can join a session by selecting 5 min, 10 min, 15 min or anytime before the scheduled start. Participants can join the meeting even if the host is not present yet. This option does not work if you have "Waiting room" enabled. Select "Mute participants upon entry" to turn the participants' microphones off by default in the beginning of a meeting.

After defining your meeting details, press the (9) Save button.

On the following page, you will find the Invite link that you can send to the meeting attendees. You can click Copy Invitation to copy all the information necessary to join the meeting, and paste it to a message for the participants, or send only the Meeting ID, passcode and invite link.

In the Zoom app, you can schedule a meeting by pressing the schedule button at the "Home" tab.

Note that some scheduling features are only available when booking through diak-fi.zoom.us.

Create an instant meeting

Video tutorial (40 s) here

In the Zoom app, create an instant meeting simply by clicking the "New meeting" button in the "Home" tab

You can also create an instant meeting from your profile at diak-fi.zoom.us, by clicking the “Host a meeting” option at the upper right corner. Select “Screen Share Only” to start a meeting sharing your screen, with the camera turned off. Choose “With Video On” to start a meeting sharing your own camera or “With Video Off” if you want your video off in the beginning. You can also start a screen share, and open or close your camera later during the meeting.

Note that if you start a "Screen Share Only" meeting, it will end as soon as you stop sharing your screen, instead of waiting for you to click the separate "End" button.

When you start a meeting this way, or if you join a meeting via link, your browser will always show a pop-up to ask you for permission to open the Zoom app. You can check the "Always allow" option in the pop-up to make life easier.

When the meeting room is open, you can invite participants by clicking the arrow next to the participants icon in the lower menu, or by pressing ALT + i .

From the Invite window, click the “Copy invite link” button and then paste it to the people who should join the meeting. The function “Copy Invitation” will copy the invite link AND the meeting ID and password.

Note that selecting someone from the Contacts list and clicking the Invite button at the bottom right is instant and works only if that person has the Zoom desktop or mobile app currently active on a device.

Personal Meeting ID

Zoom meetings have a meeting ID. Meeting IDs are 10- or 11-digit long codes that are associated with a meeting. When scheduling a new event, you have the option to use an automatically generated meeting ID or your own Personal Meeting ID (PMI). Your PMI works like a permanent personal room on Zoom. We recommend students not use the PMI, as with a Basic license it cannot be changed in case something bad happens, in terms of abuse etc.