My use case for Zoom involves a half an hour meeting that we have daily during which someone shares their screen and we go over the plan for today, what went good in the past day, and various details. Afterwards, I pair with a colleague of mine and we either share screens or I share my screen. We collaborate on tasks that we have using Zoom, but the share screen functionality is a must. If this was not present in Zoom, we definitely wouldn't have used it.
Zoom
Zoom Communications, Inc.External reviews
External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.
Screen sharing and breakout rooms enhance team collaboration and daily communication
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
I value the chat feature in Zoom as much as the screen share, and whenever we have a meeting, we also have a chat, but it's nowhere near what Slack provides. Slack has way more options such as replying to a thread, but also sending that message as a last message in the chat box.
Breakout rooms in Zoom have helped facilitate more focused group discussions in my virtual meetings because you simply don't have to search for links to join other Zoom meetings. You just have one big call in the morning and afterwards, you split into the breakout rooms. Whenever I'm leaving my current breakout room, I'm returning to the main one, which is convenient because I don't have to search for any link to access it. Whenever I'm looking for someone, I can just browse to the breakout rooms and see whoever is in that room before joining. I don't have to join each and every room to find someone; I directly know where he or she is at.
This helps my focus as you have separate rooms for separate purposes, which is what my organization does. We keep specific rooms for specific purposes based on the name, such as one-on-one rooms prefixed with 'one-on-one' and pairing rooms prefixed with 'pair.' It's just a basic setup, but it's pretty handy.
Zoom has positively impacted my organization because it's essential for communication. Otherwise, we would not communicate the same way. We can see each other, we can hear each other as well. We use it daily for demos and for one-on-ones. It's a tool in our arsenal that is essential. We haven't used Microsoft Teams or Google Meet, so it's hard to compare it to anything else, but we are very happy with Zoom. We see no need to switch from Zoom yet. It fulfills all our requirements, which are pretty standard: just video and audio, and also the breakout rooms.
What needs improvement?
I would definitely want the chat in Zoom to be improved.
I have seen areas of improvement in Zoom regarding the noise suppression setting. Sometimes I talk a bit low pitched and the other person cannot hear me. I'm guessing the noise suppression detects my voice as background noise instead of my actual voice. It might be a setting that I just need to tweak somewhere in the settings window. I haven't had the time to check that out yet. It happens from time to time; it's not crucial, but I check that the other person hears me by asking them if they heard what I just said. It occurs at least once daily, so it's not bothering to me, but to someone who is a bit more sensitive, it may be bothersome.
I find it hard to tell if there has been any return on investment with Zoom because I'm not dealing with the financials of our organization. I guess it helped us because whenever there's an incident at night and people need to synchronize to find out what's going on, they enter Zoom and talk to each other.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I have never experienced any drops with Zoom. I did once, but it proved to be my network and not related to Zoom, so it was very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Regarding Zoom's capacity to host large-scale virtual events, it works really fine. I don't think we've ever been more than 40 in one call, but even when we were 40, we could still talk and understand each other. I saw no latency drops or anything related to that. Everything was fine.
I can share my experience with the scalability of Zoom by mentioning that the largest meeting I participated in was around 40 or 50 people. Everything went smoothly, so judging by that, Zoom fulfills the most common necessities.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used similar solutions before Zoom, but it was quite some time ago. I used Microsoft Teams about 2 or 3 years ago. I used Amazon's internal platform called Chime as well.
What other advice do I have?
I do not use Zoom's recording feature during most meetings, but on Fridays, we usually hold a demo called demo day. During the demo, whatever we've been working on for the past week is showcased to our colleagues. We use recording during the demo, but aside from that, we don't really use it. It's just once a week most of the cases.
The recording feature in Zoom hasn't helped in my post-meeting processes because I never replay any of the recordings. Those who are a bit higher up in the organization usually use them to take notes in retrospect, but personally, it didn't help me at all.
I'm not sure if I've integrated Zoom with Slack or Microsoft Teams. Currently, I have integrated Slack with Jira and Confluence, but not with Zoom. I wonder how that works; if I have a meeting on my calendar, will Slack notify me that I should be entering there, or going back to Zoom?
Zoom's security framework has helped my organization ensure communication privacy and data protection, but I'm just a regular user. If it helps, we've never had anyone from outside our organization accidentally join our rooms.
I switched to Zoom for daily use simply because I changed jobs and that's how the setup was already laid out for my new team. It wasn't a personal choice; it just happened given the context.
I have used documents or manuals for Zoom once when I searched for how to stop the camera from following me around. Apparently, there is this option called 'main stage,' and if you enable it, then whenever you move around, the camera on your MacBook zooms in on your face. This option is no longer easily accessible; I cannot find it anymore. The setting should be in the video settings, but it's not. It is somewhere, but I can hardly find it. I changed it a month ago and now I can no longer see where it is.
My overall rating for Zoom is 9 out of 10.
A Modern Software That Adapted With the Times
Zoom is very helpful for my business
Reliable and Seamless Communication with Zoom Workplace
It also integrates well with calendars, so it's easy to manage schedules. I really like the chat feature during meetings for quick notes or sharing links. Zoom mobile app also works smoothly
Good service and modern-day efficient communication.
Best Experience Where we Live On Earth we Çan attend the meeting without any Disturance
Zoom Workplace is great
A Reliable Hub for Hybrid Teams
The video and audio quality remain excellent, even on lower bandwidth, which is a huge plus. The chat functionality has improved a lot and now competes more directly with Slack or Teams. I also appreciate the integrations with Google and Microsoft calendars, which make scheduling and joining meetings pretty seamless.