Overview
This article outlines the purpose and steps to configure seamless creation and update of Zoom Virtual Classrooms for your Instructor Led Courses (ILCs) from your Absorb LMS. Essentially, you can authorize your Absorb LMS to create virtual meetings in your corporate Zoom account on behalf of an LMS Admin. The virtual meeting will be created with the Instructor as the host of a Zoom virtual classroom when creating an Instructor Led Course (ILC) Session.
Zoom Account
To facilitate your Absorb LMS creating Zoom meetings, we require that your organization have an account established with Zoom (Zoom for virtual meetings). For larger organizations with multiple Admin(s) and/or Instructor(s), each individual will also need an account associated within the larger corporate account. A Zoom Admin will also need to pre-approve the app in the Marketplace and then "Allow" the app to install/authorize.
Authorization allows Absorb to:
- Create meetings.
- Manage (update and delete) the meetings created by Absorb, and only to the extent of updating the meeting schedule/hosts based on changes to the LMS session.
- No information (User information or otherwise) is collected from Zoom at any time.
This is the extent of the Zoom setup requirements in preparation for the Integration with Absorb.
Absorb Setup
The following setup will:
- Associate your Absorb LMS with your Zoom corporate account as part of the authorization workflow.
- Create a Zoom virtual classroom associated with an Instructor’s account as part of the ILC Session creation workflow.
Authorization Workflow
Login to the Absorb admin portal as a System Admin and navigate to Portal Settings. From the Info tab of Portal Settings, click the Zoom Enable button.
Please Note: Depending on your portal settings, you may need to first turn ON the Enable Enhanced Sessions for Instructor Lead Courses toggle to reveal the Zoom settings shown above.
After clicking Enable, you will be prompted to enter the credentials of your organization’s Zoom corporate account and click Sign In.
After Sign In, you will be prompted to Allow or Decline the permissions Absorb requires to create & update meetings in your corporate Zoom account.
After clicking Allow, you will be redirected back to your Portal Settings, and a message will appear to indicate a successful connection to Zoom.
If you require further assistance, please contact your Onboarding Specialist or assigned Client Success Manager.
Virtual Classroom Creation Workflow
From the Absorb admin portal as an admin with permission to modify ILC courses, navigate to Courses. Add a new, or select an existing Instructor Led Course (ILC), then click Add Session. Select an Instructor that has an account in Zoom, this will be the host of the session.
Please Note: An Instructor is assigned as Zoom meeting host based on his/her email address. The Instructor must already have an account in Zoom with a matching email before creating or editing the Zoom session in Absorb. Please see the Troubleshooting section for more details.
You will then configure a Venue with one of the available Zoom types. You will select Zoom Meeting or Zoom Webinar, depending on which Zoom account you have and wish to use with the LMS.
Click Add Venue to add the new Zoom venue. Alternatively, you can setup the Zoom venue under Courses > Venues prior to creating the session, then choose it from the list of existing venues.
Next, choose a Class Start Date and Time and Class End Date and Time.
An informational message appears in place of your Invitation URL indicating that a Zoom virtual meeting will be created when you save the session. Click Save.
If you log into the Instructor’s Zoom account, a virtual meeting has been created.
Please Note: In Absorb, if you Edit the ILC Session, the Invitation URL (https://zoom.us/j/299351463) will be updated to match the Zoom meeting that was created.
An Admin or Instructor can launch the Zoom meeting directly from the Invitation URL hyperlink to verify the virtual classroom anytime before a Session starts.
Once all your session settings are complete, Save the Course and you are now ready to use your Zoom Meeting.
Please Note: When there are multiple hosts on the Zoom account, we sort the list of hosts by User ID, and then select the first Instructor based on that sorting to apply as the host. This process ensures that there’s a valid host for each meeting and that the hostID that we store is the same between the live and draft versions of the course.
If the currently selected host is removed as an Instructor, we complete the same sorting process again. The new host is selected using the same criteria, based on the first Instructor and sorted by User ID.
If a new Instructor is added to the Course, and this Instructor has a User ID that would appear first once sorted, the host will be changed. The new Instructor becomes the new host since their User ID would fall first in the list once sorted.
Troubleshooting
An Instructor is assigned as Zoom meeting host based on his/her email address. The Instructor must already have an account in Zoom with the same email address before creating or editing the Zoom session in Absorb. If either of the following are the case:
- The Instructor does not have an email address.
- The Instructor does not have a Zoom account with the same email address as is in Absorb.
Upon clicking Save on an ILC Session, the following error message will be displayed.
Note: Only one Instructor will be assigned to host the Zoom session, though multiple Instructors can be listed.
Zoom App Removal
Unauthorize within Absorb
To begin the removal process, you must first unauthorize the app within the Absorb app.
Note: You must be a System Admin.
Follow these steps to unauthorize the Zoom App:
Step 1: Login to the Absorb Admin Interface, and navigate to the right-hand menu. Click on the blue action button, Portal Settings.
Step 2: From the Info tab of Portal Settings, click the Zoom Disable button.
Step 3: When prompted with the confirmation modal, please select OK.
Note: Disabling Zoom can potentially cause invalid URLs to be associated with existing ILC's.
Remove the Absorb App within Zoom
- Login to your Zoom Account and navigate to the Zoom App Marketplace
- Click Manage >> Added Apps or search for the "Absorb" App
- Click the "Absorb" App
- Click Remove.