Webinars
Welcome to 2020, where the events are all virtual and the engagment is even harder to measure.
Good news, though, is that you have a shot at addressing the latter via AlumnIQ!
you can collect registrations through AlumnIQ just like usual
depending on your provider, we can push those people into your conference provider as participants
two hours prior to the event kicking off we'll send a reminder email with connection info
AlumnIQ tracks the clicks on that email to record likely participation (and check people in in certain situations)
and if your provider allows, post-event we'll pull back actual participation info and automagically check those people in for you
By tying all this together you'll have an easy time aggregating virtual event participation and storing it in your central database for future engagement and solicitation opportunities.
And better still, even post-pandemic you'll have this functionality available to commingle in-person and remote programming to attract the broadest possible audience for your programming.
Supported Providers
Ideally, we get your Zoom API keys and that's it. But because letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, we also support what we call "unmanaged" providers -- those that we're linking to but not exchanging data with.
The key difference between managed and unmanaged providers is that in the managed case we talk directly to the provider to push and pull data; unmanaged providers give us no such capability.
Managed providers let us pull participant data down post-event to record the check in for you. Unmanaged providers treat a click in the reminder email as the proxy for recording participation.
Relying on the email will naturally result in some attrition; we don't have email addresses for all registrants and we won't have any knowledge of those who just "show up" in your meeting/webinar without coming through us.
So, again, managed is by far the preferred route.
Provider | Requires API Keys | Can push registrants | Can pull participants | Check ins recorded |
Zoom Meetings (Managed) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Zoom Webinars (Managed) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Zoom Meetings (Unmanaged} | No | No | No | Implied via email click |
Zoom Webinars (Unmanaged} | No | No | No | Implied via email click |
Vimeo | No | No | No | Implied via email click |
Other (Unmanaged) | No | No | No | Implied via email click |
Managed providers are far less work in the long run and are worth the effort to get the API keys if at all possible.
Managed Zoom (Meetings and Webinars) Support
Zoom Configuration Requirements
Require Registration
Disable Zoom registration and cancellation emails (confusing duplication with AlumnIQ-generated messaging)
Managed Zoom Activation (updated September 2023)
If you wish to activate managed Zoom support, please file a ticket once you have secured API keys. You may need someone with greater permissions than yours to make it happen.
Go to https://marketplace.zoom.us/
Log in
Top right: Build App
Find "Server to Server OAuth" and click Create
Give it a name (we suggest AlumnIQ Integration)
Copy the AccountID ClientID and Client Secret values - you'll need to share those with us when you're done.
Under Scopes, add the following:
meeting:read:admin
meeting:write:admin
report:read:admin
webinar:read:admin
webinar:write:admin
Proceed to Activation and activate the app.
Pop the credentials from 6 in a ticket in the AlumnIQ admin and we'll take it from there.
If your campus admin has concerns about what we will and will not do with this power:
we will
fetch meeting or webinar metadata
push registrants up into a meeting or webinar
cancel individual registrants for a meeting or webinar
pull (via the reports API) actual participant data (and use that to check people in in the registration system)
we will never, ever
create meetings/webinars via API
modify meetings/webinars via API
view, modify, nor create user accounts via API
Setup
A webinar is an activity. Or, rather, the activity has a location that just happens to be a webinar.
Set the activity timezone appropriately based on the host. This is important because the automatic reminder email will go out two hours prior to the set time in that timezone.
Select the "Virtual" locale option.
Doing so will cause the webinar config fields to appear:
Because each provider works differently, the fields in the setup screen have varying requirements. Please pay special attention to this; omitting a required field will neuter the reminder email and lead to a panicky ticket when folks don't show up.
| Provider | Auto Update | XID | XID2 | URL | Password | Config | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Zoom Meetings (Managed) | Available | Required | Blank | Auto-populated | Auto-populated | Auto-populated | Zoom Webinars (Managed) | Available | Required | Blank | Auto-populated | Auto-populated | Auto-populated | Zoom Meetings (Unmanaged} | Not available | Required | Blank | Required | Required | Blank | Zoom Webinars (Unmanaged} | Not available | Required | Blank | Required | Required | Blank | Vimeo (Unmanaged} | Not available | Blank | Blank | Required | Blank | Blank | Other (Unmanaged} | Not available | Blank | Blank | Required | Blank | Blank
Note that here we also give you the option of deactivating the automatic 2 hour reminder email. If you do so, it's on you to remember to send one out -- careful!
If all of that goes as planned, you'll see the webinar info on the activity view screen:
** If your webinar configuration changes on the provider end, it is CRUCIAL that you open up the Activity edit screen and re-save it. We'll fetch the latest info from your web conference provider (including the critical join link and password if applicable).**
Testing Your Configuration (managed providers only)
You undoubtedly noticed the "Test Configuration" button next to the meeting/webinar XID field. USE IT!
Knowing your meeting/webinar exists and that you're pointing to the right one is like a warm blanket on a cold night.
Zoom Meetings/Webinars
There are two settings that we hope to see set to NO:
registrants_email_notification : NO. This is the primary setting for Zoom-generated emails and we recommend turning it off. This controls ALL registration and registration cancellation emails generated by Zoom.
registrants_confirmation_email : NO. This only really matters if registrants_email_notification is YES; we recommend turning this one off as an additional layer of protection.
Consult your Zoom meeting/webinar setup to adjust those settings and rerun the test here to confirm.
Operations (Managed Providers)
as people register, we push their name and email address up to Zoom as participants
the same is done for admin-entered registrations
cancellations will also mark those participants as cancelled
re-registrations or registrations using the same email address will cause problems with sync on the zoom side (a limitation we can't avoid)
If the registrant doesn't get pushed to Zoom:
is the registrant the host of the Zoom event? Hosts cannot also be attendees.
does the registrant have the same email address as another registrant? this is not permitted by Zoom.
Because of Zoom's treatment of "an email address is a person", we run in to all sorts of fun edge cases that aren't normally a problem. Cancellations and re-adds of the same person to the same virtual event are now supported (delicately). Zoom doesn't allow for the complete removal of a registrant, so when they cancel we tell Zoom to mark them as cancelled. If they subsequently re-register, we'll change that status flag to 'approved'. There shouldn't be any need (ever!) to add registrants directly through the Zoom interface. If you do so, we will not have sufficient information to send the reminder - which is critical to our tracking operation.
You do have the ability from admin to attempt a re-push of a registrant to Zoom; click it and see what happens.
** A reminder again that your Zoom meeting/webinar must be configured to require registration for the sync to work.**
** And please turn OFF all automatic Zoom notifications - registration, reminder, and cancellation **
Operations (Unmanaged Providers)
nothing.
seriously, nothing. it just works.
Reminders and Join Links (revised january 2022)
All confirmation emails for webinars now contain a "+ Join Event" permalink for the registrant to put in their calendars for whenever the event happens.
This permalink identifies the individual and the event; AlumnIQ confirms registration status before (assuming all is well) redirecting the registrant to the actual virtual event.
This approach allows us to click-track and record the participants as well as buy you extra time to ensure the webinar link is correct.
AlumnIQ will send out an automatic reminder email to all participants approximately two hours prior to the scheduled start time of the event. This reminder email contains:
the event and/or activity name (if event name and activity name are precisely the same we collapse them down, else we include both)
the activity description (so update it if you have any last minute thoughts to share)
the start time listed in the localized time zone for the activity (revised january 2022)
the webinar password (if any)
a big button to join the event
This reminder email is automatic unless you deactivate it during setup, in which case you're on your own to nudge them at the right time. If you need to send it out manually, pull up the activity attendees report - you'll see a button in the top right for virtual event functions, and under that is a link to trigger the reminder email on demand.
The email will be wrapped in the email template selected for the event and look nicer than this. The reply-to address will match the one on the event as well.
The Join Page (revised january 2022)
If someone attempts to join too early (before the allowable 20 minute margin pre-activity) or too late (after the end time of the activity), they'll see a page that contains the:
activity name
start date and time (localized) in the same format as the reminder email
the activity description
the reason why they are not being redirected to join
If you're concerned about getting a "what if" message in front of those who see this screen, update the activity description day-of. Most attendees will never see this screen, so don't worry too much about it. The overwhelming majority of participants click right at start time and are instantly redirected to where they need to be.
After the Webinar
For managed Zoom meetings and webinars:
go to Reports
pull up event registrants
hit the dropdown to view activity registrants
click the Check In Webinar Attendees button
If all goes well, we'll pull everyone who participated in the meeting/webinar, attempt to match them against registrants, check in the ones that match, and give you back a list of all the ones who do not.
For unmanaged providers:
nothing. we already recorded check ins based on clicks on the join link in confirmation emails and reminders.
Done!
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