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EchoVideo: Integrating with Zoom

Brockman Winfrey
  • Updated

This page is designed for Administrators and provides integration information and basics. If you already have a Zoom integration and need to update it for new features, see Upgrading Your Zoom Integration. For information on changing the default opt-in/opt-out setting for automatic meeting ingestion, see Default Opt In/Opt Out Settings for Automatic Zoom Ingestion. For information on using Zoom's LTI Pro to integrate with your LMS, see Overview - Zoom LTI Pro with EchoVideo and your LMS/VLE.

EchoVideo provides integration with the Zoom video conferencing platform. This means that recordings saved to the Zoom cloud can be automatically ingested by EchoVideo. This includes Zoom transcripts if your Zoom license provides them. These Zoom recordings are added to the logged-in Zoom user's Library. From here, the recording can be published to a course, embedded into an LMS window, or turned into interactive media by adding polls.

Users will need to turn on the Automatically copy Zoom meetings option in order to start bringing their Zoom content into EchoVideo. See Zoom Settings for your Account for more details. Integrating EchoVideo with Zoom also provides Instructors with a Zoom Meeting option in the Create button. This allows them to create and launch an instant Zoom meeting directly from EchoVideo. By default, this meeting is copied to their library but they may be given the option to publish the meeting recording directly into a class in one of their courses. 

Zoom integration is done using the EchoVideo App available on the Zoom Marketplace. The App simply works as an integration tool, connecting the main Zoom account with the EchoVideo institution. As long as your Zoom users have the same email address as their EchoVideo account, each recording can be properly associated, appearing in that user's library (or EchoVideo course as appropriate).

Zoom meetings also have their own "source" category as well, so administrators can filter the captures list by Zoom Meeting to find those recordings specifically. Other users can filter their EchoVideo Library page by "Meeting Recordings" to find their Zoom meetings.

If you have problems configuring the integration, contact EchoVideo support via email at support@echo360.com, or use the contact information located on the main support portal: support.echo360.com.

Notes on features and timing:
The "source categorization for Zoom Meeting/Meeting Recordings applies to those recordings ingested as of the July 1, 2020 release of EchoVideo. The category is not back-applied to Zoom meetings that occurred before then. Previous recordings are still listed as "Upload" in the Captures list and user Library.

Zoom Transcripts began being automatically included with the meeting recordings as of the Sept 23, 2020 release of EchoVideo. Transcripts for recordings made prior to then can be manually downloaded from Zoom (the .vtt file) and then manually uploaded into EchoVideo if necessary.

Requirements and Limitations

The requirements for a Zoom integration are:

  • The integrated Zoom account MUST be a paid Zoom account (Pro, Business, Education, API, or Enterprise plan); Zoom Free accounts will not allow for this type of integration.
  • EchoVideo can automatically ingest Zoom transcripts along with the media. However, to use Zoom transcripts you must:
  • Your Zoom account users MUST have email addresses that match their email address in the EchoVideo institution. If there is not a matching user, EchoVideo will not copy the recording from Zoom. (see next bullet)
  • IF your Zoom integration uses email addresses that differ from those used by EchoVideo, have your Instructors add the alternate email address to their Zoom settings.
  • Administrators can also see and control opt-in/opt-out settings as well as alternate email address settings for all users by editing a user's profile.
  • Zoom meetings must be configured to record to the Cloud and NOT to the local machine.

    NOTE: EchoVideo does not REMOVE recordings from the Zoom Cloud. EchoVideo simply copies the recordings to users' libraries, meaning they will be resident in both places until removed. For this reason, you may want to adjust your recording retention settings in Zoom to reduce storage.

See below for the other recommended settings and priority order for EchoVideo ingest of Zoom recordings. As an administrator of the Zoom account, you can set these at the account level as defaults, to reduce the potential for user configuration error.

The limitations of the Zoom integration are:

  • While multiple parts of a meeting (part 1/3, part 2/3, and part 3/3) will be ingested into EchoVideo, they are still separate files/recordings; they are not "stitched" together. This applies to instances where the recording was stopped and restarted multiple times WITHIN a meeting instance.
  • EchoVideo can only ingest ONE of the recording file types, even if multiple file types exist for each meeting. For example, there might be an MP4 (video) and an M4A (audio) file generated by Zoom separately, but EchoVideo will pull only one of those. See below for the recording type order used.
  • If your Zoom meetings include transcripts and you are using the EchoVideo ASR transcription service for media, EchoVideo will NOT automatically send the Zoom meetings for ASR transcripts. Administrators can request ASR transcripts for individual Zoom recordings if necessary. See also Enabling or Disabling Zoom Transcript Ingestion.
  • Zoom meetings greater than 8 hours will not be copied into EchoVideo. Those must be manually downloaded/uploaded into EchoVideo if appropriate.
  • Zoom recordings greater than 5GB will not be copied into EchoVideo. Those must be manually downloaded/uploaded into EchoVideo if appropriate.
  • As stated in the requirements list, if the user making the Zoom recording (meeting host or owner) does not have an email address that matches their EchoVideo email address or a configured alternate Zoom email address, the recording will not be auto-copied into EchoVideo.

Integration configuration is on the system side and must be done by the EchoVideo Admin and Zoom Account Admin. If you really want to know the details of how it works, see How Zoom Integration Works at the bottom of this page. Also be sure to refer users to the Zoom Integration for Instructors article, to ensure they are aware of the integration and what they may need to do to make it work (depending on the Zoom configuration, very little).

This video provides a quick (less than 1 min) overview of the procedural steps shown on this page for Zoom integration. After configuration, see Step 3: Enable Cloud Recordings of Zoom Meetings below, to ensure your Zoom account users' meetings can be recorded to the Zoom cloud.

Step 1: Generate Zoom Configuration Token

The EchoVideo configuration is simply to generate a Zoom Token to use in the EchoVideo App in Zoom. The token authorizes Zoom to copy recordings into EchoVideo and identifies the institution to which the recording belongs.

If you have an existing Zoom configuration and need to UPGRADE it for new features, see Upgrading Your Zoom Integration. You do NOT need to remove and re-add your existing token for upgrading.

To generate a Zoom configuration token

  1. Log into EchoVideo as an administrator.
  2. Click the Settings icon in the upper-right corner of the screen.
  3. From the Settings menu, select Institution Settings.

    General settings appears and Basic Info is selected by default.

  4. Click Integration.
  5. Select Zoom.
    EchoVideo Integration page with navigation and Zoom configuration option identified as described
  6. Click Add Configuration.
    The Create Zoom Configuration dialog box appears.
    Create Zoom Configuration dialog box with fields for steps as described
  7. Give the configuration a name. If you are integrating a single Zoom account, you can simply identify this as the Zoom account. If you have multiple Zoom accounts, be sure to name the configuration appropriately.
  8. Click Save.

The configuration entry appears with the Name and a Configuration Token. Click the Copy icon to copy the token value for the next procedure.
Zoom Configuration page in EchoVideo with Zoom token for copying and Zoom Marketplace button identified

Step 2: Install and Configure the EchoVideo App

As stated above, the EchoVideo App for Zoom is simply an integration and NOT an "app" in the more common sense of the term. When you "install" the EchoVideo app for Zoom, you are simply adding the app and its integration capabilities to your Zoom account.

If you have an existing Zoom configuration and need to UPGRADE it for new features, see Upgrading Your Zoom Integration.

To install/configure the EchoVideo app for Zoom

  1. From the EchoVideo Zoom configuration page, click the Zoom Marketplace button.
  2. On the EchoVideo App page that appears, click Sign in to Add.
  3. Log into your Zoom account as a Zoom account administrator.
  4. Click Agree to indicate that you have read and agree to Zoom's Marketplace Terms of Use.
  5. On the EchoVideo App page, click Add.
  6. When prompted, paste the Zoom configuration token copied from EchoVideo.
  7. Complete installation/configuration steps as requested by Zoom.

If you want to ensure that future Zoom recordings by your account users are recorded to the Cloud instead of locally, consider setting Record to Cloud as the meeting default in Zoom (see Step 3 below). Recordings to the local machine cannot be automatically uploaded to EchoVideo via this integration. Users can manually upload these recordings if appropriate.

Note that existing recordings in the cloud will NOT be ingested by EchoVideo; only newly generated Zoom cloud recordings will have automatic upload applied to them.

Step 3: Enable Cloud Recordings of Zoom Meetings

Zoom administrators may want to configure your account so that all Zoom recordings are automatically recorded to the Cloud (which allows EchoVideo to retrieve the copy automatically). There is also an option to lock the Cloud setting so that users cannot change it to record locally.

Individual Instructors can also "opt out" of the automatic meeting ingestion. So you as the administrator can set all Zoom recordings to be recorded to the cloud for automatic ingestion, but Instructors can restrict EchoVideo from retrieving THEIR meeting recordings as needed. This is done through each user's Account settings page.

To enable (and/or force) cloud recordings of Zoom meetings:

  1. Log in to your Zoom account as an administrator.
  2. Click Account Settings.
  3. Navigate to the Recording tab and enable (or verify) the Cloud Recording setting.
  4. (Optional) To make this setting mandatory and un-editable by users in your account, click the Lock icon then click Lock to confirm the setting.

Users initiating new Zoom meetings or engaging in scheduled ones will now have their recordings automatically posted to the Cloud (or will have the option).

Zoom app recording options with Record to the Cloud identified

Recording to the cloud is required for EchoVideo to automatically obtain the recordings.

Cloud Recording Settings and Order of Ingest

Zoom Cloud recording has several options for recording settings, as shown in the below figure. Be sure you have Cloud recording enabled or EchoVideo cannot retrieve the recordings.

Besides the video recording settings discussed below, if your Zoom license provides them, be sure to enable Audio transcript for your Zoom Cloud Recording settings. EchoVideo will automatically ingest the transcript file with the meeting recording if one exists.

For the normal two-channel "speaker view with display/shared screen" experience, be sure to enable Record active speaker with shared screen option. This is enabled in the below figure.

Zoom recording settings page with navigation and settings identified as described

While the shared screen with speaker view is normally selected, you can select others. EchoVideo has a priority level for retrieving these recordings from Zoom, in that we only pull in one type for each meeting recording. That priority is:

  • Shared screen with speaker view: MP4 file with audio and video showing both active speaker view and shared content
  • Shared Screen: MP4 file with audio and video showing the shared screen only
  • Shared screen with gallery view: MP4 file with audio and video showing both gallery view and shared content
  • Active Speaker: MP4 file with audio and video showing the active speaker view only
  • Gallery View: MP4 file with audio and video showing the gallery view only

Finally, EchoVideo WILL retrieve multiple parts of a single meeting instance. This means that if the meeting recording has to be stopped and restarted, either by accident or because of technical issues for users, EchoVideo sees that the meeting has separate parts and will pull all parts (of the same recording type). For example, a class recording has three parts; EchoVideo sees Part 1/3, Part 2/3, and Part 3/3 and pulls all three recordings, processes them, and places them in the host's library.

If you have enabled "Record active speaker, gallery view, and shared screen separately", be sure you ALSO have one of the above-listed options enabled. EchoVideo can only pull a single recording type for any given meeting. If you are recording the speaker, gallery view, and shared screen separately, the ingest will have only ONE of these three recordings.

Publish all meeting parts to linked sections

Users now have the option to set a minimum duration for all recorded meeting parts from Zoom. This setting will publish all recordings of the specified length between pauses.

NOTE: The minimum duration is only applied if "Publish all meeting parts to linked sections" is enabled and, once enabled, will only apply to meetings that have multiple segments. Meetings without multiple segments shorter than the minimum duration will still be ingested and published.

To enable publishing all meeting parts to a linked section:

  1. Log into EchoVideo as an administrator.
  2. Click the Settings icon in the upper-right corner of the screen.
  3. From the Settings menu, select Institution Settings.

    General settings appears and Basic Info is selected by default.

  4. Click Integration.
    Settings and Institution Settings identified
  5. Navigate to Zoom and enable the Publish all meeting parts to linked sections toggle, as shown in the figure below. Navigation to Publish all meeting parts toggle as described
  6. Click Save.

With this enabled, users will now have meeting parts of the specified length of time automatically posted to the Cloud.

How Zoom Integration Works

So you wanna know the details! Okay then, here goes.

The EchoVideo App is basically a "listener" in Zoom. Whenever a cloud recording is complete for a Zoom account where an EchoVideo App is installed, Zoom sends the EchoVideo App a message with "Hey, there's a completed recording here." This is why only cloud recordings of Zoom meetings will work.

The EchoVideo App knows what institution it needs to be talking to because of the Zoom Configuration token. The EchoVideo App looks at the recording and looks at the Zoom account the recording is associated with (the Zoom user logged in or to whom the meeting belongs). If that account has the same email address as a user in the EchoVideo institution, the app pulls the recording and uploads it into EchoVideo, with that user as the owner of the media. That user will see the recording in their Library. Admins can, as always, see all recordings in their institution.

If the app cannot find a matching user-email address in the institution, it will ignore the recording. Users can download the Zoom recordings and upload them into EchoVideo if appropriate. This means that if your Zoom users have generic Zoom logins they use, rather than ones specific to them, you will want to create corresponding users in EchoVideo (using the generic login email address) to 'receive' these recordings. As an Administrator, you may need to change the ownership to an actual EchoVideo user, or publish the recordings on request, if the generic user(s) are not actual people.

Finally, as stated earlier on this page, EchoVideo can pull only one type of recording for each meeting and uses the priority listed above. If the meeting has multiple "parts", EchoVideo will ingest all of the parts of the single meeting, of the same type. So if a meeting recording was stopped and restarted DURING THE SAME MEETING INSTANCE, all recorded parts are pulled into EchoVideo for that user. Those parts are not consolidated; they exist as separate files/media.