Chapter 7
Enhancing Zoom with Third-Party Apps
IN THIS CHAPTER
Extending Zoom’s power via third-party apps
Installing and removing apps
Suggesting some valuable apps
Zoom’s suite of tools isn’t exactly wanting for features. In other words, its out-of-the-box functionality by itself helps hundreds of millions of people communicate and collaborate better. Through videoconferences, audio and video calls, webinars, text messages, and more, Zoom consistently rises to the challenge.
Despite the power and utility of Zoom’s features, a little reality check is in order: Zoom won’t eliminate your need to use other critical applications. For example, even if you go all-in on the Zoom suite, don’t expect to abandon your current email and calendar programs anytime soon. You will still work with G Suite, Microsoft Office, and productivity tchotchkes. Ditto for collaboration suites as Slack and Microsoft Teams and file-sharing services, such as Google Drive, Box, and more.
Then why bother with Zoom? What if the very thought of adding another productivity application to the fray makes you dizzy? After all, you’re probably not keen on complicating your work life and multitasking even more. Fair enough.
Fortunately, there’s a simple way to integrate Zoom’s services with your email, calendar, and other essential programs. Brass tacks: By supercharging Zoom, you can have your cake and eat it, too.
This chapter introduces third-party apps. At a high level, they can save users time and make their work lives easier and less chaotic. Apps tightly integrate with a growing number of mainstream programs, web services, and even some enterprise systems. Put differently, say that Zoom’s native features already impress you. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Understanding the Rationale behind Third-Party Apps
I’m willing to wager that you own a smartphone — and have for years. I’ll also bet that you regularly use several apps on that iOS or Android device. Perhaps you enjoy playing games, sharing photos via Instagram, sending messages via Snapchat, listening to music on Spotify, or watching videos on YouTube and Netflix. In some cases, you can perform the same task on your phone without one of these apps, but the app improves the experience and saves you time.
The same rationale applies to Zoom’s third-party apps. Like your smartphone, you can certainly get a great deal of mileage out of Zoom’s services by themselves. That is, installing apps isn’t mandatory. If you neglect to use them, Zoom won’t send a bunch of hired goons to your home or workplace.
Benefits of using third-party apps
Make no mistake, though: Apps are useful in a number of important ways. First, they extend the power of Zoom’s services. Second, they can save you and your colleagues a great deal of time. The following example illustrates my point.
Say that you work at Wernham Hogg Paper Merchants in Slough, a large town in Berkshire, England. (Yes, I’m a big fan of the English version of The Office.) You and your colleagues record all Zoom client meetings. Someone then manually uploads those recordings and their transcripts to Google Drive, Wernham Hogg’s file-storage tool of choice. You then manually delete these recordings from your Zoom account to keep within your plan’s storage limit. The process is a bit manual for your liking, and you wish that you could automate it.
Fortunately, you can.
The slpain.io Google Drive for Zoom app automates this entire process. That is, it automatically transfers your Zoom video recordings and their transcriptions to Google Drive. It then deletes Wernham Hogg’s Zoom recordings. (For more information on that particular app, see bit.ly/slpain-Zoom.)
To paraphrase Larry David on Curb Your Enthusiasm, pretty, pretty, pretty good.
Why Zoom relies upon external developers
You may wonder why Zoom —a $60-billion company as of this writing— relies upon third-party software developers to build timesaving apps.
It’s a fair question.
Although Zoom employs plenty of smart cookies, it can’t possibly address every one of its customers’ needs. Zoom clients are anything but monolithic. For example, the specific communication needs of a large government agency don’t overlap all that much with those of an eight-employee Pilates studio. Ditto for a university with 50,000 students and an independent consultant.
What to do?
In a nutshell, look outside for help.
Lest you think that Zoom management is lazy for outsourcing its app development, I’ll disabuse you of that notion right now.
Like most successful software vendors these days, Zoom’s top brass understands the importance of building a vibrant ecosystem of external software developers. Microsoft, Amazon, Slack, Twitter, Facebook, Salesforce, Apple, and scores of other companies harness the engineering talents of coders all over the world. These companies all encourage third-party developers to create their own apps.
In Zoom’s case, the company wants developers to build bridges that link Zoom to other services, such as the ones that I mention in this chapter. How? The nearby sidebar details the three main types of tools that developers use.
Don’t confuse Zoom’s third-party apps with the Zoom’s tablet and smartphone apps. You cannot install, much less use, Zoom’s proper Outlook and Gmail apps on your computer without having first downloaded and installed the Zoom desktop client. (See Chapter 3 for more on that subject.)
At the risk of confusing you, many web browsers offer Zoom extensions. Think of these items as diluted apps. That is, they let users perform a limited number of related tasks directly within Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or another browser.
Introducing the Zoom App Marketplace
With all of these developers building cool apps Zoom, where does one go to find them? Look no further than the Zoom App Marketplace. To access it, follow these directions:
- In the Zoom web portal, hover over Solutions in the top left-hand corner of the page.
- From the menu that appears, choose App Marketplace.
Zoom takes you to marketplace.zoom.us, displayed in Figure 7-1.
As of this writing, Zoom sports more than 200 different third-party apps. This number will only increase in the future as Zoom becomes more popular and attracts ambitious developers.
FIGURE 7-1: Zoom App Marketplace.
This variety is a bit of a double-edged sword. On one hand and at the risk of getting all existential, personal choice is objectively a good thing. Say that you can easily install a Zoom app for Microsoft Outlook. Great, but you’re a longtime Gmail user. Would you change your email service to accommodate Zoom? I doubt it.
On the other hand, though, human beings struggle when faced with too many choices — and oodles of research supports this claim. (For more on this topic, see Barry Schwartz’s 2004 book The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less [Ecco].)
Zoom squares this circle by offering two different, familiar ways to locate useful apps: searching and browsing.
Searching for a specific Zoom app
Say that you know exactly which Zoom app you want. Follow these directions to locate it:
- Go to the Zoom App Marketplace.
- Click on the search bar at the top of the page.
- Type the name of the app that you want to install.
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Press the Enter key.
Zoom displays the results.
I cover how to install your desired app in the upcoming section “Installing a Zoom app.”
Browsing for Zoom apps
In Zoom as well as in life, sometimes people don’t know what they want. For example, say that you go to a bookstore and start gandering at the new nonfiction titles. You wander around and ultimately buy a classic tale of fiction. Bookstores encourage browsing, and the Zoom App Marketplace does, too.
To poke around for interesting apps, follow these steps:
- Go to the Zoom App Marketplace.
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Scroll down to the different categories on the bottom of the page and click on the name of the category that you want to explore.
Examples here run the gamut: education, finance, healthcare, productivity, and many more.
It’s not uncommon to find a specific app in more than one category. After all, an app can fall into more than one bucket. Case in point: An app can qualify as both healthcare- and productivity-related.Zoom displays the apps that fall into your selected category.
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(Optional) Under the Works with header, filter apps by the type of Zoom offering.
Zoom’s different offerings do different things. What’s more, your organization may subscribe to only some of them. For example, your organization may subscribe to both Meetings & Chat and Zoom Phones. As a result, you may want to exclude apps for Zoom Rooms from your browsing.By default, Zoom displays apps that work with all of its offerings. To filter, select one or more of the checkboxes:
- Zoom Meetings
- Zoom Webinars
- Zoom Rooms
- Zoom Phone
- Zoom Chat
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(Optional) Filter apps by permission granted.
As covered in Chapter 3, Zoom allows customers on premium plans to take advantage of user roles. To this end, a Zoom admin may have already locked down your app-installation permissions. Your choices here include
- Pre-approved only: An admin has explicitly allowed or whitelisted all members to install these apps.
- Admin Installable: Only admins can install these apps.
- Member Installable: Only members can install these apps.
The more checkboxes you select in Steps 3 and 4, the more Zoom restricts your search results. Depending on the specificity of your browsing needs, these restrictions may help or hinder your efforts. - Click on the name of the app that you’d like to install.
There’s no one right way to find an app.
Managing Your Zoom Apps
Browse the App Marketplace until your heart’s content. Eventually, though, you’ll want to install one. To this end, it’s important to note a few things from the get-go.
First, Zoom offers premium customers tremendous flexibility around apps and roles. (For more on the latter topic, see Chapter 3.) To keep this book at a reasonable length and cost, I simply cannot cover all of Zoom’s different options regarding user roles, security, and app configuration. Instead, I focus on the most important ones.
Second, there’s no one single, universal app-installation process. At a high level, apps do different things and often require different authentications. For example, say that you want to install the Zoom Microsoft Outlook app — as millions of people have no doubt done. (See bit.ly/zfd-out.) In this case, you have to explicitly grant Zoom and Microsoft access to share some of your account data. Figure 7-2 displays the message that you see when you attempt to install this particular app.
FIGURE 7-2: Zoom for Microsoft Outlook request for user permission.
Third, depending on your Zoom role, you may not be able to install a specific app — or any apps, for that matter. It’s entirely possible that an account owner or admin has prohibited Zoom users in her organization from installing apps.
Installing a Zoom app
Follow these general steps to install a third-party app:
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Locate the app that you want to install in the Zoom App Marketplace.
In this example, I’m going to install the Zoom Gmail app.
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Click on the app icon to go to its main page.
The exact web page and URL hinges upon the app that you want to install, but it should look something like Figure 7-3.
FIGURE 7-3: Zoom home page for the Gmail app.
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(Optional) Underneath the Install button, click on the Pre-approve toggle button.
By doing this step, you’re effectively permitting others in your organization to install this app. Depending on the rules that admins in your organization have established around your role, you may not be able to perform this step.
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Click on the blue Install button in the upper right-hand corner of the page.
Note that some apps may require you to have previously set up an existing account using the same email address as the one that you used to set up your Zoom account. This restriction may complicate your attempt to install an app.
Say that you’re unable to click on this button. It’s possible that someone in your organization has explicitly forbade members from installing it. Check with your IT department or the Zoom admin. -
(Optional) If necessary, click on the blue Authorize button.
Depending on the app that you’re trying to install, Zoom may display a message requiring you to verify that you are granting the app permission to access your Zoom account. (For more on this topic, see Figure 7-2.)
Zoom sends you an email confirming that you have successfully installed the app similar to the one in Figure 7-4.
FIGURE 7-4: Zoom email confirming successful app installation.
A third-party app may occasionally notify you via the Zoom desktop client. For example, I am a fan of the project-management app Trello. After installing it, Trello’s bot sent me a message letting me know that I could interact with it if I liked. Figure 7-5 displays its welcome message.
For more information on managing text messages, see Chapter 5.
Uninstalling a Zoom app
You may find that an app sounded better in theory than in practice. As such, you decide that you no longer need it. Once again, there’s no one single, universal app-removal process.
To remove an app from Meetings & Chat, follow these general directions:
- Locate the app that you want to remove in the Zoom App Marketplace.
- Click on the app to go to its main page.
- Click on the Manage tab.
FIGURE 7-5: Zoom in-app message from the Trello app.
- Click on the white Uninstall button underneath the Manage tab.
-
(Optional) If Zoom requests your feedback about why you’re breaking up with the app, click on whatever reason you want.
You may also be able to provide app developers with feedback.
-
Click on the white Uninstall button.
Zoom displays a new window to confirm that you want to uninstall the app.
- Click on the blue Uninstall button.
- Zoom sends you an email confirming the breakup (see Figure 7-6).
FIGURE 7-6: Zoom email confirming successful app removal.
Viewing your organization’s installed apps
Account admins and owners can view all the apps available to employees in their organization by following these directions:
- Go to the Zoom App Marketplace and sign in.
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Click on the Manage button in the top right-hand corner.
Zoom takes you to a new web page.
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Under My Dashboard, click on Installed Apps.
Zoom presents a list of the apps that users in the organization have installed, including valuable app metadata. It looks like Figure 7-7.
FIGURE 7-7: Currently installed Zoom apps.
Restricting apps in Meetings & Chat
By default, Zoom allows all members in your account to access installed apps during text-based chats, the subject of Chapter 5. If you like, you can restrict users from using specific apps in Meetings & Chat by instant message (IM) group — a topic covered in Chapter 3.
For example, say that your company uses Vimeo to post corporate marketing videos. It wants only certain employees to see notifications on these videos and comment on them in Meetings & Chat.
To do restrict the app to a IM group in Meetings & Chat, follow these instructions:
- Go to the Zoom App Marketplace and sign in.
- Click on the Manage button in the top right-hand corner.
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Under My Dashboard, click on Installed Apps.
You are now at
https://marketplace.zoom.us/user/installed. - Click on the ellipsis icon to the right of the app that you want to restrict.
- From the drop-down menu, choose Set Chat Visibility.
- Slide the toggle button to the left.
- Type the name of the IM group to which you want to restrict the app in Meetings & Chat.
- Click on the blue Add button.
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Click on the blue Save button.
Zoom confirms that it has saved your settings.
By going this route, a member will need to belong to the IM group for which you have approved the app. For example, say that I had restricted the Wikipedia app to only the Management IM group. Unless company president Donna is a member of that IM group, she won’t be able to install it.
Limiting apps that members can install
Zoom’s account owners and admins, by virtue of their default roles, are able to install and uninstall apps at their discretion. Organizations on premium Zoom plans, however, can enable user roles and limit what regular members can do in a number of important ways.
Pre-approving specific apps
Say that you want to explicitly allow employees at your firm to install a particular app. That is, you want to create an app whitelist. For example, you run the Bluth Company. Its employees are avid Slack fans. As such, you want to let them start Zoom meetings with a single mouse click in Slack. As long as you are a Zoom admin or owner, you can perform this task by following these directions:
- Sign in to the Zoom App Marketplace.
- Locate the app that you want to let other members install and click on its icon.
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(Optional) In the top right-hand corner of the page, slide the Pre-approve toggle button to the right so that it turns blue.
After a few seconds, Zoom displays a new toggle button that reads as follows: Allow all users on the account with the required permissions to install this app. Selecting this option means that all users under your firm’s Zoom account are able to install this app.
- (Optional) If you want to restrict the app to a subset of Zoom account users, click on the Who Can Install tab on the app’s web page.
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To the right of Allow all users on the account with the required permissions to install this app, slide the toggle button so that it turns gray.
Zoom allows you to limit the app to
- Individual users: Enter the email address(es) of the person(s) who will be able to install the app.
- User groups: Enter the user group(s) whose members will be able to install the app. (See Chapter 3 for more on user groups.)
If you change your mind, then you can simply click on the trash can icon next to one of these new restrictions.
- Click on the blue Add button.
Others in your organization can now download and install a specific Zoom app.
With many apps, a little reciprocity lets you get the most out of them. For example, to make my life as easy as possible, I install the Slack app for Zoom as well as Zoom app for Slack.
Viewing which members have already installed a specific app
Perhaps you’re curious about which members in your organization have installed a specific Zoom app. You can send a mass email or conduct a poll, but Zoom makes this process a cinch:
- Sign in to the Zoom App Marketplace.
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Locate the app that you want to investigate and click on its icon.
Zoom takes you to that app’s home page in its App Marketplace.
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Click on the Manage tab.
Zoom displays the users — if any — who have installed the app.
Requesting approval to install a specific app
Say your employer subscribes to a premium Zoom plan. Unfortunately, however, you’re not an account owner or admin. Normally, this state of affairs doesn’t bother you. One day, though, you find an app that you’d like to install, such as the email marketing tool MailChimp. There’s just one problem: An owner or admin hasn’t placed MailChimp on the organization’s whitelist.
What to do?
Regular members can certainly send their managers emails or quick messages in Meetings & Chat. They can kick and scream as well, but Zoom has made it remarkably simple for members to request permission to install a currently unapproved app by following these instructions:
- Sign in to the Zoom App Marketplace.
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Locate the app that you to install and click on its icon.
Zoom takes you to that app’s home page in its App Marketplace.
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In the upper right-hand corner, click on the blue Request pre-approve button.
Zoom lets you know it has sent your installation request to your account admin. It then rattles off an email to the account owner advising him or her of the employee’s request.
At this point, the account owner can add the app to the organization’s whitelist by following the directions in the “Pre-approving specific apps” section earlier in this chapter.
For much more information on how admins and owners can customize and lock down Zoom apps for your organization’s members, go to bit.ly/zfd-app.
Recommending a Few Useful Zoom Apps
In addition to the valuable Zoom apps I mention throughout this chapter, Table 7-1 displays some more, with a specific focus on Meetings & Chat. That is, I have intentionally omitted apps for Zoom’s other three core offerings. Don’t let Table 7-1 stop you, though. If you want to find dedicated apps for Zoom Video Webinars, Zoom Rooms, and/or Zoom Phone in the very same Zoom App Marketplace, knock yourself out.
TABLE 7-1 Popular Zoom Apps
|
Name |
Useful App Features |
|
Epic |
COVID-19 brought the idea behind telehealth to the front lines. Epic lets providers and patients launch Zoom meetings from their Epic online health appointments. |
|
Github |
Developers are particularly fond of this robust code repository. The Zoom Github app sends them different types of notifications via Zoom Meetings & Chat. |
|
Google Calendar |
This app makes scheduling, joining, and managing Zoom meetings a breeze. |
|
Microsoft Teams |
This app lets users start, schedule, and participate in Zoom meetings right from a Team space. |
|
Otter.ai |
Otter.ai integrates with Zoom and provides both interactive, real-time, and post-meeting transcripts. Participants can view, highlight, comment, and add photos. They can also share meeting notes. |
|
Salesforce |
The world’s largest vendor of customer-relationship management (CRM) software tightly integrates with Zoom. Salesforce lets its own customers easily hold Zoom calls and even webinars with only a few clicks. |
|
Slack |
The Slack app lets you make Zoom calls directly from the world’s most powerful and user-friendly collaboration tool. |
|
Zapier |
Zapier’s Zoom app lets you connect a number of different apps and automate manual actions in more ways that I can possibly describe here. Scheduling tool YouCanBook.me is one of go-to apps. |
|
Zendesk |
The gold standard for customer-service software also plays nicely with Zoom Meetings & Chat. After installing it, reps can receive and view notifications related to their support tickets. |
|
Zoom for Doodle |
Doodle is a simple tool that makes scheduling meetings for users on different calendar systems a piece of cake. I’ve used it for years — long before I started Zooming. |
|
Zylo |
As I describe in Chapter 6, Zoom’s native reports are pretty straightforward. Zylo provides a far greater level of sophistication. The app allows its users to answer more penetrating questions on how a specific company and its employees use Zoom. |
To be sure, vast differences exist among and between apps — even those that fall within the same category. Some are far more robust than others. Some are free while others require payment — to the app maker, not to Zoom directly. Typically, apps in the latter group offer some type of trial period or other free offering.
Don’t gloss over an app’s pricing terms. You don’t want to get stuck with a large bill at the end of the month because you forgot to read its terms of service.
Treading Lightly with Apps
At a high level, apps connect one company’s core offering with those of a third-party. This statement holds up whether you’re using the wares of Apple, Google, Slack, Facebook, Microsoft, or dozens of other technology companies. Because of their tight integration with their host apps, third-party ones often do amazing things. In the case of Zoom, its apps can
- Extend its native functionality.
- Alert users to important events.
- Consolidate communications in one place.
- Automate manual actions.
- Save employees time.
Sounds great, right?
Economists have said for years that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. The same principle applies to apps.
Consider two organizations:
- ABC: Employees install third-party apps at will. Zoom admins have given them carte blanche.
- XYZ: Zoom admins have approved only a small number of apps. IT carefully monitors those apps that employees install and use.
All things being equal, which one is more secure?
If you picked XYZ, trust your judgment.
I do not mean to imply that any particular Zoom app is fundamentally unsafe, let alone all of them. Still, precisely because they connect to other companies’ applications and databases, apps by definition create additional risk for organizations and their employees. The nearby sidebar presents a fictitious example of an all-too-real problem.
If you’re skeptical that such an event can ever take place, then riddle me this: When you sign up for new online accounts, services, and apps, do you ever read those lengthy documents?
I’m betting that you just scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the Accept button.
I’m not judging you. Really. I almost always do the same thing.
Companies call these opaque, dense, and legalese documents end-user license agreements or EULAs. (Read one if you ever suffer from insomnia.) To be sure, EULAs vary on many levels; some are far more verbose and restrictive than others. A few contain patently ridiculous clauses. (Check out bit.ly/zm-eula for some real doozies.)
For the most part, though, a EULA attempts to absolve an organization from blame in the event of a security breach or some other type of malfeasance — by its current and former employees, partners, and/or vendors. Oh, and they typically run far longer than the one displayed in Figure 7-2.
For more information on this timely subject, watch the fascinating 2013 documentary Terms and Conditions May Apply.
With apps, strike a balance among utility, convenience, and security.