API: Webinars, user email addresses, and filtering out past meetings

API and Webhooks
1

I have the API Partner plan and have four questions/comments after working on it.

  1.  Can we add an API service to change the user’s email address?  While I could issue an API call to delete, then re-add, the user, that deletes all of their scheduled meetings, which isn’t going to work for me.

  2. Is the email address I enter for a user in Zoom via the Cust Create User API (https://zoom.us/developer/overview/rest-user-api#api_user_custcreate_panel) used for anything on Zoom’s side?  Do you send emails when meetings are coming up, or anything else? 

  3. Can both the List Meetings and List Webinars APIs add the ability to filter by the meeting status?  Right now, my customers have to delete past meetings. They don’t go away automatically.

  4. I am set up and paying for the the Webinars API, but it is not allowing me to add webinar access to any of the users I create via the Cust Create User API.  I am making a call to the Update User Info API and setting enable_webinar to true and webinar_capacity to 100 on a test user of mine and the user isn’t updating. When I try the same via the Zoom web console, I get an error saying “You can add max 1 Webinar 500 users”.  Also I can only choose 500 users. My understanding is the API Partner plan gives access to meetings and webinars if I pay the appropriate fees, but I am charged per minute, not per user. However, this looks like I am being charged per minute but am limited to one user having the webinar.  Is my account set up incorrectly?

2

Hi Greg,

  1. We don’t support changing users’ email via API anymore due to security concerns, the customers may change their email address on web page.

  2. Users created via custcreate API don’t get meeting reminders, however, they get webinar reminders.

 

3. We’ve noted this down as a feature request in our development plan.

 

  1. You need to increase your Webinar Plan hosts i.e. webinar licenses; Webinar licenses are different from users and meeting minutes. If you need to add more than 500 users in a webinar you’ll need to upgrade your webinar users to 1000.

Best,
Ammar

3

Hi Ammar, thanks for the quick response.

  1.  Can you describe the security concerns?  My product already maintains customer email addresses, and my understanding is the customer has no access to log into Zoom directly so they are not able to change their email.  Without being able to update email, I am forced to either 1) allow the email addresses to get out of date in Zoom over time as my customers change email addresses; or 2) delete my customer’s Zoom accounts, which also deletes their scheduled meetings in order to recreate the account.  I don’t understand why changing email address is a security concern when I am able to delete and re-add the account with the new email address, which accomplishes the equivalent but with the detrimental side effect of deleting all of the user’s scheduled meetings.

  2. Thanks.

  3. Thanks.

  4. How does the webinar plan work?  Am I required to pay the full webinar license fee for each host I offer?  My understanding was that the webinar plan was just like the meeting plan, in that my customers could just all share minutes and there could be any number of hosts hosting any number of webinars.  But, it sounds like I have to purchase one webinar seat per person at full price, yet have to pay per minute. That doesn’t make any sense to me from a customer standpoint so I suspect I don’t understand how it works.

4

Hi Greg:

  • Regarding the security concern - I assume you are using /user/create API - if we let users update e-mail address in an existing account, we have no way of validating the e-mail in our existing workflow. For instance, I could update my account with someone else’s e-mail address. We do the validation only at the time of account creation. We could change our update flow so that we let users update the e-mail but the account will not be in active state until the user validates the account from the new e-mail address - let us know if this will work for your use case 

  • For webinars, you need to get a license per host.  Webinar usage will not be counted towards the per minute usage since you are paying for it already with the license. The per minute usage applies only to the meetings. We will clarify this in our documentation as well. sorry for the confusion. 

Thanks, Wei

5

Thank you for the reply.

I am using the Cust Create User, not the Create User. Does that make any difference? The main concern I have is that, when my customers change their email address, it requires me to delete their account first, which then erases scheduled meetings. But it doesn’t really matter if you’re not using email for anything. I can just submit a fake email address then and not have to be concerned with this.

Thanks for the info about the webinars. I would be interested in a non named seat option for those if you’re taking future product ideas.

Are the large meetings also on a named user basis or are they just like regular meetings?

6

Greg, we don’t send notification e-mails for user accounts created with APIs with one  exception.  When the meeting is created with “Join Before Host” option, Zoom will send an e-mail notification if the attendee is waiting in the room (before the host joins). 

We took a note of your feature request. 

Large meetings are add-ons as well. You need the license but again that will not be counted against your usage minutes. 

Regards, Wei

7

Ok, thanks. I can proceed without updating email addressees but if you ever do that, I’d appreciate it. What’s the best way to keep up to date on new features and updates to the API?

8

Also is there any way to temporarily disable a user? For example if someone is past due on their account with me, can I prevent them from using Zoom without deleting their Zoom user?

9

Hi Greg,

Best way to stay posted on API changes and updates is to check the release notes.

The feature to deactivate users is currently in development phase and shall be available early April 2017.

Cheers,
Ammar

10

Hi, one more question. I see there is a “delete user” API service as well as a “delete user permanently” service.  What do I use each one for?  Also, is there an undelete for the non-permanent deletion? 

11

Hi Greg,

The delete API would remove the user from under your account; the user account would then exist as a separate entity, unlinked to your account and the user would still be able to login to Zoom. Currently, this action is irreversible.

The permanentdelete API would delete the user account from Zoom; clearing all access for the account.

Best,
Ammar