Late this month Zoom added Zoom Apps to their App Marketplace. The new Zoom Apps go beyond simple integration to let you use all kinds of apps right inside your Zoom meetings.

But like all early products, it’s both awesome and annoying.

Permissions are everything

Before you can use Zoom Apps, you have to enable them in your Zoom settings. They’re available on both free and paid accounts.

Here’s the problem: If you get your Zoom account through a company, you’re going to have to ask for permission to enable them. It’s a total pain. 🙂 And when you get permission to have them at all, you may have to ask permission again to install certain Apps.

The Zoom App choices are overwhelming

The Zoom App Marketplace homepage is a great place to start browsing, but you’ll see very quickly that the store is overwhelming. You can narrow the lists down by categories, uses and whether or not you have to get admin permission.

Most of the tools have been around a while, but the new stuff is all in the Zoom App category.

Helpful Categories

• Games for icebreakers, meeting breaks, team building
• Collaboration to help with project management and team work
• Meeting Management to keep meetings from going toooo long or straying off topic
• Recording/transcription to, well, record and transcribe
• Scheduling to make finding a time to meet easier
• CRM to schedule meetings and keep track of connections
• Education to transform Zoom recordings and events into measurable content

Great Apps to start with

• Sesh to set an agenda and timings for your Zoom meeting — others can view it online rather than having to download to their Zoom account.
• #Warmly People Insights to help you prep for meetings and interviews. It looks up your contacts and helps you find insights and background.
• Miro for collaborative whiteboards
• BuildBetter Research for better interviewing.

Setting up your Zoom App might be frustrating for you

Some of the Apps work only on your Zoom interface. Others only work if all attendees have them installed. Some Apps can be installed without Admin permission. Others will need to be approved. It’s a mish-mash of functionality and frustration. When you find an App you want to use, try it out with a trusted Zoom buddy before rolling it out at your next staff meeting.

Setting up Zoom Apps will most likely be frustrating for your team members

So you found a great tool for your team and want to start using it at office meetings. Perfect. If it’s one of the many that require all participants to have the App installed, have a pre-meeting training to get everyone set up. This will take some time and might lead to multiple people having to leave the meetings multiple times to start and restart their applications and computers and everything else.

It’s going to get easier

The Zoom App functionality is brand new, and I’m sure it’ll be easier to use as time goes on. Right now us early adopters are jumping in and playing around, and we’ll see some improved functionality as well as upgraded Apps coming along soon.

Watch the Exploratory Surgery we performed with the Zoom Apps: