Zoom for Project Collaboration - How does your company do it?

[KieranAnson]

Hi everyone,

First-time poster here! I’ve been looking around the community but haven’t found anything quite addressing the scenario I’m working through, so I’m hoping to get some insights from others.

This isn’t about a technical problem rather, it’s about customer success and operational efficiency. I’m curious how other organizations handle a similar situation.

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Context

I work for an IT consulting organization. We run client projects with teams that differ for each engagement. Zoom is our go-to VC tool, and we frequently use it for workshops, with meetings scheduled by project managers (PMs) via Google Calendar (with the Zoom extension).

Everything works fine for the basics, but we’re running into efficiency challenges:

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Challenges

1. Host Dependency

   • The PM is automatically the host since they schedule the meeting, but they may not always attend. This limits what other team members can do during the call (e.g., starting recordings or managing participants).

2. AI Summary Emails

   • The AI summary is emailed only to the PM. While this is configurable at the account level, it applies universally to all meetings they schedule—not just the project meetings.

3. Recording Permissions

   • Participants cannot start cloud recordings unless the host enables this in their account settings. Again, this is a global setting, not meeting-specific.

4. Recording Notifications

   • Notifications about cloud recordings being ready are sent only to the meeting host, which means they’re also responsible for downloading and sharing recordings with clients.

5. File Sharing with Clients

   • Customers often request that recordings be uploaded to their preferred storage platform (e.g., Google Drive, SharePoint). This adds extra work for the PM, especially since settings cannot be streamlined for project-specific collaboration.

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Attempted Solutions

While some of these issues can be addressed, most solutions come with trade-offs:

• Setting Alternative Hosts
  PMs can assign alternative hosts when scheduling meetings, but this requires knowing and manually entering email addresses—a tedious and error-prone process. Setting alternative hosts via zoom.us does auto-complete, but that then requires the PM to do multiple steps. 

• Sharing the Host Key
  Sharing the host key allows others to assume host control, but this feels equivalent to sharing a password, creating potential security concerns.

• Adjusting AI Summary & Recording Settings
  Preferences for summaries and recordings apply at the account level. This can lead to oversharing or mismanagement of sensitive information across unrelated meetings.

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What I’m Looking For

I’d love to hear how other organizations handle these challenges, particularly for dynamic and fluid teams. Specifically:

• Have you encountered similar issues?
• How do you balance efficiency, privacy, and security with meeting management?
• Are there best practices or workflows that could help address these problems? I'm not a Zoom administrator, so appreciate I may be unaware of some configurations that could be applied. 

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Idea for Improvement

One potential enhancement I thought of is creating team-based settings, similar to shared drives or platforms like Lucidchart. With this:

• Teams could define default meeting settings (e.g., host permissions, AI summaries, recording rules) that apply to meetings created within the team.
• This would reduce reliance on the scheduler (PM) and better align with modern SaaS digital workspace practices.

Does Zoom already offer something like this? Or does Zoom have an idea portal where I could submit this suggestion?

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Conclusion

I’d really appreciate any insights, recommendations, or even confirmation that we’re not alone in facing these challenges. Thanks in advance for your help!