Zoom has been the go-to app for a lot of folks this year for professional meetings and educational purposes. And while apps like Zoom have made our lives very easy when we’re waiting for things to go back to normal, there’s no harm in wishing they were a little bit easier.
The ‘Attendant for Zoom’ app might just be the answer to these wishes. This third-party app is a must-have for educators and even professionals who have to manage large meetings. It’s a shame that it’s not an official release from Zoom; maybe they should consider buying it and adding it to their own roster for its users. In the meantime, iPhone and iPad users can really benefit from this app to better manage their Zoom meetings.
What is Attendant for Zoom?
Attendant for Zoom is a third-party app available from the App Store for your iPhone or iPad. It’s intended to be used on an additional device from where you’re not actually attending the meeting.
Basically, if you’re attending the meeting from your PC or Mac, you can use the app for meeting management from your iPhone/ iPad. But if you’re attending the meeting from the iPhone or iPad itself, using the app from the same device itself would be highly impractical and illogical. But you can attend the meeting from your iPad and use the app on the iPhone, or vice versa.
How can you use the app to manage your Zoom meetings? The app has a freemium structure, so you can download and use limited features of the app for free. Subscription, which unlocks additional features, costs $0.99/month, or $5.99/year.
With the free features, you can easily manage audio/ video settings for other participants, mute other participants and lower their hand with a single tap, get attendee count, manage participants from the grid itself, mute or turn the camera off for all other participants except one, and much more.
And for the price of a nominal subscription, you get additional features like auto re-entry for participants who are reconnecting, renaming participants, theme icons, etc., to name a few.
How to Use Attendant for Zoom
Go to the App Store, and download the ‘Attendant for Zoom’ app on your iPhone or iPad. Or click the link below to view the App Store listing for the app.
Open the app and sign in to your Zoom account. Currently, it does not support SSO or webinar logins.
Now, when you have to host a meeting on Zoom, join the meeting from your Zoom account as always from a device other than the iPhone or iPad you are going to use the Attendant app with.
Then, enter the meeting ID or link in the Attendant app and tap on the ‘Join Meeting’ button to join the meeting from the Attendant app as well.
Now, for the Attendant app to work, admit the Attendant for Zoom account into your meeting and make it the host or co-host; either would work. But without giving the Attendant app host or co-host abilities, the app wouldn’t be any useful.
Note: If you don’t change the name from the Attendant app, the default participant name when you join the meeting from the app would also be ‘Attendant for Zoom’. You can change the display name from the app settings. Tap on the ‘Setting’ icon and then change the name in the ‘Name’ field.
Once you’ve made the Attendant app a co-host (or host), you can manage the entire meeting from the app. The app will have these separate tabs:
- Waiting Room: To manage the participants in the waiting room
- Raised Hands: To view and lower participants’ hands with a single tap and also mute/ unmute them
- Participants: This tab is where most of the action happens. You can count attendance, manage audio/ video settings like turning off everyone’s cameras or microphones, ask all participants to unmute or turn their cameras on (you cannot turn anyone’s camera or microphone on, you can only turn them off), mute/ turn off the camera for all participants but one, rename participants, etc. But some of these features are available with the Pro subscription only.
- Videos: You can view all participants’ videos in this tab.
- Settings: To change the settings for the app.
To view the options like mute all, count attendance, etc. that work for all participants, go to the ‘Participants’ tab, and tap the ‘More Options’ icon (three-dot menu) on the upper right corner of the screen. The options menu will appear on your screen; tap the one you want to use.
To view the participant-specific options like Rename, Remove, Mute everyone else except them, etc., go to the ‘Participants’ tab, and tap the name of the participant you want these options for. The options menu will pop up on the screen with all the available options.
Having to manually manage large meetings can be a headache. The ‘Attendant for Zoom’ app is a must-have if you have to host and manage large meetings on Zoom. It’s easy to use and offers so many features with the free version itself – it’s hard to pass on this one without at least trying once.
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