April 8, 2020

Google Calendar Scheduling and Creating Zoom Meetings and Office Hours + key deadlines

Starting this week students may begin planning their courses for next semester.  Advance Fall 2020 course registration will take place on April 20-24. Remember that for this semester ONLY, you will not be required to give permission to register before students may register for classes during the week of April 20 - 24. We still highly encourage you to meet with your advisees -- many are seeking guidance and some semblance of normalcy and will be grateful for your outreach and counsel.

This edition of INSIGHTS will give you the tools you need to communicate, schedule, and meet with your advisees virtually.

To enable students to sign up for appointments, you can use “Appointment Slots” in Google calendar:

Creating and using Google Calendar appointment slots

You can set up a block of appointments on your calendar that students can reserve. Appointment slots are useful when you don't know who needs to meet with you, but you want to make yourself available. You can offer people a block of time on your calendar that they can book time slots within. For example, you can set aside 2 hours that you're available to meet with students in 30-minute slots. They can then book one of the 30-minute slots within that time that works best for them.

Create an appointment block

1. Using your gBear account on a computer, open Google Calendar.
2. Make sure that you're in Week view or any Day view.
3. Click anywhere in the calendar. In the event box that pops up, click Appointment slots.

4. Enter the details, including a title; choose the length of your appointment timeslots; and if you have multiple calendars, pick the calendar where you want the event to show up.

5. To add more information, like a location or description, click More options and add whatever details are relevant. Be sure to click the blue “Save” button before closing the dialogue box.

Invite students to reserve an appointment slot

After you've set up the appointment block, you can invite people to reserve a slot by giving them a link to your appointments page. 

1. Open your Google Calendar.
2. Click on your appointment block, and click on the hyperlinked sentence “Go to appointment page for this calendar.”

3. Copy the url for the page that opens.

4. Using the paste function, send this link to students or anyone you want to invite to schedule an appointment with you.

Scheduling a meeting in Zoom:

Video Tutorial Scheduling Meeting in Zoom

1. Open your Zoom client or Zoom web portal and sign in to Zoom.
2. Click on the Schedule icon.

This will open the scheduler window.

3. Select your meeting settings. For example, you can make it a recurring meeting, change your video or audio preferences or change any Advanced Settings.
4. Click “Copy invitation” and paste it into an email or calendar-invite to anyone you want to invite to attend.

For Drop-In Office Hours, you may use the Waiting Room feature in Zoom:

How to enable the Waiting Room Function

Helpful Video Tutorial on Zoom Waiting Rooms

The Waiting Room feature allows the host to control when a participant joins the meeting. As the meeting host, you can admit attendees one by one or hold all attendees in the waiting room and admit them all at once. 

To enable Waiting Room for your own use:

1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal.

2. On the navigation menu in the left-hand sidebar, click Settings.

On the Meeting tab, select “In-Meeting (Advanced)” and then scroll down or word-search for “Waiting Room.” Verify that the setting is enabled (Status toggle should be blue with white circle on right).

• If the setting is disabled, click the Status toggle to enable it. If a verification dialog displays, choose Turn On to verify the change.

• If the option is grayed out, it has been locked at either the Group or Account level, and you will need to contact your Zoom administrator.

3. Select the category of participants you want sent to the waiting room.

• Recommended setting: “All participants” for drop-in style virtual office hours. This will ensure that all students will be sent to the waiting room where they will stay until you admit them. 

4. Once you have enabled the Waiting Room feature, it will be the default for any meetings you schedule via the Zoom web platform and will be select-able in “Advanced” when you schedule meetings via the Zoom app.

• IMPORTANT NOTE: enabling this here will not enable the Waiting Room by default for meetings you schedule via the Google calendar “Make it a Zoom meeting” extension (if you have installed that). We are not currently aware of a way to enable that.

5. You are now ready to schedule office hours and invite students to virtually drop by. Schedule a zoom meeting and copy and send the meeting information using the steps outlined above.

How to use the Waiting Room function during your virtual office hours:

Windows

Enabling or disabling Waiting Room during a meeting

1. If you have not already enabled Waiting Room, once you begin your office hours as the meeting host, click Manage Participants.

2. Click More at the bottom of the participants' window and choose Put Attendee in Waiting Room on Entry to enable or disable the feature.

Admitting participants during a meeting

1. As the meeting host, click Manage Participants.

2. Click Admit to have the participant join the meeting.

 Admit all participants from the Waiting Room

As the meeting host, click Manage Participants.

Click Admit all.

Sending participants to the Waiting Room during a meeting

1. As the meeting host, click Manage Participants.

2. Click More next to the participant's name and choose Put in Waiting Room.

Invite the student you’re meeting with to leave when you’re done, before admitting the next student from the waiting room.

1. Ask the student you’re done with to click “Leave meeting” on their side, or return them to the waiting room (which they can also leave as needed).

   a. IMPORTANT NOTE: do not click “Remove from meeting” next to a student’s name on your participants list -- doing this will prevent the student from rejoining the meeting or waiting room. If you have formatted your walk-in hours as a recurring meeting, the student will never be able to attend again. If you accidentally did this, contact IMATS for assistance.

2. Admit the next student from the waiting room as shown above.

Linking Zoom with Google Calendar

Log into your zoom and hover mouse over "resources" (don't click! just hover!)

When the menu appears, select first menu option

Download Zoom Client

On the new page that appears, scroll down to Zoom Extension for Browsers and select the browser you are using (apparently only supported for Firefox and Chrome)

Select "yes," "agree," "save," etc. when prompted to do so.

Close all windows and quit browser.

Reopen your Google calendar and open a future meeting to test.  Click on "edit" pencil:

"Make it a Zoom meeting" should now appear:

Clicking on it should automatically populate with all the necessary info and change the location to the Zoom link:

Saving it will offer you the opportunity to send update to all invitees (as usual).

Key Deadlines for Advisers

Monday, April 6

Student Planning opens for students to begin planning their Fall 2020 class schedules. 

Begin virtual-meeting with your Advisees. For this semester only, you will NOT need to grant them “Permission to Register” in WebAdvisor. 

Friday, April 10, 11:59 p.m.

Last day to drop a Spring 2020 condensed course.

Monday, April 20 - Friday, April 24

Registration open for Fall Semester 2020

Helpful Advising Resources

Advising Guide 2019-2020

Instruction Manual for Advising and Registration Systems