Vanilla's Zoom integration streamlines event management by allowing community teams to connect Vanilla events to Zoom meetings and webinars. Doing so enables users to quickly and easily register and/or join your Zoom events right from your Vanilla community.
To use the Zoom integration, you'll first need to:
- Create an App in your company's Zoom account.
- Enable and configure the Zoom addon in Vanilla.
In this article, we'll walk through both of these steps and more.
Create an App in your Zoom account
Vanilla's Zoom integration will communicate with Zoom via API. In order for this to work, you or your IT department will need to create a Server-to-Server OAuth app in Zoom.
📝 NOTE: The OAuth app must be configured using a Zoom account that has permission to do so. This must be done by an Administrator or a user with the ability to view and edit a server-to-server OAuth app.
The Zoom user configuring the OAuth app must also have the following permissions granted by the app:
meeting:read:admin
meeting:write:admin
webinar:read:admin
webinar:write:admin
The process to configure the OAuth app is relatively simple; check out the article below for more information:
After creating the app, Zoom will provide you with an:
- AccountID,
- ClientID, and
- Client Secret.
These will then be used to configure the Zoom addon in your Vanilla community. This process is described in the section below.
Enable & configure the Zoom addon in Vanilla
Let's learn how to enable the Zoom addon and then configure it with the AccountID, ClientID, and Client Secret obtained in the previous section.
Enable the Zoom addon
- Access the Dashboard.
- Navigate to Settings > Addons > Addons.
- Click the Zoom toggle to enable it (it should appear blue).
Configure the Zoom addon
With the addon enabled:
- Click the Zoom addon's Settings button (in the image above, this is the button to the left of the on/off toggle).
- Provide the AccountID, ClientID, and Client Secret in their respective fields.
- First Name and Last Name are required to register users for a Zoom event. Because of this, you must select which of your custom profile fields to use as the First and Last Name. This information will then be used to identify users in Zoom when they join your events. If a user has not provided any info for the fields you've selected, their Username will be used instead.
- When finished, click Save to apply your changes.
How to use the Zoom integration
When the Zoom addon is enabled and configured as outlined above, you can now leverage the integration in two ways:
- Create a meeting within Zoom and then connect its Zoom Meeting ID or URL to an event in Vanilla. This method enables you to host Zoom events in your Vanilla community.
📝 NOTE: You can connect to any Zoom account with this method.
- Create an event within Vanilla and use the Create Zoom Meeting feature to simultaneously create a meeting within the configured Zoom account. This method enables you to keep the event-creation and management workflow solely within Vanilla, reducing the need to work in both products.
📝 NOTE: The limitation of this method is that you can only create meetings associated to the configured Zoom account. This method is ideal when a Zoom account owner in your organization will be creating numerous events in Vanilla (or having someone do so on their behalf) and wants to simplify the workflow.
Let's explore these two options in more detail in their associated sections below.
Create Zoom meeting from Vanilla
To leverage this method, you need to first enable an option in the Zoom integration settings.
- Navigate to Dashboard > Connections > Zoom.
- Toggle ON the Allow users to create Zoom events for default account option.
- Click Save at the top of the page to apply this change.
⚠️ IMPORTANT: When this option is enabled, all users in your Vanilla community with permission to create events will be able to create Zoom events on behalf of the owner of the configured Zoom account. To prevent unwanted instances of this occurring, only give these permissions to trusted users.
Now, when creating an event in Vanilla, you'll see a new option: Create Zoom Meeting.
- If checked, the event you create in Vanilla will simultaneously be created in the configured Zoom account (the one set up on the Dashboard > Connections > Zoom page discussed above).
- Details updated in Vanilla will also be reflected in the associated Zoom meeting, allowing you to manage the event solely in Vanilla.
Notes
- With this method, the owner of the configured Zoom account will be the host of the meeting.
- Others in your organization who have Zoom accounts will be assigned as co-hosts.
Connect a Vanilla event to a Zoom meeting
When creating and editing events in your Vanilla community, a new field is available: Zoom Meeting ID or URL.
- Copy a Zoom meeting/webinar ID or URL and paste it in this field to connect it to the Vanilla event.
How to join & register for Zoom events
Zoom meetings and webinars can be configured to either:
- Require users to register before joining the event
- Allow users to access the event without registering
This is controlled by the Registration checkbox shown below.
If your Zoom meeting or webinar requires registration, your event details page in Vanilla will automatically include a Registration button users can click to register for the event.
Once registered, users will:
- receive an email from Zoom providing the event details and ability to add the event to their personal calendars
- appear in the Who's Going section
- be able to join the event directly from the event page in Vanilla
- be able to cancel their registration from the event page in Vanilla
If your Zoom meeting or webinar does not require registration, users can:
- Click I'm Interested to express their interest in the event. This adds them to the Who's Interested list, which makes it easy for event organizers and administrators to understand who is interested in an event, enabling them to easily reach out to these potential attendees with additional event information as the event draws near.
- Join the event from the event page in Vanilla.
Once the event has passed, the Register and Join buttons will be deactivated.
