The Zoom integration lets you configure Runbooks to spin up a Zoom conference bridge for your team to use during incidents.

Prerequisites

  • You'll need Owner permissions in FireHydrant to configure integrations
  • You'll need a service account/user with Developer privileges in Zoom

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Note:

FireHydrant recommends using a generic service account/user to authorize the integration with Zoom. This is to prevent potential problems with tethering to specific named users in the case their accounts are decommissioned from e.g., departure.

Installing the Zoom OAuth integration

Zoom app tile in the integrations list

Zoom app tile in the integrations list

  1. Go to FireHydrant's Integrations page search for the Zoom app. Click the '+'.
  2. Click Authorize Application.  This will take you to the Zoom login page.
  3. Check "Allow this app to use my shared access permissions." Follow through the rest of the on-screen prompts to authorize the FireHydrant integration.
  4. You're all set!

Linking Individual Accounts

With Zoom, meetings are created under individual users. This can sometimes cause problems if the default authorized user you set up the integration with doesn't have enough concurrent meeting licenses.

FireHydrant combats this by attempting to create meeting bridges under each incident opener's email/ID. But for FireHydrant to do this, users must individually go to their User Settings and link their Zoom accounts to their FireHydrant account. Each user should:

User Profile settings

User Profile settings

  1. Click their user profile dropdown on the top right corner and then Profile.
  2. On this page, scroll down to the Linked Accounts section and locate the Link Zoom button. This will take the user to another screen where FireHydrant requests additional permissions in Zoom (e.g., to create meetings as them). Once this is done, they should see a checkmark indicating their user accounts have been linked between the two platforms.
User account linking page for a specific organization

User account linking page for a specific organization

When this is finished, FireHydrant will automatically create Zoom bridges with this user as the host if they open the incident. If this fails, FireHydrant will fall back to the Default Authorized User, which you can find in the Zoom integration settings.

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Note:

We recommend considering Zoom's Concurrent Meeting licenses for your Default Authorized User in the off-chance multiple incidents/Zooms are kicked off under this user.

Recommended Zoom Settings

The following settings are recommended for the default authorized user and in some cases, for other users who may be creating incidents and spinning up Zoom meetings.

Personal Meeting ID

To avoid meeting conflicts, ensure that the Zoom account of the default authorized user has the Personal Meeting ID scheduling option disabled. To disable it:

  1. As the user, sign in to Zoom
  2. Go to Settings
  3. Make sure Use Personal Meeting ID (PMI) when scheduling a meeting and Use Personal Meeting ID (PMI) when starting an instant meeting are both DISABLED.

If these settings are enabled, the same Zoom meeting ID will be used for each incident, causing collisions if multiple incidents are in play simultaneously.

Ensure Personal Meeting ID is OFF for the default authorized user

Ensure Personal Meeting ID is OFF for the default authorized user

Waiting Room and Host

You'll also want to allow users to join the meeting before the host and turn off the Waiting Room feature in Zoom. If you don't do this, your incident responders may be stuck waiting for the meeting creator to join the meeting and admit them into the call.

Ensure participants are allowed to join the call before host

Ensure participants are allowed to join the call before host

Ensure the waiting room is turned OFF

Ensure the waiting room is turned OFF

Uninstalling the Zoom integration

  1. To remove the Zoom OAuth integration, navigate to the Zoom settings page in the integrations list and click Uninstall Zoom.
  2. In addition, in Zoom, you will want to navigate to your app marketplace and then remove the FireHydrant app from your organization.
Removing the FireHydrant app from your Zoom marketplace

Removing the FireHydrant app from your Zoom marketplace

Next Steps

Zoom Troubleshooting

Org-Level Settings

Zoom allows meeting settings at multiple levels: individual, user group, and organization-wide.

If these settings above are not working as expected, or you cannot configure them for users, you may want to reach out to your Zoom administrator to understand if any group-level or organization-level settings override individual settings.

See Zoom's documentation here.

Breakout Rooms

Currently, Zoom's API does not have breakout rooms capability, so FireHydrant cannot set this from our side programmatically.

Users must manually configure and set up Breakout Rooms when they join the meeting.

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Note:

As mentioned in above documentation, FireHydrant will default to the host's settings, so if they have Breakout Rooms enabled, then the capability should be available once your responders have joined the meeting. If you're still not seeing this, check that there aren't org-level settings overriding your user-level settings in Zoom, and that you've linked your FireHydrant and Zoom accounts.

Passcode Enforcement

FireHydrant requests a passcode when making the API call to Zoom. However, it is up to the organization in Zoom's settings to actually enforce this. If you are finding some users can join incident bridges without a passcode:

  • Check that there aren't organization-level rules that allow users to join meetings without passcodes in Zoom
  • Check that there aren't individual users who have been allowed to bypass these passcode requirements in Zoom

Zoom Concurrent Meetings & Pricing Plans

The default behavior on FireHydrant is as follows:

  • Use the user email/ID of the incident opener.
  • Fallback to default authorized user if the incident opener does not exist or if FireHydrant cannot otherwise designate the opener as the Host.

Meetings on Zoom are always created under a specific host. This can sometimes cause issues, as Zoom by default only allows one (1) concurrent meeting per user on Free and Pro plans, and up to two (2) concurrent meetings on Business, Education, and Enterprise pricing plans, even if the host is themselves not in the meeting(s).

However, concurrent meeting licenses can be purchased through your Zoom rep. We recommend reaching out to them to learn more about your options as they offer licenses that can support anywhere from 3-4 up to 20 concurrent meetings on a single user account.

Once procured, the license will appear in your Zoom account. Your Zoom admin can apply it to the account running the Zoom bridge by following these instructions:

  1. Go to User Management > Users from the Zoom admin console
  2. Click Edit next to the account they want to apply the license to
  3. Select the checkbox next to "Concurrent Meeting"
  4. Save

"Waiting for Host"

If you encounter an error indicating that the Zoom meeting is waiting for the host, verify the following:

"The host has another meeting in progress"

If you encounter an error about the host having another meeting in progress, verify:

  • That the host of this meeting is the person who opened the incident
    • If not, ensure that their email address in Zoom matches their email address in FireHydrant
  • That you are on a Zoom pricing plan that allows for concurrent meetings