How To Schedule A Zoom Meeting

Did you know that senior managers spend about 50% of their time in meetings each week? A lot of these meetings are happening in Zoom these days, especially since March 2020.

When you factor in scheduling, prep, and recaps, it is not a stretch to assume that many managers are spending 80% (or more) of their time doing something related to meetings.

While Zoom fatigue is a real phenomenon and more organizations could benefit from relying on more asynchronous communication, the reality is that shifting away from a 100% meeting culture is challenging and isn’t entirely in your control (if you are not the founder or CEO!).

You might not be able to get rid of many meetings, but you can reduce the amount of administrative work before the meeting. In this post, we’re sharing how to schedule a Zoom meeting as well as some tips for how you can automate the process.

How to schedule a Zoom meeting on the web

Before we dive into how to automate this process, here is a quick refresher on how to schedule calls on Zoom.

If you are new to using Zoom or don’t want to download their desktop or mobile app, then you can schedule calls right on their website.

Log into your account and click schedule a meeting at the top.

Then, you can add your meeting details, including topic, description, dates/times, timezone, etc.

Pro Tip: Another way to start and schedule Zoom meetings right within your browser is through the Zoom Scheduler Chrome Extension here.

How to schedule a Zoom meeting on the desktop app

Another way to schedule meetings is through the Zoom desktop app. On the home screen, you’ll see four options:

• New Meeting (for impromptu calls)
• Join an (existing) meeting
• Schedule a meeting
• Share screen

When you click schedule, you’ll see a screen that looks almost identical to the web interface. You can add in all of your meeting details.

How to schedule a Zoom meeting on the mobile app

If you have an iOS or Android smartphone or tablet, you can also schedule meetings directly from your mobile device.

As you can see from the screenshot below, the mobile UI looks similar to the desktop app.

Then, you can add your meeting details on the second screen.

Automate the Zoom scheduling process with SavvyCal

You might be thinking, “What’s there to even automate here?” The process of actually scheduling a meeting on Zoom, be it through their website, desktop, or mobile apps, is simple. It is just a few clicks.

However, the time-intensive part comes right before scheduling a call. It is finding a time to meet with all of the emails back and forth.

With SavvyCal, you can send personalized scheduling links that save both you and the recipient(s) time.

For example, you can set up different links depending on who you’re scheduling with. So, if it’s with your team, you could create a “working hours” availability preset vs. if it’s a meeting with an external party, you could have all of those meetings on Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays at certain times.

SavvyCal will then automatically create a Zoom meeting once an event is added to your calendar.

Here is how to set up the Zoom integration. (Note: you only need to configure this once!)

In SavvyCal, click on Settings.

Then, click on integrations and the “+” icon next to Zoom. You’ll be prompted to sign in and authenticate your Zoom account.

Once Zoom is installed, Zoom will automatically show up as “a location” option on all of your scheduling links.

Alternatively, you can install the SavvyCal app directly from the Zoom App Marketplace here.

Additional ways to save time scheduling Zoom calls

Here are some additional tips that can save you time and make you appear more professional in the process.

For starters, if you don’t want to give out your Zoom personal meeting ID (PMI) to every person you meet with (i.e. Your PMI is basically your phone number on Zoom.), you can enable this through both Zoom directly or in SavvyCal to create unique meeting IDs for each call. This is important for two reasons:

• Reduces the risk of someone “crashing” your meeting unexpectedly
• Make your Zoom account more secure from bad actors or Zoom bombers

You can also disable the waiting room for pre-scheduled calls. Here is how to do this in SavvyCal. This is helpful if you know you are going to be running late, and your meeting co-host can start the meeting without you.

You can also automatically record Zoom calls, be it to the cloud or on your call computer, which can be useful for sales demos, employee training, and podcast recordings, to name a few.

For larger meetings, you can also pre-assign people into smaller breakout rooms in Zoom.

The biggest time saver is delegating your calendar management to a virtual assistant, executive assistant, or someone else in your team, which you can do on SavvyCal’s premium plan.

Once your assistant has a SavvyCal account, you can grant them access to your calendar. They’ll be able to toggle back and forth between your calendar and their own and can manage your scheduling links, availability, basic account settings, and billing details.

Simplify the scheduling process with SavvyCal

In sum, scheduling Zoom calls shouldn’t add a lot of administrative burden to your workflow.

Ready to simplify the process of scheduling Zoom meetings? Start your free trial with SavvyCal.