In the wake of the pandemic in 2020, we saw a significant surge in the use of video conferencing tools to hold meetings and a resultant increase in remote working. Many have even regarded it as the new norm.
Zoom is the most popular and widely used among the several video conferencing platforms available. Ever since the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the application has seen a constant rise in daily usage. Zoom stats reveal that the app currently has annual meeting minutes of 3.3 trillion and a record of 300 million daily meeting participants.
Even with the high numbers, you’ll still find out that many people barely make the most out of Zoom meetings. What the majority of us know are the basic features. Meanwhile, there’s more to Zoom than just virtual conferencing.
Better still, there are plentiful add-ons or extensions that help improve your Zoom usage experience. This article discusses in detail Zoom features and the best Zoom add-ons that can bolster your virtual meeting experience.
What features does Zoom currently offer?
Before discussing the best Zoom add-ons, let’s start by examining the features that the popular video conferencing app offers its users.
Schedule meetings: Zoom allows you to schedule meetings and send invitations to proposed participants. That way, everyone is informed of the meeting before the scheduled date and time.
Audio and Video recording: Zoom allows you to enjoy meeting virtually with your team using the audio component. That’s if you don’t want to have your cameras on.
For a more personal experience, you can have participants turn on their cameras when speaking and even when they’re not. This feature allows you to see and communicate with one another like it’s a physical meeting.
Mute options: During Zoom meetings, when participants are not speaking, the host often advises them to mute their mics to avoid background noises/sounds in their environment from interrupting the meeting.
Better still, the host can mute every participant at once or mute someone on entry. This is a more favorable option if you want to block out possible interruptions from participants.
Lock meetings: This feature allows you to lock meetings, thus preventing new participants from joining. You can lock a meeting when you’ve reached a participant limit you set for your meeting.
Instant messaging: Zoom is a three-in-one communication software. Like other instant messaging apps like WhatsApp or Facebook, you can communicate via messages. You can exchange messages during a meeting or outside one.
You can send messages to all participants or specific ones in a meeting. This allows you to have personal interactions with peers even when the call is ongoing. You can even share files with one another.
Waiting room: If you wish to control who comes into your meeting and when you can utilize the waiting room feature on Zoom. With this feature activated, persons who wish to join are not automatically allowed into the meeting. Instead, they’re moved to a waiting room, allowing you (the host) to admit participants into the meeting - one at a time or all at once.
Breakout rooms: This is an interesting feature. It allows you to hold private conversations with a specific person or group while a meeting is ongoing. In other words, you can have a separate meeting within a meeting. What’s more, you can create multiple breakout rooms during a meeting.
Record meetings: Zoom allows you to record meetings and watch them later. The recording is saved as a file on your computer, and you can share it with others or upload it to a storage service such as Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.
Whiteboards: Zoom Whiteboards is a recently-built feature that fosters team collaboration in an ongoing meeting. When teams have physical meetings, they often use large visible boards to make notes and draft ideas.
With the new whiteboard feature, you can bring this experience to your virtual meetings on Zoom. Members of the team can effectively collaborate by using the whiteboard to brainstorm and share ideas. What’s more, notes and visualizations made on the whiteboard are accessible anytime.
17 best Zoom add-ons you should try
Why do you need Zoom add-ons? You might ask.
Essentially, Zoom extensions improve the quality of your meetings. It allows you to do more with Zoom. With these extensions, you can combine features of your favorite productivity software with that of Zoom to provide you with a wholesome meeting experience.
Another fascinating thing is these Zoom add-ons are simple and easy to use. You don’t necessarily need technical knowledge to utilize them. With simple steps, you can easily set up the extensions and customize them to suit your needs, thus enhancing your productivity.
Let’s explore some of the best Zoom add-ons out there. Take your Zoom meeting experience to the next level with Zoom add-ons. Here’s a list to start with:
Krisp
Airgram
Asana App for Zoom
Canva
Google Calendar
Gmail
Slack
Wix
Docket
LinkedIn Video Meetings
Panopto
Zapier
Dropbox Spaces
Snap Camera
Zoom for Hubspot
Circles
Zylo
Krisp: Great for canceling background noise
Having trouble with background noise interruptions during your Zoom meetings? Want it to go away?
Worry no more. Krisp is an AI-powered software that lets you shut out unwanted background noise, thus limiting distractions during your meetings. You can use the software independently. Alternatively, you can combine it with Zoom’s in-built noise suppression features.
What’s more, it’s available for use on both Mac and Windows computers.
Airgram: Create agenda, transcribe meetings and take notes
Airgram aims to help teams have a shorter, smoother meeting workflow. If you have trouble using the Zoom record feature, you can consider Airgram. It allows you to record meetings no matter how long, and share clips with your team members.
It allows you to create agendas for your meetings that you can share with your team ahead of the meeting. Airgram has a feature that helps you transcribeyour meeting word for word during the meeting. You can equally take collaborative notes with your team using this interesting Zoom add-on.
To get started, access the extension on the marketplace or sign up through Airgram's official site.
Asana for Zoom: Create tasks and action plans during meetings
With this Zoom add-on, you can have more purposeful and focused meetings. How?
The Zoom + Asana integration allows you to adequately prepare for meetings and create actionable plans during meetings. Further, you can access created tasks and plans after the meeting has ended.
Meetings are automatically recorded when you use this add-on. Once the meeting is over, the meeting transcript becomes easily accessible to you and your team.
Want to explore this Zoom extension?
Canva: Explore creative backgrounds for your Zoom meetings
Yes, Zoom has an in-built virtual background feature that lets participants choose from several images to use as their background - Canva.
What if I told you you could create your own designs to use as a virtual background for your Zoom meeting. There are several Zoom virtual background templates for you to explore if creating yours seems like a task.
The fun and quirky template options available can add a friendly touch to your Zoom meetings. Eliciting a few smiles from participants before going right into the business of the day is an excellent way to start a meeting.
Google Calendar: Great for scheduling and organizing meetings
Google Calendar is a common productivity app people use for creating and organizing their daily and weekly schedules.
You can integrate your Zoom into your Google Calendar. This integration allows you to directly schedule and manage Zoom meetings from the Calendar. Once you click on the meeting link in the Calendar, your meeting opens up automatically without you having to launch the app.
Google Calendar also sends notifications to you and invitees when the meeting is about to start.
Gmail: Schedule and start your meetings from within the app
Gmail is a Google app designed for sending and receiving emails.
With the Zoom Gmail add-on, you can schedule Zoom meetings within the app without having to launch the Zoom app. When creating a meeting with this integration, you can invite participants by simply adding their emails to the meeting.
When it’s time for your meeting, you can also launch from the Gmail app. Moreover, you can do all these with your desktop and mobile devices.
Slack: Great for workplace collaboration
Slack is a popular collaborative messaging app designed specifically for the workplace. It’s like WhatsApp, but for work. Teams use slack to communicate, assign tasks, and work together.
Integrating Zoom and Slack makes it easier for you to create and start meetings directly from the Slack app. The add-on lets you take note of who leaves and joins a call. You get a meeting summary at the end of your meeting and access to the meeting recording.
Wix: Create and start meetings on the go
Wix is a software application used to create professional websites for yourself or your business with templates. However, it has extended its services to allow users to create online meetings using the Zoom + Wix integration.
Integrating Zoom into your website helps you establish direct lines of communication with your customers for scheduling meetings and other activities.
It lets you host webinars, seminars, or meetings immediately and online. You can automatically generate individual zoom meetings for each session and manage your reservations with a "zoom meeting" option for your clients.
Docket: Great for team collaboration and productivity
Docket lets you create agendas for your meetings and organize your tasks in a calendar. It’s an excellent tool for team collaboration in the workplace.
Docket for Zoom is even much better. It combines the features of Docket with Zoom’s video conferencing feature. This integration enables you to create a meeting agenda, share it with your team, who can make adjustments, and with one click proceed to your scheduled meeting. The best part is you can do all of these without switching between tabs.
You will receive a notification or reminder to start or join when it's time for your meeting. If your team runs heavily on virtual meetings, you should definitely try this Zoom extension.
LinkedIn Video Meetings: Create meetings directly from LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a social network for professionals, job seekers, and business owners. While networking with someone on the app, you might want to schedule or switch to a Zoom meeting.
This Zoom add-on saves you time. Instead of switching to the Zoom app to create a meeting, you can schedule a meeting directly through your LinkedIn messages. If the meeting is scheduled for later, you can join the meeting with just one click from your messages.
Panopto: Best for storing and managing Zoom recordings
Panopto is a secure portal for sharing and managing videos. The Zoom and Panopto integration help you make the most of your Zoom recordings. There’s so much you can do with your Zoom recordings.
This Zoom add-on has storage that allows you to organize your Zoom recordings however you wish. It lets you edit the recordings, share them with people who didn’t attend and access the meeting transcript.
That’s not all. One fascinating feature is that with this Zoom extension, you can search through your recordings using keywords; it also lets you bookmark key moments in the video so that you can easily refer to them.
Zapier: Do more with Zoom by combining apps
Zapier is an online automation tool that lets you combine the features and services of different apps to give you a vast integrated experience.
With Zapier, you can use the apps you frequently use with Zoom. Because there are over 1500 integrations you can use for Zoom on Zapier, there are countless activities you can do with this Zoom add-on.
Essentially, you can automate tasks like participant registration for webinars, access vital information about participants, automatically send invitations when creating a meeting, etc. With Zapier, you can manage meeting participants by delegating them to respective breakout rooms and assigning designated interpreters for each group.
Dropbox Spaces: Effectively store and organize meeting files
Dropbox is a popular file-sharing app. But when you combine it with Zoom, it becomes much more.
Dropbox Spaces allows you to store and organize your meeting notes, files, and recordings. Before your meeting, you can create an agenda and share it with your team or other participants. The recipients can view and add inputs to the agenda. This helps your team have a sense of what the meeting is about ahead of time.
During your meeting, you can take notes which are easily accessible afterward. This Zoom extension gives you and your team a preview of upcoming meetings and also lets you assign tasks during your meetings. Help your team stay on top of their game with Dropbox Spaces.
Snap Camera: Spice up your meetings with fun and quirky filters
Tired of dull and unexciting meetings? Want to add a little spice to your meeting to make it fun for everyone?
Then you should definitely check out Snap Camera. It’s a Zoom add-on that lets you add filters to your Snapchat filters and exciting backgrounds to your Zoom meeting. It helps you and your team take a break from all the seriousness that comes with formal meetings.
Another way to maximize this extension is to use it as an icebreaker for your meetings. It may be a little distracting to have funny filters on your screens all through the meeting, so you can leave it as a meeting starter. It helps you elicit a few laughs and smiles, thus lightening the mood before proceeding to the serious part.
One thing is for sure; Snap Camera makes your meeting more lively!
Zoom for Hubspot: Good for marketing and customer management
Hubspot is a leading customer relationship management (CRM) platform for marketing, sales, content management, and customer service. It has a Zoom integration which means you can do more with it.
Zoom for Hubspot lets you automatically send dial-in and conference call details to your prospects on Hubspot. Not only that, you can also transform every meeting booked on Hubspot into a Zoom meeting.
What’s more? You can promote your Zoom webinars using Hubspots workflows. How? This Zoom add-on automatically creates a person into a Hubspot contact when they register for your Zoom webinar. Then, you can send automated reminders for your events, follow-up emails, and much more.
Finally, you can monitor your Zoom webinar attendance using this Zoom extension. You can see when someone registers and attends your event, and how long they stay. You can also view your Zoom recordings.
Circles: Increase work productivity while on Zoom calls
Do you ever have that feeling when you’re in a meeting that you should or could be doing something else? Sometimes, meetings are unnecessary in some situations. And they’re only a waste of precious time that could be spent on doing something more productive.
This Zoom add-on - Circles - recognises that and helps you to stay on top of your work even while attending a Zoom meeting. Essentially, you can multitask during a Zoom call with Circles.
Here’s how it works: during a Zoom meeting, participants are reduced into small circles, thus making your desktop available to use. This way, you have the freedom to do other productive things while the meeting is ongoing.
Zylo: Best for getting meeting metrics
If you want to get accurate metrics of your Zoom meetings, look no further than Zylo. It’s a Saas management platform and it can help you improve meeting productivity.
With Zylo,you can monitor your meeting metrics like how long you spend on meetings, number of participants, engagement levels, etc. With this data, you can determine the right Zoom subscription package to suit your company’s needs.
Michael started his career as a product manager and then developed a passion for writing. He has been writing on technology, remote working, productivity, etc., hoping to share his thoughts with more people.
