Accudemia: Should my college choose ConnectLink, Appointment Notes, or Zoom Integration for virtual meetings?

Accudemia: Should my college choose ConnectLink, Appointment Notes, or Zoom Integration for virtual meetings?

Introduction

Accudemia offers 3 different ways for tutors to virtually connect with students. Currently, these options are:
  1. Using a "ConnectLink" that connects to a Personal Meeting ID/Room.
  2. Providing a unique meeting link in the "Appointment Notes" per meeting.
  3. Connecting a Zoom account directly using the "Zoom Integration" feature.
Each of these options has its own method for tutors to connect with students. However, they don't work with one another, so a choice has to be made between the 3. Below is a list of pros and cons for each option.

The Options

The most common option is using the "ConnectLink" for virtual sessions. This works well for most providers that offer a standard meeting link, and it provides the student with your direct link to meet hidden behind our "Join Session" buttons or in the emailed appointment links in the reminders that go to Accudemia first before connecting to your meeting platform.

Pros:
  1. Connects to any meeting platform using a standard URL or link. This link is sometimes referred to as a PMI (Personal Meeting ID) or Personal Meeting Room.
  2. Easy to configure for most tutors, advisors, or staff because they only need to provide the link and save it on their account.
  3. Tutors only have to connect to their normal meeting room or PMI to start the meetings.
  4. Accudemia hides the personal meeting link from students by having them click a Join Session button, or by clicking a link that takes them to Accudemia first.
Cons:
  1. Sessions only track the time at which the student signed in and signed out.
  2. Because the tutor is always accessible with the same Meeting ID and personal link, an administrator must enable the waiting room feature, or set a small entry window for the allowable appointment times. Otherwise, meetings will frequently be interrupted by new students appearing in the virtual room.

Appointment Notes

The second option is to provide a unique link per session in the Appointment Notes when an appointment is scheduled. At the time of this KB article being written, Microsoft Teams uses only unique links in every scheduled meeting and does not provide a standard meeting link. If the college is a Microsoft Teams institution, then this will be the only choice of the three. This option was created primarily to accommodate colleges with meeting platforms that only use unique links for every session. Otherwise, using one of the other two options is suggested so as not to lose out on the scheduling automation that Accudemia provides.

Pros:
  1. Uninvited students cannot interrupt a meeting because each meeting link is unique and has to be manually added to each session.
Cons:
  1. When students create appointments, tutors receive an email notification email. Every time this happens, tutors need to update the scheduled appointment with their unique meeting link.
  2. These unique links must be generated manually by scheduling the meeting separately on the other platform.

Zoom Integration

The third option is only available for Zoom users with a Business or Educational account, meaning that it doesn't work with "free" Zoom accounts. This option allows tutors to sign in to their Zoom account through Accudemia and authorize it to schedule meetings in Zoom. Accudemia then schedules these meetings in "daily sessions" that students and the tutor will connect to for each meeting. Finally, the links provided go through Accudemia first to collect the exact time of entry for the Zoom session and the exact time they left the Zoom session.

Pros:
  1. Accurately records when a meeting begins and ends.
  2. Automatically generates unique "Daily Session" links so it's less likely for an unscheduled student to interrupt a meeting.
  3. Easy to configure for most tutors, advisors, and staff, because they just need to log in to Zoom through Accudemia and authorize the integration of their account.
Cons:
  1. Tutors possibly getting the meeting links confused. A daily session like "Daily Session Feb 25, 2021" is created for all the appointments, and some tutors may accidentally connect to their Personal Meeting Room or PMI out of habit.

Conclusion

Engineerica highly recommends using the "Zoom Integration" option for any college that currently uses this service for its meetings. The ConnectLink works well as an alternative if the college doesn't use Zoom, though it does require some additional setup like adding the waiting room. Appointment Notes comes as a final option that is meant for colleges that are more closely linked to Microsoft Teams software. It's otherwise suggested to choose one of the previous two options.

If there are any further questions, don't hesitate to email support at support@accudemia.com or submit a ticket through this website.