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Zoom Module

FOR BITFOCUS COMPANION

The Ultimate Zoom Control Suite
This Companion Module gives you deep control of Zoom from the convenience of controllers like the StreamDeck.

Powered by ZoomOSC and ZoomISO, this module provides a bidirectional link to Zoom so that you can see the names of participants on the keys of your controller, and manage them effectively. This is a zero-code solution, so you don’t need to research any APIs. Everything is drag-and-drop from the module presets collection. Advanced users can build their own buttons with the actions and feedback available in this module directly without implementing the API commands for ZoomOSC and ZoomISO themselves.

Open-Source Tool
Created by BitFocus

Unlock Powerful Zoom Workflows

All at the press of a button

FEATURES

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  • Automatically see participant names on keys

  • Select or group participants to apply actions

  • Manage Pin, Spotlight, Mute, Chat, and more

  • Seamlessly control ZoomISO outputs

  • Drag-and-drop setup

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USE CASES​

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  • Moderating Zoom with dozens of actions

  • Routing participants to ZoomISO outputs

  • Optimizing controls for personal contribution

  • Interoperability with other Companion Modules

StreamDeck_ZoomOSC_small.png

Example Companion Module Workflows

Managing the participants in a Zoom meeting often involves hunting through sub-menus or drop down lists, and this can be inefficient at scale, especially during quick transitions. With the ZoomOSC/ISO module, you can create a control surface for Zoom that is optimized for this use case. You can leverage the gallery-based participants list to make sure that the buttons automatically contain the names of the most relevant participants. Feedback available on the preset buttons will automatically change color based on video and audio status, and display a hand-raised icon.

ZoomISO Control Surface

ZoomISO can be controlled by this module to allow you to route participants to video outputs and audio channels easily. You can also change ZoomISO’s settings from this module, including control of the number of outputs and the state of the engine. For advanced users, the outputs and channels of ZoomISO are also selectable, so you can select participants and outputs in any order, and then match them to each other like a traditional video matrix.

Personal Meeting Device

The ZoomOSC/ISO module is a great way to manage your own settings and controls within a Zoom call as a participant. Many of the actions can be configured to act upon your local settings, making it much easier to configure certain functions like audio and video controls without needing to navigate any menus. The Join Meeting button allows you to enter your recurring meetings and easily join them with a single button press. Together these actions can be an ergonomic management solution for self-participation in Zoom.

Zoom Moderator Interface

How it works

Setup

The ZoomOSC/ISO Module is designed for Companion v3. You are required to use a licensed version of ZoomOSC or ZoomISO when working with this module. The minimum versions that are compatible with this module are ZoomOSC 4.2 and ZoomISO 2.0.6. 

Selections and Groups

Selections are a key component of this module. With names of Zoom participants automatically appearing on your keys, selections allow you to designate which users to act upon. There are many workflows for selection, including single-selection, multi-selection, and groups.

Select from Participants
This is a Preset Category of buttons as well as a variable reference representing the participants in the meeting in a largely static list. The order of members in the list will not generally change unless ZoomOSC/ISO leaves and rejoins the meeting. New participants are added to the end of the list, and participants who leave the meeting are removed from the list (decrementing the indices of subsequent users in the list). You can apply a global offset to the group indices using the Next Participants and Previous Participants actions.

Select from Participants is helpful when you don’t want your buttons to automatically change which participants they are tied to because of in-meeting actions by the participants. It is a simple list without many external behavior associations or dependencies, which makes it helpful in many use cases.

Select from Gallery
This is a Preset Category of buttons as well as a variable reference representing the participants in the meeting based upon their order in the Gallery View of ZoomOSC/ISO (linearized top left to bottom right). This list will change order automatically based on any of the factors that can influence the gallery view order, including hand raising, speaking, enabling video, manual reorder, pagination, resizing, and more. The list will never contain more members than those visually represented on screen in the Zoom Gallery View, so it has a maximum length of 49. It is essential that ZoomOSC/ISO be in gallery view in order for this list to be accurate.

Select from Gallery is helpful for having a visual correspondence between the buttons and the Zoom interface, especially if the Zoom window is resized so that both the StreamDeck and the Gallery View have the same arrangement of participants in terms of rows and columns. Furthermore, the behaviors that influence the order of the Zoom Gallery View often correspond to the relevancy of those participants to the meeting, making it easy to find key individuals to act upon without requiring an extensive search.

Single vs Multi Selection Mode
The module has a concept of a selection mode that can be set to either Single Selection or Multi Selection. In Multi Selection mode, you can tap on a participant once to select them, and then tap on them again to deselect them. In Single Selection mode, tapping on a participant will select them and automatically deselect any previous selection.

For actions that can be applied to many participants at once, Multi Selection is helpful, whereas for actions that can only function on a single participant, Single Selection is ideal.

Selection Management and Action References
By default, most actions will act upon the selected participants. You can override this behavior by entering a username of the participant to act upon, or entering the macro string “Me” to reference your personal user. If the username field is blank, the module will reference the selection. If the action only accepts one participant, but multiple participants are selected, the action will be taken on the first user to be selected.

The module respects the order of selections, so when acting on multiple participants, the actions will first be taken on the first members to be selected, and then finish with the participants most recently added to the selection. This is important for commands like Add Spotlight, where the order of selection will determine the visual order of the spotlit users.

There are several variables and actions to help you manage the selection process available in the module. For example, since actions do not automatically deselect the participants acted upon, you can add a “Clear Selections” action to deselect them.

Groups
One of the most powerful features of this module is the ability to place participants into groups. Just like participants, groups are referenceable and selectable. You can index into groups with variables to display their members. In fact buttons with these properties are automatically available in the Presets area under “Manage Selections and Groups” by automatically generating new buttons based on the number of groups specified in the module setup.

Groups can have a variety of purposes. For example, you might make a group called “Favorites” that contains the subset of users in your meeting that you will actually need to interact with. Then, you could have a page that shows who is in the Favorites group so you can select them and act upon them individually or together. Alternatively, you could have several groups representing the members of different panel conversations. Once the users are placed in the different panelist groups, you can select all members of a panel at once simply by selecting the corresponding group itself, and applying an action like Add Spotlight to the entire group.

There is a default group called “Hosts” created and managed by the module itself. Its members are the host and co-host(s) of the meeting. This membership is automatically managed, so you cannot add or remove members (unless you change who the host and co-host(s) are) or change the group properties.

Variables and Feedback

This module supports many variables and feedback properties. These are helpful for automatically changing key properties like the name and color of a button. Variables can also be used for basic automation systems in the Triggers workflow within Companion. Most preset buttons already contain the necessary feedback and variable mapping for dynamic buttons, but advanced users may wish to read deeper into the module to build customized buttons and workflows.

Support and Thanks

The ZoomOSC/ISO Companion Module is not an official Zoom product.
This module is a community-driven project that utilizes the Open Sound Control public APIs of ZoomOSC and ZoomISO. While Zoom (and formerly Liminal) have designed its behavior, they hold no liability for this module or its upkeep. Ultimately it is managed by and the responsibility of the open-source Companion community, BitFocus, and its users.

For support on this module, please utilize the GitHub for BitFocus Companion. If you have questions on ZoomOSC or ZoomISO, you can email info@liminalet.com for Zoom’s official support of those products.

This module is the result of several years of effort from multiple individuals and teams. This version of the module was created by Jeffrey Davidsz and designed by Andy Carluccio and Jonathan Kokotajlo from Zoom, the former co-founders of Liminal.
The team is grateful for the work of several contributors to previous iterations of the module including Ash Green, Richard Williamson, Benjamin Antupit, and Johnny Estilles. The team would also like to thank the power users and beta testers whose contributions to the module have helped shape it over the years, with special recognition to Jeff Widgren, David Paskin, and Justin James.

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