Getting started with ZoomMate: a guided course that ends with your own assistant
You open ZoomMate for the first time. The box says "Ask anything." You type a question, get a decent answer, and close the tab.
A week later you still haven't found skills, scheduled tasks or projects. Most people stop at the chat box because nobody showed them what sits around it.
The ZoomMate Onboarding Guide is built for that moment. It's a self-paced course in 8 short modules, and it ends with you building a ZoomMate project for your own team.
ZoomMate's outputs are AI-generated and may be incomplete, inaccurate, or require correction. Always review outputs before acting on them or sharing them with others.
Who it's for
- You're new to ZoomMate and want to know where things are before you start asking it for work.
- You've used the chat box but haven't touched skills, scheduled tasks, workflows or projects.
- You lead a team and want one link to send people instead of running the same demo five times.
No admin access needed. Everything in the guide happens in your own ZoomMate tab.
What's inside
Every module answers the same 3 questions: what is this, where do I find it, and when should I reach for it. Read them in any order.
| Module | What you'll learn |
| Where you work | The ZoomMate tab, the shortcut row, and what each sidebar section is for |
| Context and resources | How to attach meetings, Canvas docs, My Notes, and chat channels to a request |
| Connectors | Which third party tools you can reach, and who controls each kind (Zoom, your IT team, or you) |
| Skills | Writing a way of working down once so requests come back in the same format |
| Scheduled tasks | Standing instructions that run on a schedule you set |
| Workflows | Multi-step automations and the 3 triggers that start them |
| Projects | Scoped workspaces with their own instructions, context, skills and connectors |
| Templates and credits | Meeting summary templates, and how AI credits work |
The screens are interactive recreations of ZoomMate, so you can click through the sidebar, the attached dialog, and the skills library before you try them for real.
Short on time? Read modules 1 and 2 first. The guide itself recommends that order, because context is where results can change the most.
The build at the end
The last section asks you 4 short questions about your team. From your answers, it generates what you need to set up a ZoomMate project that's designed to answer your team's questions about ZoomMate, in your team's language:
- Project instructions, written for your team
- A checklist of context to attach
- 2 skills to create
- A scheduled task that keeps the project current
You copy each piece into ZoomMate and follow the setup walkthrough. Results depend on how you configure the project and what context you give it, so plan to test it with a few real questions before you share it.
You can also skip straight to the build. It explains each concept as it needs it.
3 habits worth taking from the guide
The guide names 6 habits. These 3 are the ones to start with this week:
- Attach before you ask. Point ZoomMate at the 2 or 3 meetings, docs, or channels that bear on the question. A meeting with a transcript or summary gives it more to work from than one with neither.
- Retry before you rewrite. If an answer comes back in the wrong shape, hit retry first. Rewrite the prompt if the second answer misses too.
- Promote what repeats. Pasting the same formatting instructions every time? That's a skill. Attaching the same 5 documents every morning? That's a project.
Which building block fits the job
Module 6 closes with a table people come back to. The short version:
- "I keep getting this back in a different shape." Use a skill.
- "I keep forgetting to check this." Use a scheduled task.
- "This is 4 steps and I do them in the same order every time." Use a workflow.
- "I keep re-explaining the same background." Use a project.
For more on the differences, see Getting started with ZoomMate Workflows and ZoomMate vs. Zoom AI features.
Start here
- Open the ZoomMate Onboarding Guide.
- Read module 1 or 2, whichever matches your question today.
- Try one habit on a real request before you move to the next module.
Some features depend on your plan, license, AI credit balance, and your admin's configuration. If something in the guide doesn't appear in your ZoomMate tab, check with your Zoom admin.
For additional technical insights tailored to IT admins and decision makers, visit the Zoom Technical Library.
Written by Karim Sehaqui, Product Adoption Expert, Zoom AI & ZoomMate. For questions about this article or Zoom Scheduler, reach out via the Zoom Community or your Customer Success team.