eClass Zoom: Allowing guest lecturers (non-PPY)

How to disable the forced PPY authentication for your eClass created Zoom meetings

This article will go over the steps needed for individuals who create meetings where a guest speaker or attendee would need to participate in the meeting without a Passport York (PPY) account.

When to use this option

First off: If the individual(s) who you want to attend your meeting have a PPY account, we strongly encourage you to simply forward the meeting information to them by sharing the links; or by inviting them via the Participants field (if the meeting is already open). As a reminder, all Zoom accounts that hold the York license benefit from the features offered for that license.

Generally, we expect those who do need to invite non-PPY guests in to their meeting(s) are doing so because the individual(s) are not a part of York University, and cannot get into the meeting(s) any other way. As a way to safeguard against any potential Zoom bombings, we recommend that you do not use this practice as a default setting for all of your Zoom meetings.

How to accommodate non-PPY guests lecturers

If you are using the eClass system, the good news is that you can still create all of your Zoom meetings through eClass, but you will have to go to your Meeting Settings in your Zoom account afterwards. The eClass Zoom plugin will force the meeting to be created as a PPY authentication only meeting. Going to your Zoom account dashboard will allow you to modify the meeting's authentication rule to open it up to non-PPY accounts. If you choose this method, you will do the following:

1. Once you have finished creating the meeting in eClass, go to: https://yorku.zoom.us/signin and follow through the prompts until you end up on your account's My Meetings page. Your newly created meeting should be listed here.
2. Hover over the meeting and click on the Edit button.
3. Scroll to the Meeting Options section and look for Require authentication to join. Below that you will see that the eClass plugin has forced the Passport York option.
4. Click the drop-menu where it says Passport York, and change it to Any Zoom Account.
5. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the Save button to commit the change.
6. On the next page, you should copy the invitation by clicking the Copy invitation option. A window will appear, with a red button titled Copy Meeting Information. Clicking on that button will save it to your computer's clipboard. From there, you can share it by pasting the invitation into your email or social media/messaging software.

Once the change has been committed, your guest attendee can log in to the scheduled meeting. As a reminder, they do not have the capability to get the link automatically from your eClass meeting. You will need to share the link with them by following step six (above). If you find yourself back on the My Meetings page: To get the link, go back in to the meeting by editing it (see steps one and two, above). Scroll to the bottom and click the Save button. The next page will allow you to follow step six (above) to secure a copy of the link.

Considerations

By opening up your meeting to anyone with a Zoom account, you now have the possibility that your meeting could become the subject of a Zoom bombing incident. To mitigate the issue from happening, we do recommend that if your attendee list is small enough, to enable the Waiting Room function so users are vetted and admitted by you prior to entry. You can configure the waiting room function by editing the meeting, and clicking on the Waiting Room option in the Security section. The Waiting Room function is a more powerful ally in combatting potential in-meeting harassment, as direct vetting of attendees will ensure that those who attend are authorized. Whereas anyone who attends a meeting where a waiting room is not implemented, can share the password with an individual (or individuals) who can then gain access to the meeting with nefarious intent.