Send message to live meeting

Even I am disappointed to find that there is no API to send a message from client to host since we are planning to use a third party video streaming and still want to maintain zoom chat

Hey @kurapati.muralikrish,

This is something we plan on having in the future.

Stay updated here: https://marketplace.zoom.us/docs/changelog

Thanks,
Tommy

I also need to send a message to all active meeting participants to notify them about the remaining time before the meeting will end. The meeting will be ended via API. After spending lot of time going through the API docs, I finally found this thread with a large dose of hope, just to realise that it’s not possible.
The fact that there is no way to notify users about the remaining time is really a deal breaker for a fixed time meetings, since Zoom on it’s own doesn’t offer any coundown timer and restricting meeting duration.

@asprague I have exactly the same use case. Have you found any way to notify meeting participants about the remaining time?

Hey @bartosz.blimke,

This feature is valid, and I will bring it up to the team.

Thanks,
Tommy

Thank you @tommy, I appreciate it!

We are currently trying to pick a technology for a fixed duration video meetings, and the ability to alert all participants about the remaining time is crucial. Otherwise Zoom seems to be an ideal solution.
We don’t necessarily need ability to send messages to a meeting chat, but since Zoom client doesn’t support any other way to display countdown timer or send notifications, I thought about it as a workaround.

I know you guys are super busy these days and probably have priorities, but there is something that can be done, it would be great to understand some rough timeline of when the most basic functionality can be added e.g 1 month, 3 months, 12 months?

Hey @bartosz.blimke,

Not sure if you saw my post towards the start of this thread, but you could accomplish this via the closed captioning endpoint to display the countdown.

As for a timeline of another In Meeting Chatbot or notifications feature, rough estimate sometime next year.

Thanks,
Tommy

Hi @tommy

Thank you very much for the quick feedback on the timeline. At least we know it’s not worth waiting for these chatbot ot notifications features :slight_smile:

I have checked the closed captioning service and I believe we can work with that. Thank you for suggesting it.

In order for closed captioning solution to work for us, we need the following:

  1. Be able to fetch the https://wmcc.zoom.us/closedcaption... URL for given meeting via Rest API. Alternatively, if it can’t be fetched via API, we need to be able to generate it on our own programatically in the same way as it was generated by Zoom for given meeting. I can see it has id query parameter, which corresponds to meeting id. It also has ns query parameter. Can we generate the identical ns parameter value on our side for given meeting id?

  2. Be able to turn on “Show Subtitle”/“Closed Caption” for all meeting participants via REST API or via some account configuration that can be enabled for all meetings, to make sure the captions are displayed for everyone. “Show Subtitle”/“Closed Caption” is by default disabled on the Zoom client app. We don’t want to rely on people having it disabled by default in their Zoom app and having to turn “Show Subtitle” on their own. Our Meetings will be created programatically via REST API.
    We can possibly write notes to people to enable that, but it’s likely they will forget to enable it.

Thank you!

Bartosz

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@tommy if above 2 are not possible yet, is there a chance these will be ready before end of May 2020? closedcaptions are not a viable workaround for notifying meeting participants about the remaining time, without having solution for requirement “1”.

Hey @bartosz.blimke,

We do not have an endpoint to fetch the closed caption url programmatically yet. (ZOOM-100289)

As for setting the closed caption setting via the API, you can use the Update User Settings and Update Account Settings endpoints.

Thanks,
Tommy

Hey @tommy ,

Thanks!

We do not have an endpoint to fetch the closed caption url programmatically yet.

Ok, then I believe closed captions are not a viable solution for sending notifications to live meeting participants until cc url can be generated programatically or fetched via API.

As for setting the closed caption setting via the API, you can use the Update User Settings and Update Account Settings endpoints.

The closed_caption attribute only makes closed captions buttons visible in the Zoom app and allows the host to configure closed captions. Despite closed_captions attribute is enabled, closed captions visibility is by default disabled, and they are not displayed in the Zoom app by default.
In order for the closed captions to be displayed, participants need to turn the cc display on.
Host on Zoom desktop app in order to see the captions needs to select ‘Show Subtitles’:

Participants who join via Web, need to click on “Closed Captions” button for it to turn green and then they see the captions, otherwise captions are not displayed by default on the screen, despite being broadcasted.

If closed captions solution is supposed to be a workaround for sending notifications to people during a live meeting, then the display of broadcasted closed captions needs to be enabled by default. We can’t expect participants to remember that they need to click on “closed captions” button in order to start receiving the notifications.

Hey @bartosz.blimke,

We will work on improving this.

Thanks,
Tommy

Thank you @tommy ! At least we made some progress in this thread and we are on the same page regarding what’s possible and what’s not.
Since this feature is a deal breaker for us, we need to look for an alternative solution than Zoom, which I’m really disappointed as everything else Zoom offers fits our requirements very well. I’ll keep watching the changelog though.

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Glad you are making progress! :slight_smile:

Another solution would be to include the timer on your UI and use the Zoom SDKs.

Thanks,
Tommy

Thans @tommy

If I used Zoom SDK, would it be possible to display the timer on the embedded Zoom meeting view? Otherwise the timer will not be visible in case the meeting is in full screen mode.

I am trying something similar and it would be amazing to be able to send a messages to the meeting chat rooms.

Alternatively I tried to message every participant joining a meeting individually through an account level chatbot API.
But I seem to have some permission issues.

Is an account level chatbot able to message all members of that account?

Can I use the same application (account level, oauth, chatbot) to allow individual members to connect to my app through oauth? - it seems I am getting an error that tells the user that only admins can connect.

Is it possible to have a user level application to subscribe to meeting events of that user and send chat messages to that user? or are only chatbots on account level allowed to send chat messages?
it seems the sendchatmessage endpoint only allows to send messages to other people in the name of the authenticated user. - I need to send a chat message from my app to the authenticated user.

thanks for your support. and I hope this also helps other people finding this thread.

Hey @bumi, this is currently not supported; but we agree, this would be a great use case. We’re working on prioritizing this feature request alongside our current roadmap. We hope to provide more info on this soon.

For reference, Chatbots currently send messages to the Zoom Chat client, not to in-meeting users. These users would need your app authorized on their account.

@michael.zoom thanks for the clarification.

I could work around this limitation by sending individual users chat messages after my app receives an “participant joined” webhook.

But what setup would I exactly need for that? chatbots seem to be installed on account-level? but I still fail to send a message to an account member. when that account member tries to authorize my app it says only account admins can do that.
It would be fine for me if every user has to authorize my app (oauth). But it seems user-level applications can not send chat messages?
I am missing something?

I feel like this “workaround” could be helpful for others, too until the in-meeting chats are available to chatbots.

Hi @bumi, instead of using a Chatbot, I’d recommend using the Chat APIs. These APIs can be installed and used at a user-level (would need to be an OAuth app).

ahh. ok I see. As far as I understand through that API the application “manages” the chat messages as the user. so for the user this message would show up as sent to himself, and not from my application as sender. in my test no notification pops up in the zoom client.

would be nice to at least have the application send the message. :slight_smile:
But if I understand correctly, this is currently not possible then for user-level apps?

ok, last related question: can chatbots (thus the app is installed on the account level by an admin) send messages to all account members? or is some additional authorization needed by the members?
because I get the following error when I try to send a message from a chatbot to an account member: “The user does not have authorization, the application cannot send the message.”
when that member tries to install the chatbot application I get the following error during the oauth flow:
“An account admin is required to install chatbots.”

thanks for your great support! super helpful to work with the zoom api! @michael.zoom thanks!

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