Best way to run a high volume of recurring trainings that are a mix of Simulive and Live

[clionado]

Hey there,

I'm trying to figure out the best way for us to manage recurring user trainings using Zoom. We are hoping to move over to Zoom Recurring Events but I want to make sure that there aren't any potential challenges that we might face that I'm not aware of. We have a Zoom Events License with a 500 attendee limit and our average attendance limit is well below that so we're not restricted by that.

Current setup:

• Running ~70 webinars through Zoom across various languages. There are about 20 topics and the weekly content is always the same. For example 'Getting Started' is one.
• We currently manage our user trainings as 'Recurring Webinars with no fixed time' in Zoom
• We don't use any registration pages or emails as this is all done through Skilljar 
• The only reporting or data that we pull from Zoom are the Q&A if needed, chat and cloud recording

Challenge:

• We want to convert these into a mix of simulive and live
• This means that we'll need to schedule these at set times and create a recurring event for each timezone that we run the training in (probably) and each language which when using Zoom Webinar is really messy looking (we did it this way in the past)
• It can also cause a lot of complexity as we need to ensure that the scheduled time in Zoom is the same as the one set for the event in Skilljar otherwise when attendees click to join it doesn't work
• We need to schedule additional events in a recurring Zoom easily that use the same Zoom link

Plan of action:

• Use Zoom Events instead of Webinars so that it's easier to see all the events for one topic and region in one place
• Can easily change sessions between live and simulive

Potential challenge with this approach:

• It seems like in order to add more sessions to a recurring event in Zoom you're not able to duplicate an already scheduled session and need to create another one from scratch. Is there no way around this?
• You can only have 60 sessions per recurring event. Is this for upcoming events? If I schedule 60 and 10 take place, am I able to schedule another 10 in the same event?

Would love to hear how others handle this? And check if moving over to Zoom Events is the right call!

Thanks,
Cliona

[Ray_Harwood]

Welcome to the Zoom Community, @clionado.

You pose quite the interesting set of questions here!

First, the 60 scheduled event limit restriction was recently changed. Previously, there was a total limit of 60 recurrences of an individual session. The new restriction now limits the number of future scheduled sessions to 60.  This means that as your scheduled sessions slip into the past, you can create additional sessions to bring the number of future sessions back up to 60.

Secondly, there’s a fundamental difference between duplicating a session and scheduling additional occurrences of the same session. You can duplicate a session as many times as you like, but the sessions really are “totally separate” – not related to each other in any way, other than residing in the same Hub. Normally the multiple occurrence sessions are used when you are scheduling a session that people will attend regularly: weekly Office Hours open sessions, mandatory Staff sessions, etc. You wouldn’t normally use recurring sessions that “new clients” would only attend once – though it can be done, I don’t see it used a lot.

For Simulive sessions, consider whether having VOD (Video on Demand) work better suit your needs. You can create a “watch anytime” video in your hub, and new clients could watch it any time. Put info in that video about the best way to sign up for the live sessions. And you could also have Simulive sessions that someone from you staff attends just to answer questions live, while the video plays out. 

Your hub will have a fixed URL, but each session will have a separate URL. Zoom Events is built primarily to be a “registration required” service. While you can bypass registration, you give up a lot of information about your attendees, as well as control over who can attend. 

Based on your current mode of operation, I don’t think Zoom Events is a perfect fit/replacement for you, but I think there are enough advantages that it’s worth considering where it makes sense. If your workflow depends on capturing everything over on your main web site, the best way to integrate Zoom Events will involve coding to the Zoom Events API for integration. 

[clionado]

Hi Ray, thank you so much for your helpful response! It does sound like based on this logic that we probably should stick with 'Webinars' as opposed to 'Events' for our process.

One thing I am curious about still though is that you said "Your hub will have a fixed URL, but each session will have a separate URL." I'm actually not even sure where I can find or generate the url for each session. Would you be able to point me in the right direction?

Thanks!

[Ray_Harwood]

The answer is simple, but there are complicating factors you need to consider.

Once you “publish” a session, the link(s) (potentially more than one, but not always) are shown in the session’s Dates & Links button:

Clicking there brings up the following:

In this particular case, I have a group Join link and have turned off Authentication. The group Join link allows a list of users direct entry into the event with that link (they have to be signed into Zoom, and their email has to be in the list of permitted attendees uploaded in advance). Lack of Authentication would allow others to attend using the Meeting ID and Passcode. 

Your details here will vary based on your ticketing configuration. In most cases, you will have people registering, and they will receive emails with their assigned individual Join link. I don’t go through this when generating test/demo events, of course.

Bottom line: All the links are in this panel after publishing; Zoom doesn’t generate the links until Publishing.