Frequently asked questions about external authentication for K-12 schools in zoom app

A Zoom account does not need to be created for students from K-12 and primary or secondary schools to participate in Zoom meetings safely and securely, and in addition, it prevents unauthorized access from users outside the school or district when they’re using Zoom meetings.

You do not need to have students be members of your Zoom account in order to use external authentication, only that they use a school email address to log in.

Prerequisites for external authentication for K-12 schools

• Accounts for Pros, Businesses, Students, and Enterprises

• Ownership or admin privileges on an account

• Your identity provider should grant you admin privileges

• Using Zoom’s desktop client, you can:

  • Windows: Version 5.0.0 or higher (23168.0427) is required

  • macOS: The latest version of the software is 5.0.0 (23110.427).

• App for Zoom on mobile devices:

  • Android: A version of 5.0.0 (23161.0427) or greater is required

  • iOS: A version of 5.0.0 or higher (23161.0427) is required

• Client for Zoom’s web-based services

External authentication for K-12 schools

Frequently Asked Questions

Will Breakout Rooms work if my students do not have Zoom accounts?

The Breakout Rooms are still available for you to use as usual. The CSV file will also need to contain details about each student so you can pre-assign them to Breakout Rooms if you wish to do so.

Will my guest speakers or teacher be able to join a meeting?

There will be no ability for any external guests to attend the meeting, unless they have an authorized account in your SSO Identity Provider, that allows them to attend meetings.

Note: The admin, however, has the option to allow authentication exceptions in order to allow guests to bypass authentication in order to join meetings when authentication profiles have been enabled. It might be possible, for example, for a school to create an exception so that guest lecturers are able to attend meetings when their credentials are authenticated against the school IDP.

How is this different from standard Zoom/SSO authentication?

There is an authentication process that takes place when a user joins a Zoom meeting, but no Zoom account is created as a result.

Can I use the same SSO configuration as my Zoom account?

It has to be set up as a separate SAML application within the identity provider, not as part of your existing SAML application.

Can I pull a report of the students and have accurate attendance information?

I confirm that the names and email addresses associated with each student will be accurately documented in the course materials.

Can students change their names?

The setting Allow participants to rename themselves can be disabled if you do not want your students to be able to change their names at the level of users, groups, or accounts.

A report of attendance will not reflect the new names of students who have changed their names after being given the opportunity to do so.

Does this require participants to have a valid Zoom account?

Zoom membership is not a prerequisite for participating in a Zoom meeting. No registration is required.