The VCU Zoom Blog

Announcements, Alerts, Tips and Pointers

Although Zoom is designed as a video conferencing solution, it is possible to join meetings via telephone as an audio-only participant.

The standard wording of a Zoom Meeting invitation includes multiple dial-in numbers for phone-based participants to choose from based on their geographic location. When joining via phone, you’ll be greeted by an auto-attendant that prompts you to enter the Meeting ID number, followed by the # sign.

On entering the meeting, you’ll be represented onscreen by a “telephone” icon, with the corner “nameplate” showing your phone number instead of a name.

As a host, you may prefer to hide phone numbers to maintain your participants’ privacy. You can update your account preferences under “Settings > Audio Conferencing” and choose to partially mask phone numbers, replacing some of the digits with asterisks, as shown here:

Another useful tool for hosts is the “rename participant” option. Mouse over the telephone participant’s window in a meeting or find them in the “Participants” list to change their displayed phone number to their actual name.

If you’re someone who regularly joins meetings via your phone, you may want to contact the VCU Zoom admins at [email protected] to have your phone number added to a system-wide directory. This allows Zoom to automatically translate your phone number to your name every time you join a meeting hosted by anyone on the VCU Zoom account.

As with all Zoom features and functions, feel free to contact us at [email protected] with any questions or concerns.

Categories features