Step 3: Check Critical Settings Before You Build Anything

Here's the step that separates hosts who have a smooth event day from the ones who discover — mid-event, in front of hundreds of people — that a feature they were counting on isn't turned on.

Why This Matters

Many of the most powerful features you'd want to use in live events are controlled by settings in the Zoom Web Portal — not just in the Webinar or Event editor itself. One of the reasons license assignment (Step 1) is so important is understanding specifically whose web portal settings are relevant. The license holder is the host account, and even if another user serves as the live in-session host, the web portal settings on the license holder's account dictate what features are available in the live event.

You can build an entire program, invite your speakers, promote it to your audience, and then discover in the first live event that the feature you planned your whole engagement strategy around isn't available. Sometimes it's a surprise admin lock, sometimes it's a new host who hasn't been put in a group that allows cloud recording, sometimes breakout rooms, backstage, resources, or co-host are turned off.

This is entirely preventable. Just 30-60 minutes of settings review early saves you from a crisis later — and unlocks capabilities that make your events significantly more engaging and professional. Many settings can be adjusted by the in-session host and co-hosts while sessions are in flight, but if critical features are disabled or locked in the web portal, the only way to impact them after the live event is in progress is often to end the session, edit the web portal setting as needed, then re-launch and re-connect everyone, re-test everything, and get going again. Needing to do this when you're just about to go live (or certainly while you are live) creates chaos for everyone involved.

The Settings Hierarchy

Settings in Zoom operate on a cascading model. Understanding this hierarchy is essential:

Account-level (and/or Group-level) settings are set by admins or the account owner. These settings can enable or restrict options for all users across the entire account or within specific groups, and can be locked on or off as needed so individual users cannot edit them further.

License holder's settings govern all sessions hosted using this license (the user or users identified in Step 1), even those scheduled or operated by other team members. The license holder operates within whatever the admin allows.

Event-level configuration, set during the event build (Step 4), customizes behavior within a specific session, series, or event, but only for features that are enabled and not locked at the layers above.

During live sessions, hosts and co-hosts can still modify some settings as needed:

• Want to let everyone in to your Meeting from the waiting room, then disable the waiting room so you don't have to watch it anymore now that the session is live?
• Want to disable attendees' ability to raise hands? Want to restrict screen share to host & co-host only or enable multi-share just for one collaborative session?
• Want to open chat to everyone at specific points during the program, but restrict it during the main content so people focus on it?
• Decided not to take anonymous questions or want to temporarily suspend Q&A? Disable transcription or captions or reactions?

All of these modifications (and more) are possible as long as the features are enabled in web portal and admin locks aren't preventing modifications.

All of the above layers must be aligned for features to work as expected on event day!

Where to Look (Licensed Users)

Log into the Zoom Web Portal as the license holder / hub owner (the account you identified in Step 1). Navigate to Settings, and review the controls under these key headings:

Meeting Settings

The highlights below affect meeting-format sessions and carry over into webinar behavior in some cases:

• Waiting Room — Enable if you host events in a Meeting format. Review the settings if enabled.

  • The waiting room is the best way to enable your speakers and co-hosts to connect early and get set up before attendees join. Don't let your early birds drop in on the tech checks.
  • Check the waiting room settings, especially if you're hosting internal events. If the host account chooses the option to have internal users bypass the waiting room, that may be valuable for day-to-day meetings, but will cause chaos for something like an internal SKO or CEO Town Hall.
• Authentication & Security Settings — Authentication deserves its own deep-dive. At a high level, authentication increases security and enables attribution & identification of users, but it also adds friction at join. For hosts doing a quick settings review, check for locked settings and security policies that may prevent participants from accessing your events. Admins can use groups to create authentication exceptions for event hosts as needed. The key is to discover potential issues early and start conversations about balancing security with access friction, so admins and event hosts can arrive at the ideal configuration for your use case.

• Mute all participants when they join a meeting — Activating this setting mutes everyone's mic as they join the session.

  • This is critical in large meetings
  • It helps prevent unintended "hot mic" moments when participants join while sessions are in progress.
  • This setting carries over to Webinars!
  • If you have Webinar Plus or Events and use Backstage, this is less of a concern for Webinars, because your attendees are always muted by default and your panelists join Backstage before being pushed live to the audience.
  • If you're hosting a Webinar and not using Backstage, making sure your panelists join muted by default saves them from unintentionally joining a live event with an open mic.

• Chat — Enable to use in-session chat in Meeting format sessions.

  • Set default behavior of Meeting format session chat (users can chat with ________)
  • Define default Meeting format session policies for saving the chat, emoji use, message edits & deletion, etc.
  • Decide whether sending files in chat is appropriate for your use case. Is your chat open to everyone while you're hosting external events? Are you just hosting internal events where everyone who's joining is signed in to your company's account? Is the risk worth the reward?
• Co-host — This is the first setting I check on every new account. It's that critical. Maybe you're a team of one, but almost all live events use cases call for this to be on.
• Polls/Quizzes (and Surveys) — Enable to use in-session polling and post-session surveys.

• Screen sharing — Controls who can share and when.

  • These settings carry over to Webinars!
  • One participant sharing at a time is generally the recommended configuration for events to avoid issues with overlapping audio shares and questions as to whose content share is visible to attendees
  • In the context of a Meeting format, "all participants" means everyone can share
  • "Host only" means host and co-host can share or replace current share
• Slide control — Enable the screen sharer to give slide control (simple advance or back buttons) to up to 9 participants. This is extremely handy for events with slides. One person shares the deck, minimizing handoffs and reducing opportunities for errors with screen sharing by different panelists, but every speaker can control slide transitions at their own pace.

• Reactions — Let your audience engage with emoji reactions in Meeting format sessions.

  • Can help reassure speakers that the audience is engaged and boost attendee engagement when they see their and others' reactions floating over the content.
  • Reactions are valuable signals from your audience - is your message resonating?
  • Cloud recordings do not capture live reactions from attendees.
  • Maybe you want to limit these so you don't see any negative emojis floating around?
  • There is a report available to hosts and admins reflecting which users sent which emojis (and quantity).
• Q&A — Use the Q&A tool in Meeting format sessions and set default visibility.
• Breakout rooms — Enable and check settings to use Breakout rooms in Meeting format sessions.
• Captions — Check the host account settings for manual, automated, and translated captions (if applicable). These settings carry over to Webinar format sessions!
• Virtual backgrounds — Enable this. You don't have to use it if it's enabled, but virtual backgrounds are ubiquitous on Zoom and can be fun while also enhancing your branded look-and-feel
• HD Video Quality — Enable for improved video resolution in Meeting format sessions (720p or 1080p improve video quality but require higher bandwidth for participants).

Webinar Settings

Specific to your webinar and event sessions:

• Authentication & Security Settings — See Authentication & Security Settings under Meeting Settings above — the same principles apply to Webinar format sessions.
• Simulive — This premium feature is included with Webinar Plus and Zoom Events licenses. Enabling this setting doesn't automatically convert your events to Simulive format — it simply unlocks the feature so you can choose to use it when scheduling sessions on this host account.

• Webinar chat — Enable chat in Webinar format settings.

  • Set default behavior of Webinar format session chat (panelists can chat with ________, attendees can chat with ________).
  • Define default Webinar format session policies for saving the chat, emoji use, message edits & deletion, etc.
  • Decide whether sending files in chat is appropriate for your use case. Is your chat open to everyone while you're hosting external events? Are you just hosting internal events where everyone who's joining is signed in to your company's account? Is the risk worth the reward?
• Polls/Quizzes (and Surveys) — Enable to use in-session polling and post-session surveys.

• Reactions — Let your audience engage with emoji reactions in Webinar format sessions.

  • Can help reassure speakers that the audience is engaged and boost attendee engagement when they see their and others' reactions floating over the content.
  • Reactions are valuable signals from your audience - is your message resonating?
  • Cloud recordings do not capture live reactions from attendees.
  • Maybe you want to limit these so you don't see any negative emojis floating around?
  • There is a report available to hosts and admins reflecting which users sent which emojis (and quantity).
• Backstage — This premium feature is included with Webinar Plus and Zoom Events licenses. Enabling this feature allows hosts to use Backstage, which is your green room for coordination and communication behind-the-scenes, before and during the show.
• Q&A — Use the Q&A tool in Webinar format sessions and set default visibility.
• Resources — This premium feature is included with Webinar Plus and Zoom Events licenses. Enabling this feature allows hosts to add Links, Documents, and/or Speaker profiles to a panel participants can access during the session. Hosts can program CTA's and encourage users to visit links and download attachments without diverting their attention from the live session.
• Breakout Rooms in Webinar — This premium feature is included with Webinar Plus and Zoom Events licenses. Enabling this feature allows hosts to use Breakout room functionality traditionally associated with Meetings in Webinar format sessions.
• HD Video Quality — Enable for improved video resolution in Webinar format sessions (720p or 1080p improve video quality but require higher bandwidth for participants).

• Livestream RTMP —

  • Allow livestreaming: stream the webinar attendee view to Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, or a custom livestream service to reach additional audience segments who don't join via the Zoom client.
  • RTMP Ingest: This premium feature is included with Webinar Plus and Zoom Events licenses. Enabling this feature allows hosts to take a stream from their encoder (from an on-site camera switcher for example) and put it into Zoom as a panelist video tile with audio controlled by the encoder. This is a great way to host hybrid events & give your virtual audience a high quality, produced feed from an on-site event.

• Session Branding — This allows visual customization of a webinar by setting a Webinar wallpaper, plus applying virtual backgrounds and branded name tags to special roles (panelists, interpreters, host, and co-hosts)

  • Production Studio (under Session Branding) — This premium feature is included with Webinar Plus and Zoom Events licenses. Enabling this feature allows hosts and co-hosts to create up to 50 customized scenes and layouts within a session.

Recording Settings

These determine what you capture and how:

• Record to computer files (AKA local recording) — Enable or disable per your use case & security/compliance requirements.

• Cloud recording — Enable for automatic recording to the cloud. Which views or perspectives do you want to capture? Just active speaker & shared screen, or would the gallery view be useful to you too? Enable additional options if you tend to do post-event editing. If you have Webinar Plus or Events & want to use Production Studio, make sure the cloud recording captures the program output here as well.

  • Advanced options within cloud recording are worth reviewing to ensure the output is as expected. Turn off the timestamp if you want to do Simulive events, but turn it on if it helps you to have the date burned in to more evergreen content.
• Recording transcripts — Auto-generates searchable transcripts.

AI Settings

Admins and users alike should take advantage of Zoom's AI capabilities throughout the platform:

• Check the host account's AI settings to ensure AI features like summaries & using the "catch me up" prompt appear as expected in Meeting & Webinar format sessions.
• Govern access to summaries from sessions hosted on a given license
• Enable Smart recording with highlights, smart chapters, and next steps to enhance the cloud recording and on demand experience

For Admins and Account Owners

For events hosted in the standard web portal, the above settings can be set and locked as needed at the account and group levels. If you administer a Zoom account for a large enterprise or teams with multiple host accounts, consider using groups and strategically locking settings that should always be on (or off).

Webinar Plus and Zoom Events licenses introduce the concept of an event hub, which brings additional features that invite additional management. The following videos are helpful overviews for Webinar Plus and Zoom Events admins:

Events portal administration basics

Managing concurrency

Delegating additional events portal admins

With Webinar Plus & Events, admins can access additional feature toggles in the web portal under ADMIN > Account Management > Account Settings > Webinars Plus & Events heading

The Ripple Effect

Here again is the critical nuance: treat the license holder's web portal settings as the source of truth for feature enablement & settings in ALL sessions & recordings scheduled & hosted using that license. If the event program owner also uses their account for daily team meetings, changing settings for events could disrupt their regular workflow. Conversely, if someone adjusts a setting for meeting needs, it could break your event configuration.

This is why Step 1's recommendation to use a stable, dedicated account (or service account) for hub ownership matters. It gives you a predictable settings environment that won't shift underneath you.

And remember: For Webinar Plus and Zoom Events, the license holder is the same as the hub owner. Their settings govern all sessions on the hub. If another team member schedules a session on your hub, it's the hub owner's configuration that dictates what's possible in that session — not the scheduler or live host's personal settings.

The 60-Minute Settings Audit

Block time on your calendar and walk through every setting with your event program in mind:

1. Start with the search bar. The Settings page has a search function. Use it to locate specific features listed above quickly.
2. Think about your event format. Live Q&A? Enable Q&A. Polls? Toggle them on. Breakout sessions? That's a setting, not just a feature.
3. Check the lock status. Some settings may be locked at the admin level. If you see a lock icon, escalate to your Zoom admin.
4. Document what you changed. Keep a simple record of which settings you toggled and why.
5. Test after changing. Create a test session and verify the feature works as expected.
6.  

Premium Feature Activation

If you're on Webinar Plus or Zoom Events, you have access to premium features that may require activation:

• Backstage — Your production team's green room for pre-show coordination and communication during the show.
• Production Studio — Custom scenes, layouts, and seamless transitions between live and pre-recorded content. Make sure the output of this feature is captured in your cloud recording settings too!
• Simulive — Play pre-recorded content as a live event with real-time engagement tools.
• Resources — Shareable files and links available to attendees during the session.
• Webinar Breakout Rooms — Small-group discussions within a webinar format.

These features won't appear in your event if they're not enabled in the web portal first. Don't assume they're on just because you have the license.

Quick Checklist

✅ Logged into the hub owner / license holder account

✅ Reviewed Meeting, Webinar, and Recording settings sections

✅ Enabled all features your event program requires

✅ Checked for admin-locked settings and escalated if needed

✅ Activated premium features (Backstage, Production Studio, Simulive, Resources) if applicable

✅ Documented changes made

✅ Tested features in a test event using the correct license/hub

💡 Quick win: Block 60 minutes this week to walk through your web portal settings. You can use the search box at the top of the Settings page to quickly find each feature, but you should scroll through everything in Meeting, Webinar, and Recording settings to really get the full picture.

⚠️ Remember: Settings changes affect ALL sessions on the license holder's account. Be intentional about what you toggle.

With your settings locked in, you've eliminated the most common source of event-day surprises. Now you're ready for the fun part — actually building your event.

👉 Visit the Webinar & Events Resource Center

For additional technical insights tailored to IT admins and decision makers, visit the Zoom Technical Library.

Written by Mike Elliot, Product Adoption Expert, Zoom Events & Webinars. For questions about this article or other Zoom Products, reach out via the Zoom Community or your Customer Success team.