Help and Support

Unfortunately not. The University has taken the decision not to enable any apps/add-ons/plug-ins on the University Zoom accounts for security reasons. 

Issue

This issue may have been caused by you originally signing up to Zoom with a different email address other than your @ed.ac.uk one. For example, @institution.ed.ac.uk or a personal email address. 

Workaround

1. Access your existing account
2. Click your profile
3. Click 'Edit' beside your email address and change it to your @ed.ac.uk one. You should now be able to follow the migration steps. 

No, if you migrate your @ed.ac.uk Zoom account, you will lose access to these other features. 

Webinar licenses

Zoom Webinar (500 capacity) is now included in your license. We have a central billing procedure in place for purchasing 1000 capacity webinar licenses for Zoom. If you wish to purchase this, please email your enquiry to us via the address below:

is.software.codes@ed.ac.uk

Please note that due to high volumes, Zoom have a turn-around time for license purchasing of up-to 20 working days, so please purchase well in advance of your planned webinars.

Other add-on licenses

Some add-on services for Zoom are currently unavailable. These require review to establish requirements and plan an appropriate way forward:

• Virtual Room System
• Instant Messaging
• Outlook email integration
• Telephone integration
• Cloud apps integration
• Audio and video meetings for audience sizes larger than 300

The University is currently working on billing options to purchase these add-ons. However, if you require webinars and larger audience sizes now, Blackboard Collaborate is available and free to use. Alternatively, our Online and Digital Events Service can help you choose the right tool for your type of event. Access it below:

Online and Digital Events Tool

This sign in issue may have been caused by the recent update to the Zoom sign in on the University of Edinburgh's Zoom account. The following steps should resolve any issues for most users.

Please note - If you have previously used your UUN@ed.ac.uk email address on another Zoom account (one that is not the University of Edinburgh's Zoom account), you will have more troubleshooting steps to complete. Your UUN@ed.ac.uk email is now needed to allow access to the University Zoom account, otherwise you may only have access to a basic account or you may be unable to access at all. To allow you access to the University Zoom account you must sign in to the account you have used your UUN@ed.ac.uk on, and change the email associated with that account to something else, such as a personal email address in your profile settings. 

Troubleshooting steps for sign in issues

1. Sign out of Zoom on all browsers and sign out of the Zoom desktop client
2. Close and quit all browsers (it is important that you quit, not just close, or the steps will not work)
3. Re-open your preferred browser and type ed-ac-uk.zoom.us into the search bar
4. Click "Sign in"
5. You should be taken to the University sign in page. Type your UUN (for example, jblogs2), followed by your EASE password (this is the password you use for MyEd, Learn etc.), then click "Log in"
6. You should be signed into Zoom
7. You can then re-open the Zoom desktop client, click "Sign in" then "Sign in with SSO".
8. Make sure ed-ac-uk.zoom.us is displayed on the next page, and click "continue".
9. You will be re-directed to a browser page, prompting you to Launch/Open Zoom.
10. Allow this and the desktop app will now be signed in. 

The University Zoom subscription only supports your @ed.ac.uk email address. Subdomains (such as fbloggs1@institutionname.ed.ac.uk) are not supported. 

To sign in to the University Zoom subscription you must use your @ed.ac.uk address. 

Issue

You are getting an error message only when signing in through SSO on the Zoom desktop app, downloaded on a managed machine via the Software Center. However, you are able to sign in with SSO via other instances (such as on a personal device).

Cause 

We are looking into the exact cause of this error. However, this appears to be associated with differences between the Software Centre version of the Zoom desktop app and the version available for personal devices.

Resolution

Note that you will need admin credentials on your device to follow these steps, so you will need to contact your local IT support or the IS Helpline about this. 

1. Uninstall the Teams desktop app downloaded from the Software Centre
2. Install the Teams desktop app for personal devices instead via the following links:
   • Zoom Windows client (24.9MB)
   • Zoom Mac client (30.5MB)
   • Installing or Updating Zoom on Linux (Zoom site)

Issue

You have successfully migrated your account and have received the "Your account has been switched successfully..." email from Zoom. However, when you try to log in with the University SSO you receive the error message "not authorised with credentials used to sign in". 

Cause

This issue may appear if you have tried to sign in any email address other than your ed.ac.uk one. For example, @institution.ed.ac.uk or a personal email address. 

Resolution

Make sure you are signing in using your @ed.ac.uk email address. 

You can also try the following steps:

1. Open the UoE Zoom Desktop Client (download this if you have not already)
2. Sign in to your Zoom account via SSO using your University of Edinburgh email address (only @ed.ac.uk, your @institution.ed.ac.uk email will not work)

Issue

If you try to sign in with the University SSO in the Zoom desktop app after migrating your account, the app redirects you to sign in with your University username, but there is an error and you are not logged in. You will also be unable to sign in to your previous Zoom account.

This error appears to only affect the Zoom desktop app, so you should be able to sign in to your Zoom account via the following link:

https://ed-ac-uk.zoom.us/signin

Cause

It has been noted that if you are trying to sign in to the University SSO using a subdomain email (for example @roslin.ed.ac.uk, or @institution@ed.ac.uk), or you have migrated an account with any other email address than your ed.ac.uk email address (for example, personal gmail accounts), then you may get this error. 

Resolution

This issue is still being looked into by the relevant team and this page will be updated if and when there are further solutions. However, you can try the following steps have worked for some users:

1. Type the following link into your web browser:
2. http://ed-ac-uk.zoom.us/signin
3. Click "Profile"
4. Click "Edit" beside your email address
5. Change your email address to your ed.ac.uk email address
6. You should now be able to log into the Zoom desktop app with the University SSO and your @ed.ac.uk email address. 

Webinar licenses

Zoom Webinar (500 capacity) is now included in your license. We have a central billing procedure in place for purchasing 1000 capacity webinar licenses for Zoom. If you wish to purchase this, please email your enquiry to us via the address below:

is.software.codes@ed.ac.uk

Please note that due to high volumes, Zoom have a turn-around time for license purchasing of up-to 20 working days, so please purchase well in advance of your planned webinars.

Other add-on licenses

Some add-on services for Zoom are currently unavailable. These require review to establish requirements and plan an appropriate way forward:

• Virtual Room System
• Instant Messaging
• Outlook email integration
• Telephone integration
• Cloud apps integration
• Audio and video meetings for audience sizes larger than 300

The University is currently working on billing options to purchase these add-ons. However, if you require webinars and larger audience sizes now, Blackboard Collaborate is available and free to use. Alternatively, our Online and Digital Events Service can help you choose the right tool for your type of event:

Online and Digital Events Tool

1. The host should log into the meeting settings page at the following page:
2. https://ed-ac-uk.zoom.us/profile/setting?tab=meeting
3. Halfway down the page you should find the option to switch on breakout rooms.

The reason for this is that you had a paid Zoom account linked to your @ed.ac.uk email previously. This license gave you access to features which are not currently available on the University of Edinburgh Zoom subscription. 

The University is currently working to develop a process for requesting add-on licenses for other features, and we currently have a process for webinar licenses.

Webinar licenses

Zoom Webinar (500 capacity) is now included in your license. We have a central billing procedure in place for purchasing 1000 capacity webinar licenses for Zoom. If you wish to purchase this, please email your enquiry to us via the address below:

is.software.codes@ed.ac.uk

Please note that due to high volumes, Zoom have a turn-around time for license purchasing of up-to 20 working days, so please purchase well in advance of your planned webinars.

Other add-on licenses

Some add-on services for Zoom are currently unavailable. These require review to establish requirements and plan an appropriate way forward:

• Virtual Room System
• Instant Messaging
• Outlook email integration
• Telephone integration
• Cloud apps integration
• Audio and video meetings for audience sizes larger than 300

The University is currently working on billing options to purchase these add-ons. However, if you require webinars and larger audience sizes now, Blackboard Collaborate is available and free to use. Alternatively, our Online and Digital Events Service can help you choose the right tool for your type of event:

Online and Digital Events Tool

No - this feature is a paid add-on and is not currently included with the University Zoom subscription. 

The University is currently working on a central billing process to purchase these add-on features. 

No, the "join before host" setting has been disabled and cannot be turned on to help protect your privacy and University data.

However, you can add co-hosts to your meeting. Your co-hosts will be able to start the meeting and allow participants to join. 

To do this:

1. Sign-in to Zoom with your University log-in details
2. Click "Settings"
3. Scroll down to "Co-host" and click the button beside it
4. When you schedule a meeting you will have the option to add "Alternative hosts"

For further information, and more in-depth guidance on adding co-hosts (including adding co-hosts during a meeting) see below: 

Enabling a co-host

Yes, the co-hosts setting is disabled by default in the University Zoom subscription. However, this can be enabled. The following Zoom guidance page covers how to enable co-hosts in your meetings: 

How to enable co-hosts

When you have enabled co-hosts you will then have an option to add additional hosts when you schedule a meeting.

Certain features such as webinar licenses can be enabled if you follow the process below, and purchase a webinar license.

Webinar licenses

Zoom Webinar (500 capacity) is now included in your license. We have a central billing procedure in place for purchasing 1000 capacity webinar licenses for Zoom. If you wish to purchase this, please email your enquiry to us via the address below:

is.software.codes@ed.ac.uk

Please note that due to high volumes, Zoom have a turn-around time for license purchasing of up-to 20 working days, so please purchase well in advance of your planned webinars.

Other add-on licenses

Some add-on services for Zoom are currently unavailable. These require review to establish requirements and plan an appropriate way forward:

• Virtual Room System
• Instant Messaging
• Outlook email integration
• Telephone integration
• Cloud apps integration
• Audio and video meetings for audience sizes larger than 300

The University is currently working on billing options to purchase these add-ons. However, if you require webinars and larger audience sizes now, Blackboard Collaborate is available and free to use. Alternatively, our Online and Digital Events Service can help you choose the right tool for your type of event:

Online and Digital Events Tool

Unfortunately local recordings have been disabled at the University to help protect your privacy and University data. They cannot currently be enabled for anyone. 

Cloud recordings are available. Help with cloud recordings is available on the Zoom website below:

How to start a recording

The University of Edinburgh Zoom account allows you to create up to 100 breakout rooms in any meeting. 

Note - you must have Zoom desktop client version 5.2 or higher to create up to 100 breakout rooms. If you do not have Zoom client version 5.2 or higher you will only be able to create up to 50 breakout rooms.

To check or update your Zoom client version, please see the links below:

Viewing the Zoom client version 

Update to the latest version of the Zoom client 

You can find out more about managing breakout rooms from Zoom. Please ignore any reference to only being able to create 50 breakout rooms in this guidance, our account has been updated to allow for up to 100 breakout rooms:

Managing Breakout Rooms

You may find that add-on features which you had under your previous licensed personal account are not available when you log into your University account.

Webinar licenses

Zoom Webinar (500 capacity) is now included in your license. We have a central billing procedure in place for purchasing 1000 capacity webinar licenses for Zoom. If you wish to purchase this, please email your enquiry to us via the address below:

is.software.codes@ed.ac.uk

Please note that due to high volumes, Zoom have a turn-around time for license purchasing of up-to 20 working days, so please purchase well in advance of your planned webinars.

Other add-on licenses

Some add-on services for Zoom are currently unavailable. These require review to establish requirements and plan an appropriate way forward:

• Virtual Room System
• Instant Messaging
• Outlook email integration
• Telephone integration
• Cloud apps integration
• Audio and video meetings for audience sizes larger than 300

The University is currently working on billing options to purchase these add-ons. However, if you require webinars and larger audience sizes now, Blackboard Collaborate is available and free to use. Alternatively, our Online and Digital Events Service can help you choose the right tool for your type of event:

Online and Digital Events Tool

If you choose to use the University account then you need to cancel the current one with Zoom. Your account holder should contact Zoom about this. 

Please consider before contacting Zoom that the University Zoom subscription only includes standard meeting functionality, however you can request a webinar license as detailed above.

As Zoom is a US based company, the default date format for meetings will be mm/dd/yyyy. This can be changed to dd/mm/yyyy as follows:

1. Sign into Zoom
2. Click on your profile picture at the top-right
3. Click 'My profile' from the drop-down menu
4. Scroll to 'Personal'
5. Click 'Edit' beside 'Date format' and select 'dd/mm/yyyy' (or any other date format you prefer) from the list 

Yes, you can add your preferred pronouns to your Zoom profile by following the steps given by Zoom on their webpage below:

Add and share your pronouns on Zoom

Note - for pronouns to show up in the Zoom desktop client, you must have client version 5.7 or higher.

To check your Zoom desktop client version, follow these steps from Zoom:

Check your Zoom desktop version

If your Zoom version is lower than 5.7, you should update the client. Follow Zoom's guidance below to do this:

Update the Zoom desktop client

Yes, you can use Zoom for social meetings. 

If you need help with what online tools are available to you to help you keep in touch with others, you may want to book onto the "Online Meeting Tools for Students" webinar created by the Digital Skills team. This webinar will show you which tools you can use, how to access them and how to use them to create meetings. 

To book a place, please see the following link:

Book a place on Online Meeting Tools for Students

Yes, this issue may be caused if you have the green screen option ticked when you do not have a green screen. To resolve this:

• Open the Zoom desktop client (you may be prompted to sign in)
• Click your profile picture
• Click Settings
• Click Virtual background
• Make sure "I have a green screen" is unticked 

Cause

This is caused by a bug in earlier versions of the Zoom app.

Resolution 

The version in the University's software centre is in the process of being updated to a later version but in the meantime you can manually update your Zoom app by following the steps below:

1. Open your Zoom desktop app,
2. Click on your initials (or photo) in top right of the window
3. Click "Check for updates"
4. If you do not have the latest version, Zoom will find the latest version and an "Update Available" box will appear
5. Click "Update" and wait for the new version
6. Click "Install"
7. Follow the prompts from your computer to install
8. Finally, restart the Zoom desktop app

Your Zoom cloud recordings will be kept indefinitely until you delete them, because there are no built-in recording retention policies for Zoom at the University. 

We recommend that you let your meeting participants know, before recording your meetings, how long you intend to keep the recording and delete the recording after this time has elapsed. For further information on retention please see our guidelines below:

Guiding Principles – Recording of online and digital events

Recording privacy statement (external collaborators) (Word)

Recording privacy statement (internal – staff and students) (Word)

After deleting a meeting you have 30 days to recover the meeting before it is permanently deleted. Information on how to recover deleted Zoom Cloud recordings is available from Zoom via the following link:

Recover a deleted cloud recording

Yes, deleted Zoom Cloud recordings are retained for 30 days after deletion. You can therefore recover deleted recordings for up to 30 days. 

Information on how to recover deleted Zoom Cloud recordings is available from Zoom via the following link:

Recover a deleted cloud recording

No, the University's subscription with Zoom places no time limit on meetings.

Please visit the Zoom on how to do this below:

View the Attendance Report for a Meeting

Please change the date range to your required dates. If not already signed in, select 'Sign in with SSO' and enter ed-ac-uk. Then, sign in with your ease login details.

Meeting organisers must enable captions and transcription in their Zoom meetings before the meeting begins for these features to be available. 

To do this:

1. Sign in below using your UUN and University password
2. ed-ac-uk.zoom.us/signin
3. In the navigation panel to the left of the Zoom window, click Settings.
4. Click the "Meeting" tab
5. Scroll down to "In Meeting (Advanced)"
6. Scroll to "Automated captions" and click the toggle to enable it (the toggle will appear blue if it is enabled)
7. If a verification dialogue box appears, click "Enable" to verify the change
8. Finally, make sure "Allow use of caption API Token to integrate with 3rd-party Closed Captioning services", "Allow live transcription service to transcribe meeting automatically" and "Allow viewing of full transcript in the in-meeting side panel" are all ticked. If they are not all ticked, tick them before moving on. 

Zoom have in-depth guidance on how to enable captions and transcription in your Zoom meetings below:

Enabling closed captioning and transcription

Note - Before you can turn on captions and transcriptions in your Zoom meeting, you must ensure that you have followed the steps under the above "How do I enable captions and transcription in my Zoom meetings?" FAQ to enable it. 

The Zoom meeting host must follow these steps to turn on captions in your meeting:

1. The Zoom meeting host must click "More" on the meeting bar
2. Click "Captions" (icon of two C's)
3. Select one of the following options:
   • Enable Auto-Transcription: Allows the system to start providing live transcription. Participants will be notified that this service is available.
   • Assign a participant to type: Assigns a participant to manually type closed captions during the meeting.
   • I will type: Opens the closed captioning window for you to manually type closed captions.
   • Copy the API token: Copy the URL that you can provide to a third-party closed captioning service to integrate the service with your meeting.

The Zoom meeting host must follow these steps to turn on transcription in your meeting:

1. The Zoom meeting host must click "Live transcript" on the meeting bar
2. Select one of the following options:
   • Enable Auto-Transcription: Allows the system to start providing live transcription. Participants will be notified that this service is available.
   • Assign a participant to type: Assigns a participant to type closed captions during the meeting.
   • I will type: Opens the closed captioning window for you to manually type closed captions.
   • Copy the API token: Copy the URL that you can provide to a third-party closed captioning service to integrate the service with your meeting.

Meeting host

1. Click "Closed Caption" on the meeting bar, during your meeting
2. Click "Assign a participant to type"
3. The "Participants" window will open
4. Find the participant who you want to type closed captions and hover over their name
5. Click "More"
6. Select "Assign to type Closed Caption"

Participant who has been assigned to type captions

Once the host assigns you the ability to type closed captions, a notification will appear in your meeting controls.

To enter closed captions as a participant:

1. Click "Closed Caption"
2. Type the closed captions in the box which appears.
3. Press "Enter" to submit your closed captions.

Yes, you can edit the autogenerated captions in your Zoom meeting recordings. 

Enable the audio transcript

You should have the audio transcript option automatically enabled in your Zoom settings. This means that you will always get an autogenerated transcript of your Zoom meetings. To check if this option is enabled, please refer to Zoom below:

Audio transcription for cloud recordings​​​​

Note that audio transcripts may take longer to become available than the meeting recording. You will receive an email when the transcript is available. 

View and Edit the Audio transcript

Zoom provide information on how to view and edit the autogenerated captions in your Zoom meeting recordings below:

Viewing and editing the transcript

Viewing the captions in your meeting recording

To see the captions embedded in your Zoom meeting recording, you need to turn on Captions while watching the recording. Information on how to do this is available from Zoom below:

Embedding the transcript