Using Zoom Webinars in Ethnio 🎥

Zoom Webinars are a powerful option for research teams who need to keep observers invisible to participants. Unlike a standard Zoom Meeting where all attendees can see each other, a Zoom Webinar puts participants in an "attendee" role where they cannot see who else is watching. This means your stakeholders, PMs, and other observers can join silently in the background without participants ever knowing they're there. 👀

If you're already using the Ethnio Zoom integration, switching to Zoom Webinars is simply a matter of selecting "Zoom Webinar" instead of "Zoom Meeting" in your facilitator location settings. See the Zoom integration setup guide for general Zoom connection steps: https://help.ethn.io/article/33-zoom-integration

Why Use Zoom Webinars? 🙈

The number one reason to use Zoom Webinars with Ethnio is observer privacy. In a standard Zoom Meeting, every person in the call is visible to every other person. That's a problem for research: participants can see your observers, which can create social pressure, influence behavior, and compromise the integrity of your session.

Zoom Webinars solve this by design. In a webinar, your research participant joins as an attendee and can only see the host (your facilitator) and any panelists you've promoted. All of your observers join as silent attendees and are completely hidden. The participant has no idea anyone else is watching.

This is especially useful for:

• Studies with large internal stakeholder audiences who need to observe without disrupting the session
• Sensitive research topics where participant awareness of being watched would cause bias
• Enterprise teams with product managers, designers, and executives who want to observe sessions live
• Any situation where you want to keep the participant experience clean and uncluttered by extra faces on screen

How to Set Up Zoom Webinar as Your Location 📍

To use Zoom Webinars in Ethnio, first make sure your Zoom account has the Webinars add-on enabled (see the Troubleshooting section below if you're unsure). Then, head to Scheduling >> Calendar and open the Facilitator & Locations modal.

In the Location section, use the dropdown under 1:1 Interviews or Group Sessions to select Zoom Webinar, then choose which connected Zoom account should be used. Click Save & Close when done.

Using Zoom Webinars with Group Sessions 👥

When you run a group session in Ethnio (multiple participants in the same time slot), all participants share a single Zoom Webinar. This is exactly the right model for group research: every participant who confirms gets the same webinar link, they all join together, and your observers can watch silently without any of the participants seeing them.

To set this up, toggle on Group Sessions in the Facilitator & Locations modal and select Zoom Webinar in the Group sessions location dropdown. Ethnio will generate one webinar for that group time slot and send each confirmed participant their join link in the confirmation email. The Zoom Webinar is created when the first participant confirms, so you'll see it appear in the scheduling feed at that point.

Promoting Participants to Panelists 🎤

In a Zoom Webinar, participants join as attendees and cannot see or hear each other unless specifically allowed. If you want a participant to be able to speak or share their camera during the session, you can promote them to panelist during the webinar. This is useful for co-creation sessions, group discussions, or any research where active participant participation on camera is needed.

Here is how to promote an attendee to panelist during a live Zoom Webinar, per Zoom's official documentation (https://support.zoom.com/hc/en/article?id=zm_kb&sysparm_article=KB0063276):

1. Start your Zoom Webinar as the host
2. In the host controls, click the Participants icon. The Participants panel will appear.
3. In the Participants panel, click the Attendees tab to see the list of attendees.
4. Hover over the name of the attendee you want to promote.
5. Click Promote to panelist. The attendee's role will change to panelist and they will be able to use their camera and microphone.

You can also demote a panelist back to attendee at any time by hovering over their name in the Panelists tab and clicking Change role to attendee. For full details on managing webinar attendees and panelists, see Zoom's official guide: https://support.zoom.com/hc/en/article?id=zm_kb&sysparm_article=KB0063276

Troubleshooting Zoom Webinars ⚠️

The most common issue with Zoom Webinars in Ethnio is that your connected Zoom account does not have the Webinars add-on enabled. This will cause an Integration Error, and no confirmation emails or calendar events will be generated for participants. If you see an integration error in your scheduling feed, this is the first thing to check.

To resolve a Zoom Webinar integration error, log in to your Zoom account and verify that you have the Webinars add-on active on your plan. You may need to contact your Zoom account administrator or purchase the Webinars add-on from Zoom. Once enabled, reconnect your Zoom integration in Ethnio from Account >> Integrations.

For more Zoom troubleshooting steps, including how to disconnect and reconnect, and how to notify participants after fixing a Zoom issue, see the full Zoom troubleshooting guide: https://help.ethn.io/article/34-zoom-integration-problems-fixes