Zoom and Miro: best practices to combine these tools

  • 24 March 2020
  • 40 replies
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Hello!  I am so happy to see this group support.  There is so much information currently available that I am having difficulty navigating through it all.  I would like to use Miro Boards for small group work in Zoom breakout rooms during synchronous classes and am not sure if this even possible, if not, I may just assign small groups in Canvas for them to use the Miro board to brainstorm.  Has anyone used Miro with Zoom? 

I would also be interested in any other ways people are using this tool in higher education.

Robert Johnson 2 years ago

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Combining Zoom and Miro effectively can greatly enhance remote collaboration and productivity eaterys101. Start by ensuring all participants have access to both platforms and share the Miro board link in the Zoom meeting invitation for easy access. During the meeting, use Zoom for video conferencing capabilities, allowing participants to see and hear each other for better communication. Designate one participant to share their screen with the Miro board, enabling everyone to view and interact with it in real-time. Encourage active participation by prompting attendees to add sticky notes, shapes, or annotations to the board to brainstorm ideas or organize thoughts collectively. Utilize Zoom's breakout rooms feature for smaller group discussions, assigning each group a section of the Miro board to work on before reconvening to share findings. Record the meeting for future reference and share the Miro board link afterward for continued collaboration and follow-up. By following these practices, you can leverage the strengths of both Zoom and Miro to facilitate productive and engaging remote meetings.

Combining Zoom and Miro can be a powerful way to enhance remote collaboration and productivity. Here are some best practices to make the most of these tools:

1. Use Miro for visual collaboration: Miro is a digital whiteboard that allows teams to brainstorm, organize ideas, and create diagrams. It's an excellent tool for visual collaboration and can help make complex concepts more accessible.

2.. Integrate Miro with Zoom: Miro has a Zoom integration that makes it easy to collaborate in real-time. This integration allows you to start a Zoom call directly from Miro, making it easy to discuss ideas and share screens.

When teams combine Zoom and Miro, they can improve their remote collaboration and productivity. If you want to get started and make the most of these tools, there are some best practices you should follow. Additionally, Ebizneeds AI chatbot development services can be a game-changer, providing continuous assistance with projects. I highly recommend it for developers who need expert help.
 

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The paid subscription really made a difference for me. A couple of years ago, the free version of Miro fell short when I needed help with building a smart bot. Upgrading to the paid version opened up valuable support, especially for developers like me. Being able to join Zoom calls for Nimble AppGenie's AI chatbot development services was a game-changer. It's a must for anyone serious about continuous assistance with their projects. Highly recommended for developers seeking expert help.

Thank you for providing your response.

I have a follow-up question:

Miro offers two types of plans: a free plan and various paid plans. The free plan allows users to share up to three boards with an unlimited number of people. The paid plans offer unlimited boards, but restrict the number of people with whom a board can be shared.

As a teacher, what type of plan do you think would be most beneficial and practical, considering that students typically complete their educational process after several sessions and new students take their place?

Thank you!

Userlevel 7
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Hey @AMC, thanks for reaching out. Here are my thoughts on your questions:

Re: participants toggling screens

A very high-quality onboarding to Miro is key here. I’ve run a few events of up to 300-pax and this ‘toggling screen’ issue hardly cropped up. If the experience is designed well with plenty of interactions, participants will be more than happy to be in Miro most of the time. Because that’s where the action is.

(Also, I limit the amount of technology. Everything happens on the Miro board, including my slides, so there’s practically zero screen toggling in my sessions.)

There are many studies today that showed having cameras off/not seeing self on the screen increases productivity and reduces fatigue. I also find that participants listen and engage better when they don’t look at me :)

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/02/new-study-turning-off-cameras-in-virtual-meetings-boosts-productivity.html

As a facilitator, it’s always best to work with 2 screens, one each for Zoom and Miro. In my sessions, ‘cameras on’ are optional. In some homes, keeping cameras on may not be possible. For those who have cameras on, I’m grateful that I’m able to see expressions on the other monitor. It’s a privilege. 

To your question, yes, I see all cursors and I see participants’ faces on the other screen.

Re: Zoom+Miro integration

This is not a great experience unless you’re using Miro in a small persistent group or team. For example, with team members at work or perhaps small school discussion groups. It’s an issue with how Miro is integrated into Zoom. So if someone is running an old Zoom app, there’s a chance that Miro will not work. Clunky.

However, if you really want a very good experience in terms of integrated Miro+video conferencing, then I’d suggest trying out Butter (https://butter.us/). Here’s a recent video recording:

You’ll notice that everyone can use Miro and everyone can see each other :) You can try Butter for free and integrate it with your Miro account. Let me know how it goes?

@Isman Tanuri  Thanks for your video--how did you have your video on the screen? Are you able to see others videos or just cursors. I’m new to zoom & miro integration, I have run a few lectures and workshops using both, but find participants find it hard to toggle between the two, so I’m looking for ways to improve this experience for them! 

This is possible for paid subscribers only. I’m not sure if the other versions have this kind of support but im not sure if they added that lately. Because 2 years back i wanted assistance with building an intelligent bot and the free version of Miro did not do much help. So i subscribed for the paid version and it has been helpful as i could get in zoom calls for Miros chatbot development services. I think the paid version is very much useful for developers and coders who are looking for continuous assistance with their projects. 

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The wait is over → https://community.miro.com/changelog-feedback-31/new-announcing-the-miro-app-for-zoom-5389

Thanks very much James. I’ve not been able to focus on Miro for some time but will be able to come back to it later in the Summer and no doubt may have some follow-up questions for you.

Many thanks! 

I have been using Miro and Zoom quite successfully for the past year (teaching a bunch of different university classes).   I use breakout rooms -- and during the breakout room time, each room is working within a small chunk of a Miro board.  So, if a student is in BreakoutRoom3, they go to the shared miro board and look for the zone (a big square) labelled “Breakout Room 3”.  They collaborate/work with their team “on” (in?) that square.  They discuss, create, etc (say for 15 mins) then everyone comes back together and I ask each room to walk us through what they did/found.

You can see this -- and lots of other random ideas/tips in this board I made (below).     

 

Thanks very much Isman:). I’ll have a look over the coming weeks. 👍 I appreciate you sending me your training video. I may have some Q’s for you when I eventually get round to watching it. Would you mind if I reached out to you closer to the time? 🙏

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Hello @Marla, if you’re still looking for ideas on how to use Miro and Zoom together, you can check out this interactive webinar that I ran. My training and workshop sessions are similar to this. Everything happens in Miro, no screensharing and participants interact with the content, other participants and the facilitator all the time.

 

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Hi all,

Like to chip in here to see if it can help anyone.

If you’d like to use Miro with a whole group or in breakout, take a look at our platform called Toasty (https://toasty.ai/). We integrate with Miro and you can have everyone use it together in the main room or when everyone is in breakout - they always have access to the board and is only 1 click away.

Moving people from one breakout room to another breakout room won’t disconnect them as well. And you don’t need to screen share.

I hope this helps - and if you have any feedback, very happy to hear :)

 

Kevon

Co-founder & CEO of Toasty

Hello,

 

I have just tried using Toasty - which did indeed seem like an answer to our prayers - and have just left the following message at the "live chat". Pity. ;-/

"Hello, I just wanted to let you know that, although I was initially very excited about your product, based on the "academy" videos, i found it definitely not ready for prime time... Buggy in almost every single feature I tried. Starting with something as simple as editing a session: every time i click on it, a "new" host appears (all me); trying to get to google drive kept giving me an "feature not available" error message; the session itself reverts to blank every time I leave it, losing all the planning; and finally, my attempt to chat with somebody led me here, where I get the information that you`ll be back online "later today", whenever that is. Toasty seems like an incredible idea, but it is definitely still in beta, and should be made available as such. Customer trust is a hard thing to get back, and it's my opinion that you are very much risking losing it with everyone that tests it as a finished product. "


It did look interesting. Bummer.

 

Hey everyone, this one is all my fault. 

I’m VERY SORRY to have caused this last year.

5 months ago, I was still new at my role and grossly underestimated the time (4+ weeks dedicated expertise), capital (for underlying infrastructure), and skill/effort (engineering/operations) to provide a stable video meeting product.

Last year, I was also inexperienced with customer support and did not dedicated time to watch for the live chat. 

We’ve changed quite a bit since then:

  • [Nov 2020] - I became CEO of Toasty, after raising a round to further fuel our growth
  • [Nov 2020] - We hired a customer success champion, who has helped with our growth, emails, videos, and is dedicated now on watching the chatbot for any questions. Also, every single email sent to support@toasty.ai (our main way to provide support), goes to my personal work email - I read everything.
  • [Dec 2020] - we re-did our entire infrastructure from scratch. “Toasty Turbo”, was launched in 3 locations (US, Germany and Singapore), along with a sophisticated way to make sessions seem “local” even to participants physically far away. We wrote more about the change here: https://blog.toasty.ai/superior-experience-for-virtual-events-and-large-audiences/
  • [Dec 2020] - we also wrote about our security and privacy as many of our users are curious how we stack up vs Zoom. You can see the post here: https://blog.toasty.ai/comparing-toasty-zoom-security/
  • [Jan 2020] - we launched new pricing, including a perpetual free tier, we’ve also increased what you get at two plans: Plus and Premium. You can see our pricing tiers here: https://toasty.ai/pricing
  • [Jan 2020 - Present] - we’re working extremely hard to push product forward to provide even better ways to interact.
  • Customers like Instacart, VIPKID, Stanford University, Government consultants, and thousands of professional facilitators tell us we have something special. One interview we’ve done lately can be found here: https://blog.toasty.ai/shani-herrmann-interview/
  • Fresh out of the oven, we just published how Toasty loves Miro - the top 3 things we enjoy most about Miro: https://blog.toasty.ai/how-toasty-loves-miro/

 

Looking back when I became CEO, the first thing I did was to write out our company mission: to build meaningful connections between people. The methods, software, people, processes, may change. But this mission is not ever going to change.


Feedback on our product - especially how we can make the integration with Miro better, are needed. Please write to let me know.

 

Eric
CEO of Toasty (previously CTO & Head of Product)

Follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tsangeric/

 

Hi all-I was thrilled to see this thread:). I am likely to fall under Scenario 2 above:

Scenario 2:

25 students in a classroom and work on 1 discussion together (e.g. brainstorming)

I will be running an on-line workshop (with 6-8 participants)-most likely using Zoom-and I can’t quite understand how I would then incorporate Miro into this process, i.e., if I’m the “trainer”-and I switch over to Miro (in a new tab)-do my participants see my screen/Miro diagram? I’m not understanding how I can have my Zoom meeting/workshop “open” and then how Miro fits into all of this? Can somebody please clarify this in very easy to understand language:). Many thanks!

I can’t wait for the integration to launch. Is zoom going to launch all their “Zapps” at once? Is this the reason launch has be delayed?

FYI - When presenting, it really has helped me to hide slides and reveal portions only when I am talking about those sections

 

RJ

Userlevel 7
Badge +5

@meloffbird

For people new to Miro I’ve found it useful to follow a ‘field trip’ or “off-site” metaphor.  What I mean by this is: people are familiar with zoom (this is location A: like a team showing up to a big meeting at their office). And the addition of a new platform with a new interface can be disorienting for some (like finding parking and the right entrance and floor of some offsite office, conference space or other location. They show up late or miss the orientation.) 

-> for this reason I like to demo, from zoom screenshare, the basic use and interface of Miro as well as any portions of MIro board they may later be asked to navigate on their own— I demo this Miro usage from a screen share in zoom and then paste in the link (into Zoom chat) to the first onboarding Miro board - specifically the welcome/onboarding frame. (Note - if you use “incognito mode” in Chrome for example, you can load the Miro board frame link as if you are an ’anonymous editor’ -what they will be- and the view you demonstrate will more accurately reflect their UI/UX - e.g. Miro gives absolute first time users some pop up help windows that you will likely encourage them to close outright if you intend to conduct their Miro onboarding. 
 

Things covered in the on-boarding: I’ve found this order of priority to be most helpful  

-The window/screen management of setting up side by side windows so they can have view of 1) Miro 2) zoom in gallery mode to see their collaborators 3) zoom chat. (The ability to go back to zoom chat quickly is a lifeline for any stragglers who need to reach back out about Miro interface issues) 

-Navigation: intuitive understanding of “the board canvas” (moving the canvas moves you to a new vantage point - it moves everything on top of it… sits like moving to a new part of the table”- surprisingly some new-to-Miro people get flustered by this.   Zoom(scroll-based and mini-map), hand(pan), arrow moving of objects.  (People need navigation before object creation in my opinion. Otherwise it feels like playing on boats without learning to swim- fun at first but ultimately risky.)  I like to give a gently-paced, full tour preview, of any large, multi-frame boards: like standing a zoo tour group in front of a map of the zoo and pointing out our path for the day, and where the lions are. 

-Object creation → editing created objects → now get social → have fun with it → try other tools. 
 

Double check along the way that you’re getting the participation you hoped for. Learning new tools is a place that can quickly separate the quietly reserved and less-rapid-tech-adopting from the more rapid. In a big group training some people won’t feel comfortable saying they ‘ just didn’t understand how to make a sticky note.’ They’ll wait until the group exercises to bring it up and while they’ll probably be cross-taught at that point… it’s not a comfortable feeling for anyone to go through that, it distracts from the activity and worst of all, in my opinion, it opens an opportunity for the group to turn negative on Miro as a group, and doubt you and others who have thrust this uncomfortable and unproductive tool into their busy work lives. Getting everyone comfortable with absolute basics helps mitigate the momentum of this potential critique.

 

good luck 🙂 and enjoy. 

Following up on this thread. I am planning on hosting a workshop/focus group and am not sure if it is best to share my screen during the presentation (as I have some boards that explain the activities) or just use Zoom for audio and ask that the participants use the full screen to view the Miro board? 

Userlevel 4
Badge +1

Hi all,

Like to chip in here to see if it can help anyone.

If you’d like to use Miro with a whole group or in breakout, take a look at our platform called Toasty (https://toasty.ai/). We integrate with Miro and you can have everyone use it together in the main room or when everyone is in breakout - they always have access to the board and is only 1 click away.

Moving people from one breakout room to another breakout room won’t disconnect them as well. And you don’t need to screen share.

I hope this helps - and if you have any feedback, very happy to hear :)

 

Kevon

Co-founder & CEO of Toasty

Hello,

 

I have just tried using Toasty - which did indeed seem like an answer to our prayers - and have just left the following message at the "live chat". Pity. ;-/

"Hello, I just wanted to let you know that, although I was initially very excited about your product, based on the "academy" videos, i found it definitely not ready for prime time... Buggy in almost every single feature I tried. Starting with something as simple as editing a session: every time i click on it, a "new" host appears (all me); trying to get to google drive kept giving me an "feature not available" error message; the session itself reverts to blank every time I leave it, losing all the planning; and finally, my attempt to chat with somebody led me here, where I get the information that you`ll be back online "later today", whenever that is. Toasty seems like an incredible idea, but it is definitely still in beta, and should be made available as such. Customer trust is a hard thing to get back, and it's my opinion that you are very much risking losing it with everyone that tests it as a finished product. "


It did look interesting. Bummer.

I realize I’m late to this thread but our team at Yahoo has been using Circles for Zoom and when we collaborate with Miro it has been really helpful. Circles removes the big zoom window and turns everyone into little circles on your screen so it makes it perfect for collaborating. Hope others find this helpful too!

Hi all,

Like to chip in here to see if it can help anyone.

If you’d like to use Miro with a whole group or in breakout, take a look at our platform called Toasty (https://toasty.ai/). We integrate with Miro and you can have everyone use it together in the main room or when everyone is in breakout - they always have access to the board and is only 1 click away.

Moving people from one breakout room to another breakout room won’t disconnect them as well. And you don’t need to screen share.

I hope this helps - and if you have any feedback, very happy to hear :)

 

Kevon

Co-founder & CEO of Toasty

Hello,

 

I have just tried using Toasty - which did indeed seem like an answer to our prayers - and have just left the following message at the "live chat". Pity. ;-/

"Hello, I just wanted to let you know that, although I was initially very excited about your product, based on the "academy" videos, i found it definitely not ready for prime time... Buggy in almost every single feature I tried. Starting with something as simple as editing a session: every time i click on it, a "new" host appears (all me); trying to get to google drive kept giving me an "feature not available" error message; the session itself reverts to blank every time I leave it, losing all the planning; and finally, my attempt to chat with somebody led me here, where I get the information that you`ll be back online "later today", whenever that is. Toasty seems like an incredible idea, but it is definitely still in beta, and should be made available as such. Customer trust is a hard thing to get back, and it's my opinion that you are very much risking losing it with everyone that tests it as a finished product. "

Userlevel 7
Badge +5

Zoom Transcript to Miro Layout

 

Made a full post today over here about a Zoom Transcript to layout plugin prototype I’m working on…  thought I’d semi-repost over here. 

 

It takes a zoom meeting transcript and lays it out into a commenter-by-commenter swimlane-ish flow of their sequential comments on stickies. 

 

Here’s a little demo video walk-through of where I was able to nudge the prototype to this week.

 

 

 

Interested to learn where we the people of Miro might want to take a prototype like this ...

Hi all,

Like to chip in here to see if it can help anyone.

If you’d like to use Miro with a whole group or in breakout, take a look at our platform called Toasty (https://toasty.ai/). We integrate with Miro and you can have everyone use it together in the main room or when everyone is in breakout - they always have access to the board and is only 1 click away.

Moving people from one breakout room to another breakout room won’t disconnect them as well. And you don’t need to screen share.

I hope this helps - and if you have any feedback, very happy to hear :)

 

Kevon

Co-founder & CEO of Toasty

I hope that the integration comes soon because I spent a lot of time today trying to make it work and am not sure that it is possible because on Miro site it says coming soon. From all the other literature I read I believed that it was already possible through Zapier. Not sure what’s going on.

If anyone can assist that would be great.

Anastasis

Hi,

I think integrating is the way to go because being logged into two separate accounts is cumbersome and clunky.

I have been trying all day to integrate Miro and Zoom by using Zapier without success. I upgraded to a Pro Zoom but still can’t get it to work. It looked like it worked for a minute but I could never get the Miro function back when in Zoom.

Very frustrating and these companies have poor support, well I haven’t heard back from anyone yet.

If anyone has managed to make this work I’d love to hear how you did it.

Anastasis

 

 

Hi,

Has there been any progress on the Zoom/Miro integration?

Thanks,

Ryan

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