Cloud Recordings When Reducing Licenses

[TJTy]

Hello,

We currently have 60 licenses under an educational account but would like to reduce this to 17. May I know if we will lose our cloud recordings? We were told that we will lose the cloud recordings of the 43 accounts but since the licenses and the accounts are independent of each other, I'm just a bit confused how those recordings will be tagged for deletion. 

[Ray_Harwood]

Hi, @TJTy –

The issue is that Meetings are attached to Users, and Recordings are attached to Meetings. If you delete a user from Zoom without transferring their Meetings to another user, the deleted user’s data is removed. 

Decide who among those that will continue to have a Zoom license should inherit the Meetings you wish to retain, and transfer the data from the existing users according to the steps outlined in this Zoom Support article:

https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/115005866183-Transferring-data-to-another-user 

[TJTy]

Thank you for your reply. What I don't understand is, will the user be deleted when the license is removed? I believe the user will continue to exist because from what I was told, we don't even give the users that will be revoked of license, we just tell zoom that from our current number of licenses, we want it reduced to a smaller number.  If the user will be deleted when the license is revoked, how can we make sure that we retain the users that we want then?

[Ray_Harwood]

You're asking the right questions, @TJTy.

Removing the license from the user leaves them on your account as a "Basic" user.  They can attend meetings host by others and have their own meetings up to 40 minutes long.

[TJTy]

Thank you very much! So with this, since the user still exists and our educational account (cloud) still exists, will this mean we will not lose any recordings?

[Ray_Harwood]

I'd have to research that.  Basic account users can't record to the Cloud; I don't know what will happen to their Cloud recordings.

[Ray_Harwood]

Okay @TJTy – I think it’s bad news. 

See this Zoom Support article:

https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/203634215-Canceling-your-subscription 

In the “How to cancel a Pro (paid) subscription” section step 4, see this sample confirmation message:

It looks like the access to the Cloud recordings will be disabled. 

You may want to confirm this with your Zoom customer service rep through your account admin. 

[Bort]

Hi @TJTy 
@Ray_Harwood  is correct. Any user that has their License removed from them, will also lose access to their cloud recordings. They are not deleted, but no longer accessible internally or externally (if you shared a link to that recording).

I'm not sure if there is any time-limit for how long we will store those inaccessible recordings, but if you need any of those cloud recordings, it is best to download them and store them elsewhere for a more long-term solution. Google Drive, Box, or even as an unlisted Youtube video are all great storage options for cloud recordings. 

Hope that helps and please make sure to mark the solution as accepted if this information is what you needed.

[TJTy]

But we are not canceling our subscription plan, just reducing the number of license. That's what confuses me. I understand if someone cancels the plan altogether, then the cloud recordings will become inaccessible but since we still have a plan, I am under the impression that whatever is stored in the cloud will still be accessible. Thank you so much for your help. Appreciate it! I also can't find anything from my Google search hence I came to the forum in case anyone had first hand experience or has a better understanding of the matter. 

[Bort · Accepted solution]

In your case, admins on the account should still be able to access cloud recordings through Recording Management (which is available at the admin level), but any users without a License are not able to their cloud recordings directly. If you assign a license to those users, they will regain access to their cloud recordings. 

[ahs]

thank you for your sharing.

Need your further advice.

I have 3 licenses. I want to reduce the license to remain 1 license, in the other hand, i need to keep the data for each license stayed on the system. Is this can be done by reducing my license without deleting them (keep the 2 licenses with basic account)?

thank you

[Ray_Harwood]

Hi, @ahs,

I'm not sure what you mean by "keep the data for each license".  Are you referring only to the Cloud Recordings?  Look at @Bort's response above... the recordings will still be accessible from the Recording Management menu at the Admin level (https://zoom.us/recording/management), but only by the account owner or any admins, not by the user if they are reduced to Basic accounts.

My recommendation would be to download the recording files if you're wanting to have an archive of previous meetings; the only reason I can think of to leave them on the Zoom Cloud is if you are sharing them with others... but that could be easily done through something like DropBox, if you were to download them there.

And as @Bort mentions the access to them recordings can be re-established to the user simply by acquiring and assigning another license to the Basic user to make them a Pro user.

Hopefully that helps you!