Manage and Moderate a Meeting
If you will be a host or co-host in a Zoom meeting, please be sure to update your Zoom client to the latest version. Otherwise some features won't be available to you.
Make Moderator/Speaker Co-Host
Once the meeting is running, it is vital to make sure that your moderator and/or presenter is set up as a Co-Host before the meeting officially begins. This allows for the moderator to manage the Zoom meeting and the speaker to share their screen (by default, participants are not allowed to screenshare). To check on the status of the moderator/speaker, click the Manage Participants button to open the participants list.
Waiting Room
If a meeting has been set up with a Waiting Room to control access, host and co-hosts can control entry to the meeting by admitting individual users or all users at once. For individual users, mouse over a user’s name in the Waiting Room and click the Admit button. To admit all users at once, click the Admit all link in the waiting room.
Security Settings
Use the Security button to enable or disable these settings:
Lock Meeting
Enable Waiting Room
Hide Profile Pictures
Allow participants to:
Share Screen (off by default)
Chat
Rename Themselves
Unmute Themselves
Start Video
If the setting has a check to its right, that means the setting is enabled.
In addition, you can also Remove Participant and Suspend Participant Activities from the Security button. Suspend Participant Activities mutes all video and audio, disable chat, stops screen sharing, ends all breakout rooms, and pauses recording. Use this as a last resort as it will also mute, turn off video, and stop screen sharing for host and co-hosts. To deal with individual disruptive participants, continue reading the next section.
Manage Disruptive Participants
Host and co-hosts can remove participants, mute audio, and disable video on individual basis. If you are overwhelmed by the number of disruptive participants, you should use the Suspend Participants Activities option by clicking on the Security button as mentioned above.
Remove Participants
If a participant becomes unruly and needs to be ejected from the room, click the Security button on the control bar, and then click the Remove Participant… option.
Click Remove for any participant(s) that need to be ejected from the meeting.
Mute Audio
It is recommended that by default all meeting rooms have the Mute Participants On Entry setting enabled. This keeps audio interruptions to a minimum when new participants enter the room. If there is a need to mute one participant, mouse over their name and click the Mute button.
If you need to mute all participants at once, click the Mute All button in the Participants list.
After clicking the Mute All button you will be provided with the option to Allow Participants to Unmute Themselves. This is enabled by default. If you want to permanently mute all participants, uncheck the box and click Yes.
Disable Participants Video
To turn off a participant’s video, mouse over their name and click the More button. Click the Stop Video option and the participant’s video will be turned off permanently.
Q&A
The most important role of the moderator in a Zoom meeting is to manage the Question and Answer component of the meeting. It is the responsibility of the moderator to interrupt the presenter(s) to let them know when audience members have questions and/or pertinent comments.
If you don't have a dedicated moderator, build in some pauses during the meeting to allow you time to check whether there are any questions.
There are two primary methods available to meeting participants for asking questions; using the raise hand option in the participant list and by typing questions in the chat window.
Raise Hands
The raise hand feature of Zoom is the preferred, and highly recommended method of asking questions if participants want to verbally ask their questions. To access the raise hand option, participants need to click on the Participants button in the control bar.
This will open the Participants panel showing a list of meeting participants. At the bottom of this panel, participants will find the Raise Hand option. Hosts and co-hosts will not have this option.
When a participant clicks on the Raise Hand option, a small hand will appear next to their name in the participants list.
If there are a large number of participants in the meeting, raised hands will float to the top of the list so the host or co-host can see them immediately. If multiple participants raise their hands at the same time, Zoom will order them in the order in which they were raised.
If you are a moderator, let the host know that there has been a hand raised and a participant wants to ask a question. Verbally let the participant know that they can unmute their microphone and ask their question. It is recommended that after a question has been asked that participants lower their hand by clicking on the Raise Hand icon again. If a participant forgets to lower their hand, the moderator can mouse over their name on the Participant list and click the Lower Hand button.
Chat
If you are the host or co-host, you can enable or disable chat using the security button. When you have chat enabled, you can control who the participants can chat with by clicking on the Chat button to open the chat pane, clicking on the three dots icon, and choosing one of the selections:
No One
Host Only
Everyone Publicly
Everyone Publicly and Directly
If participants don’t want to verbally ask their question, they can type them into the chat panel. To open the Chat pane, participants need to click the Chat button in the control bar.
If you are a moderator, as questions appear in the Chat pane, let the host know that there are questions from chat and read those questions verbally to those in the room.
Breakout Rooms
See the Breakout Rooms page.
Document Management
If there are documents that need to be shared with meeting participants, it is best to distribute them in advance. If documents have not been distributed in advance, you as a moderator can collect these files and share them out to participants as a link in Chat if the files are hosted online somewhere or, if file sharing has been turned on in Chat, you can share them directly from your computer using the File share button in chat.