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Zoom resources for users

Penn has signed a University-wide license agreement for Zoom virtual meeting software. All active University faculty, students, and staff are now eligible for centrally paid, full-function licenses. These licenses allow unlimited meetings with up to 300 participants. Meetings can last up to 24 hours.

In addition to the new license, the University has established a central Zoom service known as PennZoom. While the enterprise license covers eligible Penn affiliates campus-wide, some Schools, Centers, and units with existing Zoom contracts may choose to retain current procedures for their constituents. Users in those entities should contact their local support providers for guidance. Furthermore, if your organization is not participating in PennZoom, you won't be able to sign in at Penn's sign-in page (https://upenn.zoom.us) and will receive a message to contact your local IT group.

Please note: FERPA protections are in place. However, it does not carry a Penn HIPAA agreement, so the service is not intended for clinical use.

This page collects information about signing up for and using PennZoom.

Getting started

In a web browser, sign in with your PennKey credentials at

https://upenn.zoom.us

or

Through the Zoom desktop or mobile client app, click Sign In with SSO, then enter upenn as the company domain.

This will automatically claim your license.

While it’s fine to use the web browser to sign in to Zoom to attend meetings, hosts of Zoom meetings are advised to use the desktop client app, which offers additional features and functions.

In a web browser, go to

https://upenn.zoom.us

and choose Join, Host, or Sign in. Use your PennKey credentials to complete the process.

or

Through the Zoom desktop or mobile client app, click Sign In with SSO, then enter upenn as the company domain.

As a user of PennZoom, use your PennKey and password to create a PennZoom account and to sign in any time.

Once signed into PennZoom, your Zoom user ID and Zoom email will be in the format of pennkey@upenn.edu where pennkey is your PennKey username.

How to find other PennZoom users

In order to contact or invite other PennZoom users to meetings, you will need to use their Zoom user ID, which will also be in the format of pennkey@upenn.edu. 

You will also use pennkey@upenn.edu to access collaborative features, such as inviting other users to serve as alternative hosts, granting scheduling privileges, or pre-assigning users to breakout rooms.

If you can’t find a user in PennZoom

Zoom has been implemented in different ways across the University, and not all Schools and Centers have joined PennZoom. Users in Schools and Centers that have not yet moved to PennZoom will not be “findable” in https://upenn.zoom.us/.

You will be able to invite these users to meetings by using their email addresses. However, you will not be able to use several of Zoom’s collaborative features.

Webinar hosting, extra storage, and SIP calling are considered “add-on” accounts under the Zoom enterprise license and incur a charge-back fee. Contact your local IT support provider for assistance.

Existing meeting links created at Penn prior to joining PennZoom will continue to work. However, if you need to make any changes (such as inviting another participant) to one of those meetings, you must create a new meeting to replace it. The act of saving the change will break the old link.

If you have designated alternative hosts or delegated access privileges for meetings created in another Zoom account, those individuals will need to be re-invited.

Your personal meeting ID (PMI), upcoming meetings, and existing recordings remain available at their old links. Note that new meetings and recordings created in PennZoom have a slightly different address format.

 

 

 

Zoom has been implemented differently by individual Schools and centers at Penn. This inconsistency has created obstacles to collaboration and interoperability. A first step to address these issues was the negotiation of an enterprise license to ensure that all students, faculty, and staff could receive centrally paid Zoom access.

ISC has launched this central Zoom service known as PennZoom, in which any School, Center, or administrative unit may participate by moving its existing Zoom user accounts. With PennZoom, it's simpler for users to participate in meetings across groups, to collaborate in other ways, and to create and sign in to their accounts. Integration with learning technologies and other enhancements will also be facilitated. Most Schools have already made the transition to PennZoom, and many Centers are scheduled to do so. Some Schools and units may continue to maintain independent Zoom operations due to their specific requirements.

All active University students, faculty, and staff are eligible. This includes postdocs, unpaid affiliates with active academic appointments, emeritus faculty, temporary and contingent workers, including student workers, and service providers. If in doubt, contact your local IT support provider for assistance.

Zoom user accounts established with a School, Center, or unit not participating in PennZoom service will use an address specific to that organization. 

Zoom changed waiting room and passcode requirements as of September 27, 2020. This change applies to all Zoom accounts and is not related to Penn’s new license or PennZoom. See the following support article from Zoom: 

https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360045009111

PennZoom accounts have a series of Penn-branded, custom backgrounds available to them. These include backgrounds branded with the Penn logo, as well as a number of photos of locations on campus. Users can access these backgrounds under Virtual Backgrounds in their Zoom client. Users must keep their Zoom client up to date to access Penn-branded backgrounds.

Zoom has put a new policy in place to prevent users from falling too far behind on features and bug fixes.  As of November 1, 2021, users will be asked to update their Zoom client if they are more than 9 months behind the current version.  In several schools and centers, your Zoom client version is managed for you, so contact your local IT support provider for assistance.

https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362233-Upgrade-update-to-th...

The PennZoom service includes access to Zoom Cloud Recording, which allows PennZoom users the ability to record meetings and store recordings and transcripts in Zoom's cloud. PennZoom stores these recordings for 120 days, after which time they will be deleted. For this reason, PennZoom users should download and store their recordings outside of Zoom's cloud.

PennZoom classroom recordings initiated from within Canvas will continue to automatically be moved into Panopto for long-term storage.  Classroom recordings initiated directly from Zoom can be manually imported into Panopto for long-term storage. 

https://www.isc.upenn.edu/how-to/pennzoom-cloud-recording-management