Overview

You can have both panelists and attendees in your webinar and manage them as the host.

By clicking Participants in your host controls, you can manage the panelists and attendees in your webinar. This includes promoting to co-host or panelist, demoting panelists to attendee, unmuting, stopping video, and more.

You can also view reporting on your webinar to see registration, attendee, polling, and other details.

This article covers:

Prerequisites

  • Webinar add-on
  • Host privilege for this webinar
  • Unmuting attendees requires both the host and attendee to be on the September 2017 Client Release or later; attendee must also be connected to computer audio

Accessing the participants panel

  1. Sign in to the Zoom desktop client.
  2. Start a webinar as the host.
  3. Click on Participants in the webinar controls.

    The Participants panel will be on right side of your screen. The host, co-hosts, and panelists will be listed in one tab and the attendees will be listed in another.

Note: Participants are displayed in the following order.

  1. Participants allowed to talk.
  2. Participants with their hand raised. Participants that raised their hand first are displayed at the top.
  3. Participants without their hand raised.

Managing panelists

Hover over over the panelist’s name and click More. You will see the following options to manage participants:

  • Mute / Unmute: Mute or unmute the panelist. They need to accept the unmute prompt before they are unmuted.
  • Chat: Open the chat window to send messages directly to the panelist.
  • Make Host: Assign the panelist to be the host. There can only be one host.
  • Make Co-Host: Assign the panelist to be a co-host. You can have an unlimited number of co-hosts.
  • Change Role to Attendee: Click this to change the panelist’s role to an attendee.
  • Forbid Record / Allow Record: Forbid or allow the attendee to start or stop a local recording of the webinar. Panelists do not have access to start a cloud recording.
  • Assign to type Closed Caption: Assign the panelist to type Closed Caption during the webinar.
  • Rename: Change the panelist’s name that is displayed to other participants.
    Note: To change your own name that is displayed, hover over your name in the participants list and click Rename. This change only applies to the current webinar. To permanently change your name, see My Profile.
  • Put on hold: Place the panelist on hold. This will Temporarily remove them from the webinar so that they cannot hear you, see your screenshare or your video. Their webinar screen will change to the message: “Please wait, the meeting host will let you in soon”, followed by the name and date of the webinar.
  • Remove: Remove the panelist from the webinar. They will not be able to rejoin unless you allow participants and panelists to rejoin.

Changing a panelist to attendee

  1. Sign in to the Zoom desktop client.
  2. Start a webinar as the host.
  3. Click Participants.
  4. Click the Panelists tab.
  5. Hover over the name of the panelist you want to make an attendee and click on More.
  6. Click Change Role to Attendee.

Managing attendees

To manage attendees, click on the Attendees tab, hover over the attendee’s name, and click More. You will see the following options:

  • Allow to Talk: Allow the attendee to unmute and speak in the webinar. The participant will receive a prompt to confirm if they want to unmute or stay muted. If you already allowed a participant to talk but they decided to stay muted, click Unmute to prompt them to unmute their mic. All participants will be able to hear them.
    Note: While unmuted, the attendee’s profile picture and name is displayed to the host and panelists. Only their name is displayed to other attendees.If you allowed the attendee to talk, you will see these options:

    • Mute / Unmute: Mute or unmute the attendee. They need to accept the unmute prompt before they are unmuted.
    • Disable talking: Revoke the attendee’s ability to talk. This will mute the participant and prevent them from unmuting themselves.
  • Lower Hand: Lower the participant’s hand. Their position in the participants will move down after the participants with their hand raised.
  • Chat: Open the chat window to send messages directly to the attendee.
  • Promote to Panelist: Make the attendee a panelist.
  • Remove: Remove the attendee from the webinar. Remove the panelist from the webinar. They will not be able to rejoin unless you allow the attendee to rejoin.
  • Lower All Hands: Lower all raised hands. This does not mute attendees that raised their hand and were unmuted.

Promoting an attendee to panelist

  1. Sign in to the Zoom desktop client.
  2. Start a webinar as the host.
  3. Click Participants.
  4. Click the Attendees tab.
  5. Hover over the name of the attendee you want to promote and click More.
  6. Click Promote to Panelist.

Additional controls

There are some additional controls at the bottom of the Participants panel in the Panelists tab:

  • Mute All: Mute all of the panelists and any attendees who you have given permission to talk.
  • Unmute All: Unmute all panelists and any attendees who you have given permission to talk. The attendees without permission to talk will remain muted.
  • Mute Participants On Entry: Mute all new panelists upon entry, but they will be able to unmute themselves. Attendees are automatically muted (and will not be able to unmute unless you promote them to panelists or allow them to talk).
  • Play Chime for Enter/Exit: Play a chime whenever a new panelist or attendee joins.
  • Lock Webinar: Prevent any new panelists or attendees from joining the webinar, until you unlock it.
  • Allow panelist start video: Allow panelists to start their video if they would like to. If you uncheck this option, it will not stop the video feed of any panelist who already has their video on.
  • Allow attendees to:
    • Raise Hand: Allow attendees to raise their hand in the webinar. This feature is typically used if you want to know who would like to ask questions out loud.
    • View the participant count: Allow attendees to see how many panelists and attendees are in the webinar. The number of panelists includes the host. It will appear at the top of their screen, after the meeting ID.
  • Set video layout for attendees: Set the video layout that the attendees see during the webinar. By default, they see the same view as the host (the host’s default view is gallery view).
    • Follow host view mode: Participants will see the same view that the host is using, whether active speaker view or gallery view. If the host is sharing their screen, the attendees will have side by side mode with the host’s share and the active speaker’s video. The attendees can adjust the share and video size.
    • Active Speaker View: This view will switch between the host or panelist who is speaking.
    • Gallery View: This view will show the host and all panelists if their video is on.