Zoom Concurrent Meetings

Has anyone figured out to host two concurrent meetings with the "Church" Zoom account?

I've looked at Zoom's (lack of) documentation, searched Google, YouTube, etc. and can't find clear, simple instructions for how to host two concurrent meetings.

Thank you!

I imagine you would either assign an alternative host prior to one meeting, or start the meeting, assign a co-host, and then leave for the other meeting.

Pure guesswork here, but can you schedule two meetings and assign co-hosts?

Well, the alternative host idea won't work, because that person must be a licensed user on the same account.

When scheduling a meeting, the host can designate another Licensed user on the same account to be the alternative host. The alternative host can start the meeting on the host's behalf. This user will receive an email notifying them that they've been added as an alternative host, with a link to start the meeting.

As the host, you can assign the host controls to another user and leave the meeting. This allows the meeting to continue without you, and the assigned user to have host control over the meeting.

If the original host is a Licensed user, the meeting will continue to run for an unlimited time, even if the new host is a free or basic user.
Sign in to the Zoom Desktop Client.
Start a meeting as the host.
In the host controls, click End.
Click Leave Meeting.
Assign someone to be the new host, then click Assign and Leave.

t0008sa wrote:Has anyone figured out to host two concurrent meetings with the "Church" Zoom account?

You have a few options:

• As mentioned, you can transfer host privilege to another participant, even if they are not a licensed user. The original host can then leave the meeting. You cannot pre-assign an alternate host, unless they are on a paid account.
• The Church contract permits the login credentials to be shared among leaders, so 2 people can log in to 2 different meetings using the same host credentials.
• You can configure a meeting without enabling the waiting room. Enable, "Allow participants to join before host". The meeting can then proceed without a host. Participants can still share screens, if you have enabled that in the account settings, but they cannot perform host functions such as managing breakout rooms, initiating polls, renaming participants, removing someone from the meeting, etc. For many basic leadership meetings, this works just fine.

swigginton wrote: As the host, you can assign the host controls to another user and leave the meeting. This allows the meeting to continue without you, and the assigned user to have host control over the meeting.

If the original host is a Licensed user, the meeting will continue to run for an unlimited time, even if the new host is a free or basic user.
Sign in to the Zoom Desktop Client.
Start a meeting as the host.
In the host controls, click End.
Click Leave Meeting.

drepouille wrote: Assign someone to be the new host, then click Assign and Leave.

• As mentioned, you can transfer host privilege to another participant, even if they are not a licensed user. The original host can then leave the meeting. You cannot pre-assign an alternate host, unless they are on a paid account.
• The Church contract permits the login credentials to be shared among leaders, so 2 people can log in to 2 different meetings using the same host credentials.
• You can configure a meeting without enabling the waiting room. Enable, "Allow participants to join before host". The meeting can then proceed without a host. Participants can still share screens, if you have enabled that in the account settings, but they cannot perform host functions such as managing breakout rooms, initiating polls, renaming participants, removing someone from the meeting, etc. For many basic leadership meetings, this works just fine.

This is great info.

From other sources, it seems that only one meeting can be started from the Desktop Client, and a second one has to be started from the Web -- correct?

Thanks again!

t0008sa wrote:From other sources, it seems that only one meeting can be started from the Desktop Client, and a second one has to be started from the Web -- correct?

That's only true if you are trying to start both meetings from the same device. You would start one from the client and one from the web. However, you cannot share a camera between both instances. You would need 2 cameras and 2 microphones on that device and managing both meetings would be a challenge. Much better to use 2 different devices. You can use the app on both devices. You can also host from a phone or tablet.

swigginton wrote:

t0008sa wrote:From other sources, it seems that only one meeting can be started from the Desktop Client, and a second one has to be started from the Web -- correct?

That's only true if you are trying to start both meetings from the same device. You would start one from the client and one from the web. However, you cannot share a camera between both instances. You would need 2 cameras and 2 microphones on that device and managing both meetings would be a challenge. Much better to use 2 different devices. You can use the app on both devices. You can also host from a phone or tablet.

Perfect -- thank you!!!

That sounds fine, but if you are going to go through all that trouble, then you could just use a single meeting with breakout rooms. I think that is what we will do. Our Sacrament Zoom meeting will morph into Relief Society for the second hour, and I plan to create a breakout room for elders quorum, so the sisters can stay in the main meeting, while the brethren simply shift into their breakout room. They won't have to leave one meeting and join a second meeting.

drepouille wrote:That sounds fine, but if you are going to go through all that trouble, then you could just use a single meeting with breakout rooms. I think that is what we will do. Our Sacrament Zoom meeting will morph into Relief Society for the second hour, and I plan to create a breakout room for elders quorum, so the sisters can stay in the main meeting, while the brethren simply shift into their breakout room. They won't have to leave one meeting and join a second meeting.

That's another option — Won't that require some amount of work to move people to the breakout rooms or to pre-assign them?

drepouille wrote:That sounds fine, but if you are going to go through all that trouble, then you could just use a single meeting with breakout rooms. I think that is what we will do. Our Sacrament Zoom meeting will morph into Relief Society for the second hour, and I plan to create a breakout room for elders quorum, so the sisters can stay in the main meeting, while the brethren simply shift into their breakout room. They won't have to leave one meeting and join a second meeting.

That would work, but keep in mind that they need multiple devices and sufficient internet bandwidth if multiple household members are participating in different breakout rooms at the same time.

Then what is the purpose of a "HOST CODE"? If you have the code can you provide the link and the host code to a member to run the meeting?

kjheinz wrote:Then what is the purpose of a "HOST CODE"? If you have the code can you provide the link and the host code to a member to run the meeting?

The host code is linked to the user profile, not to the meeting, so I haven't found any real value for it. It seems like it's intended for use with Zoom hardware. I supposed you could change the host code on a regular basis and provide it to someone to take host responsibilities for a specific meeting without giving them the credentials. Wouldn't be much use for recurring meetings since the code would apply to all meetings across that span of time. I'm interested in hearing if someone has figured out a good way to use it. Seems easier to provide the credentials to those needing host functionality.

I created a post here that addresses these issues and how we are going to deal with it starting next week. I have a laptop and a Chromebook and will simply use one for the adult meetings and the other for the youth meetings. Once people are in their breakout classrooms I don't really need to keep an eye on the "lobby" of each meeting, so I'll go to my own classroom and just keep an eye out on the Chromebook in case something needs my attention. It shouldn't be too hard.

At the branch where I serve we are able to have up to 100 people in attendance in person, yet we where lucky to have seen even 75 before Covid, and only 35 +/- now during Covid. We do have a good number of households staying home by their own choice. Also, we are not to hold a second hour in person as per our stake in consultation with our area general authority. While we are the only unit to use our building we are in a farming community, spread out over a 45 minute drive in a couple directions.

The problem I have with televising a sacrament service as a meeting is it opens to doors for those watching/listening at home to disrupt things - a newborn infant does not know not to cry, or a dog not to chase the cat. Because of this I think the webinar option is the better choice for the Sunday service. Once everyone gets home, and has had a chance to attend to children and/or chores then we hold our second hour, over a couple hours time.

Right now I am looking to have Primary in one meeting, then the youth in a second that can use the break-out feature in the other meeting, starting in the early afternoon. Then about a hour later the adults will have either Sunday School or EQ and RS meetings. We have some older households that only have one computer for both the husband and wife, so that is still going to pose some problems for holding separate meetings at the same time.

I have much to learn about starting, co-hosting, and break-out rooms, for meetings. While being able to have two concurrent meetings going at the same time is nice, the limit of one licensee per local account does limit on what can be done, by who, and how.

My biggest question - will it let me schedule two meetings to start at the same time?

awev wrote:My biggest question - will it let me schedule two meetings to start at the same time?

Yes. The license enforcement is not based on the schedule. Zoom's calendar doesn't care about conflicting meetings. You can schedule as many overlapping meetings as you like, but only 2 can be live at the same time on the Church license. You can even start them earlier or later than scheduled, if you want.

I was trying to test concurrent meetings. I signed into a first device using the account and starting a meeting. Then, I tried to sign in on a second device using the same credentials. When I did, it signed me out on the first device because of the second sign in. I don't see how two meeting hosts can sign in using the same credentials and run concurrent meetings.

Start the first meeting, select another person (perhaps your personal Zoom account) as the new host, and then leave the meeting. Then you will be free to start the second meeting. I did that last night at our virtual ward party. I selected my wife as the new host, and then left the meeting.

sln29 wrote:I was trying to test concurrent meetings. I signed into a first device using the account and starting a meeting. Then, I tried to sign in on a second device using the same credentials. When I did, it signed me out on the first device because of the second sign in. I don't see how two meeting hosts can sign in using the same credentials and run concurrent meetings.

I just tried it and was able to start 2 webinars or 2 meetings using 2 different devices and using the same credentials on 2 different Windows PCs using the desktop app. Didn't need to assign a different host. However, if I started a webinar and a meeting, it would not let me do both. That appears to be a problem with Zoom. I'll report it and see what they say.

swigginton wrote:However, if I started a webinar and a meeting, it would not let me do both. That appears to be a problem with Zoom. I'll report it and see what they say.

How is that an issue for church use? I would expect the webinar to only be used for something like sacrament when there would be no other meetings.

russellhltn wrote:

swigginton wrote:However, if I started a webinar and a meeting, it would not let me do both. That appears to be a problem with Zoom. I'll report it and see what they say.

How is that an issue for church use? I would expect the webinar to only be used for something like sacrament when there would be no other meetings.

As an example, we have a youth devotional (webinar) and another meeting scheduled for Sunday evening at 7PM. We had to move the meeting to another account. I got a response from Zoom confirming that this is a known issue, with an indication they are working on it, but no information about when it will be resolved. It's a known issue with all enterprise accounts. As you mention, it will be rare to have a meeting and webinar at the same time. Just bad timing for us this Sunday and very fortunate that I caught it today.

swigginton wrote:As an example, we have a youth devotional (webinar) and another meeting scheduled for Sunday evening at 7PM.

I can think of times BC where that's happened at the Stake level for some Sundays. Getting those kinds of conflicts certainly feels like getting back to the old normal.

russellhltn wrote:I can think of times BC where that's happened at the Stake level for some Sundays. Getting those kinds of conflicts certainly feels like getting back to the old normal.

That would be nice. It's just a coincidence this time, even though we're trying to make things as "normal" as possible. We're in California and have only had 3 (limited attendance) in-person sacrament meetings since March.

You can schedule multiple meetings at the same time, they each get their own unique meeting ID number, just hand off each meeting ID to alternate meeting leaders.

coreyjames wrote:You can schedule multiple meetings at the same time, they each get their own unique meeting ID number, just hand off each meeting ID to alternate meeting leaders.

I'd test that before trying. Apparently you can schedule, but trying the third concurrent meeting is likely to fail unless you can pass a meeting on to a different licensee.

I did an experiment a week ago and was able to start two concurrent meetings, but this morning it kicked off the first meeting when the second meeting started. Why is it no longer working? Bummer, I spent a lot of time re-doing all our Zoom links to use this shared account. It's not effective if we can't have parallel meetings. Looks like we might have to keep paying for licenses.

justinp wrote:It's not effective if we can't have parallel meetings.

You should be able to have two concurrent meetings.

Ok, we got it working today but it's quirky. Twice this morning, we had meetings get ended prematurely. Recommending to all instructors they login ten minutes prior to get through quirks like kick-outs, and then don't touch anything until meeting is over. Would be interested in anyone's lessons learned.

On Sunday, we were able to run three concurrent meetings but in a dry run today, we couldn't get it to work. We need consistent performance. Is the limit truly two, or is it three on Sundays?

justinp wrote:On Sunday, we were able to run three concurrent meetings but in a dry run today, we couldn't get it to work. We need consistent performance. Is the limit truly two, or is it three on Sundays?

Are you sure one wasn't a breakout room or somehow running under a different license?

The official communication says the limit is two. I don't know how good Zoom is in enforcing their limits. You might have gotten away with something, but I wouldn't count on being able to do that every week.

I tried to start 2 concurrent meetings. After starting the first one, it forced me to leave it before I could start the second one. I'm using the right login and should have this feature available, but it behaves as though I'm not a licensed user. Do you have to pass host over to someone in the first meeting before you can start the 2nd? Seems cumbersome.

I don't think you can be in two meetings at the same time on the same device.

kentduke wrote:Do you have to pass host over to someone in the first meeting before you can start the 2nd?

Yes. That's the correct procedure to start two concurrent meetings.

We have two different use-cases in our ward for the second hour. On Sunday School week we want our adults to be assigned to our three Gospel Doctrine rooms in a round-robin fashion so that all teachers receive an equal number of students. So that meeting URL is set up that people get to the main room and have to wait to be assigned to a class. I start that meeting on my laptop computer and I put in earphones so I can hear and speak. I keep that mike on mute. I then have the luxury of a Google Chromebook and I set it up on a cart next to my desk and set the youth classes up so that the kids can join their own room without supervision. The Zoom client on the Chromebook is not at all friendly for assigning co-hosts (necessary if the teachers are going to share content), so I close the client when it launches and then use the link to open the session in the browser. I then create rooms for Course 11 through 18 and rename them as appropriate. Now as the youth show up they can see where their class is and join on their own while I pay attention to my laptop and the arriving adults.

So one of me, two full screens, and a very busy 10 minutes going into the meetings and then everyone is settled and I can join one of the adult classes and enjoy the lesson. We've had two weeks so far and there are still bugs to be ironed out, but it is getting easier for me. The important thing to remember is that you can either let everyone share screens in your settings so you don't need to worry about co-hosts, or you can keep a sharp eye out as the teachers show up and give them the co-host privilege before they go into their room (which is easier than joining the room to do it). I encourage teachers to show up 10 minutes early so they can be the first ones in the room and I can pay more attention to them.

Oh, and I set up the meetings to repeat every week and on the 2nd and 4th Sundays I create Priesthood and Relief Society rooms for adults and allow them to self-select, and then Deacons, Teachers, Priests, Beehives, Mia Maids, and Laurels in the youth URL and let them self-select. Now I just have to watch for instructors to make them co-hosts. It goes much faster.

The only trick is those who don't have Zoom 5.3.0 or later are not able to join on their own and I have to help a few people.

As a small branch the non-adults are still conducting their own Zoom meetings from their own personal accounts. Last week was the first time we tried the two concurrent Zoom meetings for RS and EQ. The biggest concern was that if the EQ and RS presidents both had the log-in credentials then one of them would of been booted out as the second president singed in. The problem that we had was that people did not use the most recent links from the most recent emails, seems as if they had flagged/highlighted prior emails with the links for the prior meetings. It was interesting in me having to jump from one meeting to another and back again to try and troubleshoot, and also make the presidents hosts.

We face a couple problems in our branch. First, we are in a rural area, and the DSL based internet can be spotty at best, and not consistent across the county. At my residents I have 10 Mbps down/800 Kbps up at best, while at the church it is about double that, and we are the lucky ones, others are not able to get internet service at their residents at all. I have a non-member in my household that will go to another room to watch something on Netflix or Amazon Prime as over-the-air TV reception is awful, so that cuts into the bandwidth, and I am sure other people have similar situations. And like the DSL and over-the-air TV programing the cell phone service can be erratic as well, so those smart phones might work if you find the correct area, just don't face the wrong way.

The younger our member the more likely they are to have their own smart phone and tablet, and the youngest will have a tablet only. The older a person is the more likely they are to have a single computer just to email the grandchildren at the most, don't expect them to understand Zoom and how to use it without someone being at their side to help guide them the first couple times. About 11% of the households do not have a phone number or email address listed with their membership records - that is they are lacking both individual and household phone and email addresses, while only about 50% do have an listed for either an individual or the household. And how do we get the phone-in information to those without a computer or internet connection - we can't just email it to them.

Right now we are looking at a couple different things. First, have EQ start about a half hour earlier than RS, in the hopes that they will finish up first. Even if the EQ does not finish up first the wife can tell the husband to end the session as she has RS to attend to, using that computer (yes, the older folks in our branch). Next, we are enlisting the help of the missionaries to track down and verify some members along with their addresses, and have the missionaries inform the members they meet about the phone-in and on-line meetings. Third, we send out email reminders to our members that do have an email account each Sunday morning so they have the latest link on the top of the stack. Next I use the branch calendar to help post the links to the meetings. We have a monthly newsletter where we will include the information for joining the meetings by phone or electronic device for that month.

The challenges, and the solutions, are proving to be interesting. That ancient Chinese curse comes to mind - "May you live in interesting times".

We were hit twice by this limitation yesterday. Two of our wards had ward council Zoom meetings happening just prior to sacrament meetings. The sacrament meeting hosts needed to start the sacrament meeting webinar and get it set up. That required stopping the ward council meetings. We're having the ward move their meetings earlier so they finish at least 30 minutes prior to sacrament meeting. Zoom support is aware of the inability to concurrently have a webinar and meeting. Didn't expect it to be a problem, Would be nice if they could resolve that one.

You can also use the Host Key for this purpose. Go to your settings at Zoom.us and change "Allow participants to join before host" to 15 minutes before the meeting. Then schedule a meeting and make sure that that box is check in the scheduling options. On your Profile page at Zoom.us you can find your 6-digit host key (it is hidden under ******) click "show" to view it. You can also change it anytime there isn't a live meeting running as well. Provide the host key to the person who will run the meeting and they can join 15 minutes ahead of time and claim host. On Windows Zoom app, click on "participants" and then "Claim host". On Android (and I believe iphone/ipad) click "More" the "Claim Host Role". Just make sure to tell the person you share with it that it is not be shared with others.

If this has been answered, sorry for re-asking. Regarding the Hosts for concurrent meetings, I'm not sure if the two separate "concurrent meeting hosts" can both be using the same "Unit Zoom Account Login". I know I can be logged onto the same Zoom meeting multiple times as the same account owner.

I guess for example, if the EQ and RS both wanted to have concurrent meetings, could they both log into the Zoom account using the unit login, and then have one of them be assigned the host of one meeting while the other starts the second (concurrent) meeting? In this scenario, who actually has control if both are logged in via the unit account, the person who logs in first?

We're considering if we want to let our leaders work things out amongst themselves, at this point I don't think we are able to have a single member who would act as "Tech Specialist" who would always be the gatekeeper for all such scenarios.

Note: I think this is ok to ask in this thread, but if this is better served as a new conversation, I can ask it separately

BrianEdwards wrote:I guess for example, if the EQ and RS both wanted to have concurrent meetings, could they both log into the Zoom account using the unit login, and then have one of them be assigned the host of one meeting while the other starts the second (concurrent) meeting? In this scenario, who actually has control if both are logged in via the unit account, the person who logs in first?

I'm not sure of the answer. If you don't get an answer here, you can get with a trusted friend with their device and give it a try.

But I'd suggest looking over this thread about how to do this with the Host Key. Someone would create and meetings. The EQ and RS leaders would both have host keys, so when they join the meeting, they can assume host duties of their respective meetings without have to use the ward login. There's more details, but that's the high-level overview.

BrianEdwards wrote:If this has been answered, sorry for re-asking. Regarding the Hosts for concurrent meetings, I'm not sure if the two separate "concurrent meeting hosts" can both be using the same "Unit Zoom Account Login". I know I can be logged onto the same Zoom meeting multiple times as the same account owner.

I guess for example, if the EQ and RS both wanted to have concurrent meetings, could they both log into the Zoom account using the unit login, and then have one of them be assigned the host of one meeting while the other starts the second (concurrent) meeting? In this scenario, who actually has control if both are logged in via the unit account, the person who logs in first?

We're considering if we want to let our leaders work things out amongst themselves, at this point I don't think we are able to have a single member who would act as "Tech Specialist" who would always be the gatekeeper for all such scenarios.

Note: I think this is ok to ask in this thread, but if this is better served as a new conversation, I can ask it separately

I actually do this every week. We have one meeting number for the adults (whether it is Gospel Doctrine on weeks 1 & 3 or Priesthood/RS on weeks 2 & 4), and then we have another meeting number for your youth meetings on those same weeks. I use a laptop computer to log into one meeting and a Chromebook to log into the other meeting for the youth. I watch over things as people show up and make sure they are in the correct breakout rooms. This is identical to what you are asking except I'm doing it all (not recommended). You could have one person log in to Elders and another person elsewhere in the Ward log in to Relief Society. That would be your two meeting IDs.

Question, are the youth meeting at the same time? How do you address their classes? Are the teachers just using free Zoom accounts on their own rather than going through the unit account?

BrianEdwards wrote:In this scenario, who actually has control if both are logged in via the unit account, the person who logs in first?

In my experience, both can use the account, but the person who signed in last is the one controlling the account. If A signs in, then B, B is controlling the account. Although A can sign in again and will control the account once more.

We try to avoid these situations with kindness and a lot of planning.

It is as lajackson mentioned just above this. Following sacrament service a couple weeks ago the EQ president and I both tried logging in, one right after the other. The first one received a waring that they where logging in from another device, and that they where no longer logged in as the local unit.

That afternoon I logged in, started one meeting, and passed control to one of the presidents (in this case the RS president), made them host, then left that session. I started the EQ session, and made the president host when he logged in. I received a couple reports that some sisters where having problems joining their session, I think it all came down to trying to use an old link that was posted on Facebook when people where using their own personal accounts to host the meetings. I ended up staying in the RS meeting to help monitor it, and make sure that there was no-one being turned away. I don't know how many brothers attended the EQ meeting, yet no reports from them about the troubles.

This week we will have the EQ starting about a half hour early, some older couples have only one computer that they both share, so we hope to conclude the EQ meeting before the sisters join the RS meeting.

BrianEdwards wrote:I guess for example, if the EQ and RS both wanted to have concurrent meetings, could they both log into the Zoom account using the unit login, and then have one of them be assigned the host of one meeting while the other starts the second (concurrent) meeting? In this scenario, who actually has control if both are logged in via the unit account, the person who logs in first?

It might be helpful to note the distinction between being logged into the app and joining a meeting logged in. You can launch and sign into the app or the web page without joining a meeting. From there you can see the upcoming scheduled meetings and choose which one to start, at which point it also joins you into that meeting. As long as your scheduled meetings have different meeting IDs (don't use the personal meeting ID for both or they are effectively the same meeting, my recommendation is to avoid using the personal meeting ID for most of of your meetings), then both meetings can be started at the same time by different individuals logged into the app or web page. Alternatively, someone can use the url/link to join the meeting (again, different meeting IDs for each meeting) and sign in with the unit account, effectively starting the meeting. If the RS President used a different url/link to join than the EQ President, then they won't be in the same meeting, there's no conflict of who has control, they are in different meetings.

The other option that has also been mentioned and works quite well for me, is to share the Host Key of your unit zoom account with select individuals, and then check the box to allow participants to join anytime when scheduling your meetings. When this is checked, an EQ or RS president, for example, can join their meeting as themselves (not using the unit account) before the host/unit account has joined (potentially the unit account never does join), and can then use the claim host option, enter the Host Key and become the host, without having to even use the unit account credentials.

The other option that has also been mentioned and works quite well for me, is to share the Host Key of your unit zoom account with select individuals, and then check the box to allow participants to join anytime when scheduling your meetings

Thanks for sharing your experience. I indeed originally thought we needed to funnel everything through leaders who were logged onto the unit Zoom account, to manage our various meetings. After seeing the Forum posts that you mention, we now are also doing the Host Key method, which for us works like a charm.

My biggest concern for the join anytime setting is that it opens the tech to abuse. While I like to think that our RS or EQ presidents, or anyone else for that matter, would not misuse the church's Zoom account, we are all human. While I can schedule Sunday afternoon meetings to have the join anytime feature enabled someone could start a meeting at 3:00 am on a Wednesday meeting, and who would be meeting at 3:00 am (outside of an emergency)? I have chosen to leave the Join Anytime feature disabled for now, just removes the temptation.

awev wrote:My biggest concern for the join anytime setting is that it opens the tech to abuse. While I like to think that our RS or EQ presidents, or anyone else for that matter, would not misuse the church's Zoom account, we are all human. While I can schedule Sunday afternoon meetings to have the join anytime feature enabled someone could start a meeting at 3:00 am on a Wednesday meeting, and who would be meeting at 3:00 am (outside of an emergency)? I have chosen to leave the Join Anytime feature disabled for now, just removes the temptation.

In the account settings (on the Zoom website), you can configure the "Join before host" option to only allow people join 5, 10 or 15 minutes prior to the start of the meeting. That should eliminate the concern of them joining at unscheduled times.

I have been using the concurrent meetings without issue since the zoom accounts rolled out, until this week.

Somehow, my maximum concurrent meetings just got reduced to 1. Who could help me with getting it back to 2?

Any help is much appreciated.
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Guatemala City Stake, Guatemala