Zoom: Use registration to secure meetings

Zoom recommends turning on registration for all publicly or widely advertised meetings to help prevent Zoom-bombing. When registration is on, Zoom creates a registration link” that you can publicize instead of the direct meeting linkFor other steps you can take to secure meetings, see Security and Zoom.

Warning: You must use a "registration link" to advertise Zoom events in Bryn Mawr’s Daily Digest, on the College Events page, or through a departmental web page. These posts count as public advertisement since they are visible to the world and to web-crawler bots, even if your target audience is the Bryn Mawr community.

Before you start, you will need: 

  • A BMC Zoom account (or other paid Zoom account)  
  • To log into that account via the web browser or a Moodle Zoom activity. (Meeting registration options aren't visible when scheduling through Outlook or the Zoom desktop and mobile apps.)

Common misconceptions

  • Registration is inconvenient for hosts. Not necessarily! With the default automatic approval setting, Zoom will email links to everyone who registers for you. You don’t have to do anything else.
  • Registration prevents ad hoc or drop-in participation. Not true. Zoom allows people to continue registering after a meeting starts and if automatic approval is on, they should receive a email within a few minutes of signing up.
  • Registration is inconvenient for recurring meetings. Again, not necessarily. By default, a participant registers once and receives a meeting link that works for all meetings in the series. (You can customize registration options so people have to sign up for specific sessions if you prefer.)
  • Registration is so impersonal. Perhaps, but you can customize the registration page and confirmation email to make it less so.
  • Automatically accepting registrations provides no security benefits, so it’s a useless inconvenience. Registration forces participants to give you a working email address to receive a meeting link, which Zoom has found significantly discourages Zoom-bombing. If a Zoom-bombing incident does occurs and you report it to Zoom, the email address can help with identification or sanctions.

Enable registration and get a registration link

  1. Log into the Zoom web portal by going to brynmawr-edu.zoom.us and choosing Sign in with SSO.
  2. Click Meetings, then select a meeting to edit or click + Schedule a Meeting.
  3. For the Registration setting, check the Required box.

  1. If this is a recurring meeting, choose one of the following:
    • Attendees register once and can attend any of the occurrences (default). The registration page and confirmation email will include the dates and times for all sessions. Registrants do not indicate which they will attend. 
    • Attendees need to register for each occurrence to attend. Registrants must choose one session from a list of dates and times; their confirmation email will only include information for that session. (Note: they could still register multiple times to sign up for multiple sessions).
    • Attendees register once and can choose one or more occurrences to attend. Registrants must choose one or more sessions from a list of dates and times; the confirmation email will include information for all sessions they choose.
  2. Scroll to the bottom of the meeting settings and click Save.
  3. The Details tab for your meeting will now list a Registration Link in place of the direct meeting link. Copy and share this link on websites, in the Daily Digest, and on social media to enable people to sign up to receive an email with the meeting link.


Registration options

By default, the registration form asks for and first name, last name and email address and all registrations are auto-approved

To change these defaults:

  1. Log into the Zoom web portal by going to brynmawr-edu.zoom.us and choosing Sign in with SSO.
  2. Click Meetings, then click a meeting topic to open it.
  3. Click the Registration tab. 
  4. In the Registration Options section of that tab, click Edit.
  5. Customize your options as needed:
    • Change the approval setting to Manually Approve if you want to approve each registration before a confirmation email with a meeting link is sent.
    • Check Send email to host if you want to receive an email when someone registers.
    • Check Close registration after meeting date to prevent people from signing up after the meeting has ended.
    • If you are expecting a very large audience, you may want to uncheck Allow attendees to join from multiple devices. Each device that joins a meeting counts toward the cap of 300 participants; restricting registrants to a single device enables more people to participate, but might make it harder for some registrants to experience full audio and video.) 
    • Uncheck the Show social share buttons on the registration page to hide the buttons inviting participants to share the registration link on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or email (an all-or-nothing choice, you can’t selectively hide buttons).
  6. Click the Questions to add pre-configured fields like “Phone number” and/or Custom Questions to your registration form.
  7. Click Save All.
  8. Click the Branding  tab to add an image or logo to the registration page, invitation page, and confirmation email. 
  9. Click Email Settings to view and edit the contact name and text in the confirmation email.

View and manage registrations

You can view the registration list, cancel registrations, and resend a confirmation emails at any time. If you have chosen to manually approve registrations, you will also need to do this to ensure participants get the confirmation email with the link they need to join your meeting.  

  1. Log into the Zoom web portal by going to brynmawr-edu.zoom.us and choosing Sign in with SSO.
  2. Click Meetings, find your meeting and click the topic to open it.
  3. Click on the Registration tab.
  4. Click View to the right end of Manage Participants line.
  5. Check off names, then click the appropriate button to Approve/Cancel Registration or Resend Confirmation Emails for the checked individuals.

Export registration information

Zoom keeps registration data including names, email address, approval status, registration date and any data collected by registration form for 30 days following the end of a meeting.

To download this data:

  1. Log into the Zoom web portal by going to brynmawr-edu.zoom.us and choosing Sign in with SSO.
  2. In the left sidebar, click Reports.
  3. On the Usage Reports tab, click Meeting. 
  4. Set the date range to include the meeting, choose Registration Report, and click Search (or click Advanced Search to search by a particular meeting ID). 
  5. Find the meeting you want and click its Generate button.
  6. Choose whether you want to see data for All, Approved, or Denied Registrants and click Continue
  7. Click the Report Queue tab to access and download your report once it’s available.

Reports will be in .CSV format, which you should be able to open in any spreadsheet program. 

Questions?

If you have any additional questions or problems, don't hesitate to reach out to the Help Desk!

Phone: 610-526-7440 | Library and Help Desk hours
Email: help@brynmawr.eduService catalog
Location: Canaday Library 1st floor