Zoom links need a passcode

October 14, 2020
By Wiebke Kuhn

You may remember an announcement about Zoom shifting to a required passcode for any meetings under the Carleton Zoom license.  Unfortunately, this shift, put in place September 27, 2020, is causing confusion with meetings scheduled before that date.

  1. Any new meeting you’ve created after Sept. 27th requires a passcode.  By default, those passcodes will be embedded in the URL itself.
  2. Meetings you scheduled prior to Sept. 27th will only require a passcode IF you make a change to the meeting.  Any change to a meeting (name, time, poll, etc.) impacts your URL and will create a new meeting URL.  Your previous URL will not work.

If you see the characters pwd= in your invite link, your meeting already has an embedded passcode and the link should work fine.  (See sample, below.)

If you do not see pwd= in your meeting URLs, your attendees may experience trouble joining your meeting, if a change is made to your meeting.  Note that these meetings also show a red ! in a circle to draw your attention. (See sample, below.)


To avoid confusion:

Consider updating/replacing any URLs you’ve shared or posted—ensuring either the URLs contain pwd= or you share the actual meeting passcode with your attendees.  (You can find your passcode when you’re scheduling or editing a meeting.  See sample, below.)


To access or update your meetings:

  1. Log into Carleton’s Zoom instance, find the Meetings tab and select Upcoming Meetings.
  2. Click on the Meeting Name for more information about the meeting.  You will see the Invite Link, and to its right, the option to Copy Invitation.  
  3. Copy that invitation link and paste it into your upcoming Google Calendar events, replace the links in Moodle course pages, etc.

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