Waiting Room FeatureZoom's Waiting Room feature allows the host to send attendees to a waiting room before joining a meeting. This setting gives hosts added security by not admitting everyone to the meeting automatically. By default, the Waiting Room setting is enabled and will send Only Guests (Non-EID accounts) to the waiting room. You can configure your meetings to send All Participants to the waiting room, but you will be responsible for admitting users before they can participate in the meeting. One thing to note is the "Only authenticated users can join" setting. This setting cannot be disabled and requires users to have a Zoom account (either an EID account or Non-EID account) to join a meeting hosted on the utexas (main) Zoom tenant. This was set to ensure maximum security for all meetings. Read the matrix below to determine which Waiting Room setting option works best for your needs. See below to configure your Waiting Room setting.
| Waiting Room (Guests Only) | Waiting Room (All Participants) | Waiting Room Disabled |
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Only Authenticated Users Can Join - UT Austin (Default) | Recommended for: Academic classes/Meetings - We strongly recommend leaving this as your DEFAULT setting and only changing the setting for a particular meeting as needed.
| Recommended for: Advising and Office Hours - This setting will send everyone to the Waiting Room.
- You can admit one participant (or more) at a time from the Waiting Room to meet with you.
| NOT RECOMMENDED - Disabling the Waiting Room substantially increases your risk of uninvited guests entering your meeting.
(ie. "Zoombombing") - Do not use for classes.
| Only Authenticated Users Can Join - Sign in to Zoom (Guest) | Recommended for: Academic Classes with guest lecturers/Meeting with external users - Should be used when non-EID accounts (guests) will be joining your meeting.
- Guests will be placed in the waiting room and can be admitted by the host.
| Recommended for: Advising guests (non-EID accounts) - Should be used when non-EID accounts (guests) will be joining your meeting.
- All participants (EID accounts and non-EID accounts) will be placed in the waiting room and can be admitted by the host.
| NOT RECOMMENDED
- Disabling the Waiting Room substantially increases your risk of uninvited guests entering your meeting.
(ie. "Zoombombing") - Do not use for classes.
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Enabling the Waiting Room- Sign in to the Zoom web portal
- Click "Settings" from the navigation menu on the left
- In the "Meeting" tab, click "In Meeting (Advanced)", then navigate to the "Waiting Room" option.

- If this setting is disabled, click the toggle to enable it. If you receive a verification dialog, click "Turn On" to verify the change.
- Select who you want to be admitted to the waiting room.
- All Participants: All participants joining your meeting will be admitted to the Waiting Room
- This includes those users who are using accounts associated with UT
- Guest Only: Only participants who are not associated with UT will be admitted to the waiting room.
- If Guest only is enabled, you can additionally allow internal participants (that is, UT-affiliated users) to admit guests from the waiting room into the meeting if the meeting host is not present
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