With the tremendously popular use of Zoom as a unified communications platform, many organizations are using it to carry on communication across the board during the global pandemic with COVID-19. This includes not only businesses but non-profits, worship services, and even individuals and families looking to link up with family members who they can now no longer see in person. Have you tried to work with an older person or someone who is not at all computer savvy to help them connect to Zoom? It can sometimes be a challenge to help ones connect via Zoom including typing in the meeting ID, their name, the password, etc. In this post, I am going to show you a couple of ways to accomplish zoom automatic join meeting tasks for those who may have difficulties joining by standard means.
Why the need to Join Zoom meeting automatically?
Especially if you are helping older ones or those who are not computer savvy to join Zoom meetings, this can be difficult. Many get confused on what they type where and what buttons they hit. What is even more frustrating, Zoom does not include a native way to launch the Zoom program automatically with a file and automatically connect without any interaction.
You might say, well, it allows you to click a hyperlink that automatically opens the Zoom application, including the password embedded in an encrypted URL. The problem is, older ones and others still have to know what to do with the URL, or even how to open a browser. Have you ever wished you had a way to simple have the person double click and have Zoom automatically open with all the necessary information they can easily use to connect to their zoom meetings.
Nowadays, individuals may have the need to know how to connect to multiple types of meetings. This may include the following:
- Family zoom meeting links
- Worship services
- Organization meetings of various sorts
- Other personal Zoom meetings
With the above, there are several links at play and may be difficult for ones to know which links they use for what.
Also, in the case of an older one, it may be difficult for them to even find the Zoom program to launch. You may direct them to click the Windows 10 start button and start typing “Start Zoom”, but this may be stretching it for ones who are not savvy.
Additionally, while Zoom history does show previous meetings the person has connected to, the history is limited and starts rolling off if you connect to more than the history remembers. Also, what if the person accidentally clicks the clear history link in the dropdown box? Their previous meetings will be erased.
As you can see, there are some challenges that can be encountered that can make it difficult to simply connect to a Zoom meeting for ones who have difficulty with computers or older ones who may be intimidated by the technology.
Zoom Automatic Join Meeting How To
There are a couple of methods that I want to show you that can allow individuals to automatically join Zoom meetings with less difficulty than they may have using the normal means for joining.
The include the following:
- Create a custom HTML page containing all the direct Zoom links with descriptions
- Create a “AutoHotKey” script that automatically launches the Zoom program and automatically types in all the relevant information
Let’s take a quick look at how both of these can be accomplished to automatically join someone more easily to Zoom meeting links.
Create a custom HTML page containing direct Zoom Links
As you most likely already know, if you have the direct Zoom link from the original meeting invite, you don’t have to type in anything. It will automatically:
- Launch Zoom
- Pass the password through to Zoom so this does not have to be typed
The problem with the direct links is that most people do not save the direct links in a meaningful way that allows them to be easily used. They then rely on the Zoom history to launch previous meetings, but at that point, it requires typing in the password for the meeting.
Creating a simple static HTML file that contains the direct Zoom links is super easy and makes it very easy for the individual to see which link is for which meeting and simply click the direct link to launch the meeting.
In Notepad, create a new blank file and past the following in, customizing the appropriate information including the H1 headings which give a description of the link. Then simply replace the links below with the real Zoom links you want to use.
Save the file as Zoom Meeting Links.html or some other similar title. What we are doing here is creating a simple HTML file that when the user double clicks it, it will open their browser displaying the simple static page giving them the ability to click the appropriate link.
What does this file look like? Well, the styling I have above isn’t the prettiest, but it works and you get the idea. The point of this is we don’t care what it looks like but rather that it displays the links in an easily discernable way so they can click them.
Once you create the file with the HTML code, have the individual save the file to their desktop for easy access.
Now, as you can see below, they have an easy to view web page that shows the links and are hyperlinked with the direct links to their Zoom links, making it much easier.
Create An AutoHotKey Script to Automatically Launch Zoom Meeting
AutoHotKey is a tool that allows you to use macros with Windows in a way that allows “playing” keystrokes, mouse movements, and other inputs so that you can automate processes. First, you will need to download the tool. You can do that here:
- https://www.autohotkey.com/Download AutoHotKey
- Install the AutoHotKey program
Once you have AutoHotKey installed, you can create the following file, again using a simple Notepad file.
Below, the first SendRaw command is the Zoom Meeting ID. Replace this with your meeting ID. The last SendRaw command is your password. Here, I am using an AutoHotKey global variable %A_UserName% for the path to Zoom as well as for the Zoom Name that is typed in using the middle SendRaw command.
Once you paste the above into the Notepad file, save the file as Zoom.ahk. This is the AutoHotKey file extension. Then right-click the file and choose Compile Script. This will create an executable file that can be ran on any computer. ***Note*** You will need to create one of these for each different meeting you are helping them to automatically join a Zoom meeting.
You can then send the file to the recipient that need help launching Zoom. This AHK script will automatically launch Zoom, type in the meeting ID, their name (based on their logged on user), type the password, and join the meeting.
Wrapping Up
Hopefully, if you are struggling with helping someone in your family or otherwise to join Zoom meetings, between the two methods, you can provide an easier way to accomplish this by using a bit of HTML or by using automation.
These Zoom Automatic Join Meeting ideas easily be used to help ones more easily join various Zoom meetings. Depending on the individual and their knowledge level, one approach might work better than the other.
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