Zoom:Schedule & Invite others to a meeting

A Zoom meeting is a virtual space that replicates a real life meeting room. Just as in real life, you can open the door and allow your invitees to enter for a meeting using audio-visual technology. Once the software has already been downloaded onto your computer or smartphone (many of which now come with the program in advance), you have an online account and your internet connection is sufficiently reliable, you can proceed. 

You can schedule meetings and then invite clients to them, even with a free account. However, less options are available to free accounts, the most notable of which is meeting duration. Free meetings can only last to 40 minutes (as at 2023). This post lists the steps for scheduling a meeting room and inviting others.

Schedule a meeting room

• Open the program. (Once in the 'Home' section, you should see options like New meeting, Join, Schedule and Share screen)
• Click 'Schedule' and make the following selections and entries.
• Topic: Create a name that makes sense to your audience.
• Start: 
• Set the time zone (according to the time you have entered in the 'start' field)
• Duration: Set this a little over your expected duration because the meeting will be ended when the time expires. The free version has a time limit of roughly 40 minutes.
• Meeting ID: 
• generate automatically. Use this option most times. It generates a unique meeting room ID each time.
• personal meeting ID (PMI). This is a fixed code of roughly 10 digits that is essentially like the key to a permanent office. Giving others this code gives them permission to re-enter at will, at any point. Other analogies are that the PMI is the front door access passcode  to your office space or a perpetually open door to a public space. As a default setting, once you choose this option, you can also select to have a 'waiting room'. A waiting room is much like any real life waiting room you encounter at a doctor's office, in that is a filter to you. As with a brick and mortar office, the host sees who is in the waiting room and admits only those visitors he or she wants to join the meeting. Needless to say, avoid sharing the PMI widely or on social media. Uses:
• A fixed virtual room for frequent or recurring meetings, like classes or church.
• Quick conversations that you have with the same people, like family or friends.
• Security. Think of this function in the same way you would a brick and mortar office. Will you require people to have a key to the front door, should they wait in a general reception area until invited them into a private area? 
• Passcode.
• Waiting room. The waiting room is an option
• Video. (For recording meetings audio-visually, make selections in the 'advanced options' below or make the selection within the meeting room.)
• Calendar. Which ever you use will automatically switch to your time zone if the selected time zone you selected above is different.
• Advanced options.
• Automatically record meeting on the local computer. This option is usually the only option for free accounts. Alternatively, paid accounts have the option to save meetings in the Zoom cloud.
• Approve of block entry from specific countries / regions.
• Save (You will receive a prompt to enter into your calendar.) 

Invite others to a meeting

You can find all of the meetings that you created in a list within the 'Meetings' window. It allows you to see 2 lists: one of meetings that are upcoming and those that have already occurred and recorded.

• Make the following selections. 
• 'Meetings' (top navigation menu) > 'Upcoming' slider > Meeting of interest > Show meeting invitation (to see the contents of the invitation) > 'Copy invitation' button (to copy the text)
• Paste the invitation into correspondence for meeting attendees.

Sample invitation(s).

IMPORTANT LOGIN INFORMATION

We are excited for you to join the LIVE online reading with [.........your name........]. Below is your login information. Please keep this information safe, you will need it the day of the event.

The meeting begins on Monday, December 7th, 2025 at 2:00pm Eastern Standard Time.

You can join using your smart phone, tablet or computer. Since it is LIVE please be sure that you are seated and ready at your computer or phone for when the broadcast begins.

We recommend you logging in at least 10 mins before the event.

Your Event Confirmation & Login Information Here:

1. Click Here To Enter The Event
2. Download The ZOOM Program or App. 
3. Enter Meeting ID: 123 4567 8901 | Password: 1234 (Only Enter If Asked) 
4. Click ' Join Using Computer Audio' 

That's it! You are all set!

IMPORTANT: This is your personal login information. DO NOT share it as someone else could login and prevent you from attending. 

The event will begin promptly. Please double check the date and time on your ticket. All event times reflect eastern standard time unless otherwise noted. This is the same time zone as New York City. For help converting your time zone, Click Here. [................]

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Although we use the Zoom platform, this is unlike a Zoom Call that you may have attended previously. 

It is a pay-per-view online webinar that allows you to have the same experience of attending a LIVE show with [.........your name........] just from home. This event is approximately 90 mins long. Please plan accordingly.

We have 10-12 video blocks that are positioned on the screen and audience members will be chosen at random and cycled through. You will notice that different audience members will appear at random throughout the show. 

Clients prefer that we not have everyone’s video up on the screen all at once to avoid overwhelm child presenters. You can however click the ‘Raise Hand’ button to inform our production team that you would like to appear on screen for a reading.

Some guests will have their cameras and mics turn on, others won't. Attending this event does not guarantee a chance to speak. 

Your video and audio will only turn on if your team is selected. There is no way that you can turn it off or on by yourself. We will do it for you when you are chosen.

Just like at a LIVE in-person seminar, teams will be selected at random to present with [.........your name........]. He will focus on the project details that can help the audience in the moment.

NOTE: [.........your brand name........] does not allow recording of any kind by participants. 

CONTENT RELATED TO ZOOM MEETINGS: SCHEDULING A MEETING

• Zoom:Schedule & Invite others to a meeting (this page)
• Run a test Zoom meeting