Admin deployment of Zoom Team Chat

Zoom Team Chat is a great compliment to your real-time video communication. Admins can deploy Zoom Team Chat to:

• Boost productivity across all workflows with secure collaboration inside and outside of your organization.
• Allow users to instantly start phone calls or video meetings, share files, and even pin a message right in Zoom Team Chat.
• Maintain a persistent and searchable wealth of institutional knowledge and corporate messaging.
• Configure central administration and granular security settings ensure that your policies are enforced and your information is safeguarded.

Some early tasks for deploying Zoom Team Chat include automatically adding your users as mutual contacts and creating some default chat channels. Contact groups can also be defined by your IdP groups, so that a directory of users is created in the Contacts tab of the client.

Note: Refer to the New Admin Experience article for a summary of the changes that were deployed to all accounts in June 2022.

This article covers:

• How to set up advanced or auto SAML mapping
• How to create contact groups
  • Create a contact group by importing an existing user group
  • Create a custom contact group
  • Determine how users and groups are shown in the contacts directory
• How to assign chat management permissions

Prerequisites for deploying Zoom Team Chat

• Account owner or admin
• Pro, Business, or Enterprise account

How to set up advanced or auto SAML mapping

After you've set up your SSO authentication in Zoom and have configured basic SAML mapping, you can set up advanced and auto SAML mapping to define or create user groups and channels. You can either set up advanced SAML mapping to sync groups defined in your IdP to existing channels/user groups, or set up auto SAML mapping to automatically create and modify channels or user groups.

User groups determine how users are organized in the Zoom desktop client and mobile app, making it easier for your users to locate and chat with co-workers.

Channels are spaces where users can chat with each other on Zoom. They are mainly used for a specific project, teams, or topics. Public channels are open for anyone to join, while private channels have invite-only membership. Learn more about the differences between 1:1 chats, group chats, and channels.

1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal as an admin.
2. In the navigation menu, click Advanced then Single Sign-On.
3. Click the SAML Response Mapping tab.
4. Adjust the following mapping rules as needed:
   • SAML Advanced Information Mapping section:
     • User Group: Assign specific IdP groups to existing user groups by entering the SAML Attribute, SAML Value, and Resulting Value. For example, if your IdP has an existing attribute and value assigned to your company’s Billing department, you can assign the Billing department to the desired user group in Zoom. You can also exclude certain users and groups from following the mapping rules.
     • Channel: Assign specific IdP groups to existing channels by entering the SAML Attribute, SAML Value, and Resulting Value. For example, if your IdP has an existing attribute and value assigned to your company’s Billing department, you can assign the Billing department to the desired channel. You can also exclude certain users and groups from following the mapping rules.
   • SAML Auto Mapping section:
     • User Group: Specify an attribute defined in your IdP to automatically create user groups. For example, if your IdP has a manager attribute, Zoom can automatically create several manager user groups based on all IdP groups that have that manager attribute.
     • Channel: Specify an attribute defined in your IdP to automatically create channels. For example, if your IdP has a manager attribute, Zoom can automatically create a channel for users that have the manager attribute.

Learn more about advanced SAML mapping and group management.

How to create contact groups

Contact groups are used for organizing users into groups in the Contacts directory of the desktop client, mobile app, and Zoom Rooms. Admins can create contact groups by importing existing user groups (defined manually or through advanced SAML mapping) or create custom contact groups. Contact groups are typically defined by the various teams or departments within an organization, such as Billing, IT, and Support.

Create a contact group by importing an existing user group

User groups allow admins to control settings for specific groups of users through the Zoom web portal. You can link existing user groups to contact groups and control how these contact groups appear in the desktop client and mobile app (displayed in the All Contacts section on the Contacts tab). Each group you select will be added as a new, separate contact group. Each contact group name will be the same as its corresponding user group name.

1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal as an admin.
2. In the navigation menu, click User Management then Contacts.
3. Click Select Groups to import existing user groups.
   Note: Even if you select multiple groups, each group will be created as its own contact group.
4. Search for and select groups to import, then select a privacy setting:
   • Visible to anyone, searchable by anyone: All users can see the group in the client and app (displayed in the All Contacts section on the Contacts tab). All users can search for group members.
   • Visible to members only, searchable by anyone: Only members can see the group in the client and app (displayed in the All Contacts section on the Contacts tab). All users can search for group members.
   • Visible to members only, searchable by members only: Only members can see the group in the client and app (displayed in the All Contacts section on the Contacts tab). Group members are only searchable by other group members.
5. Click Import.

Alternatively, follow the instructions in the next section to manually create and name contact groups (by adding individual users, or based on one or more user groups). Any users added to or removed from the user group will be reflected in the contact group.

Create a custom contact group

Some users may not fit into one particular group, due to perhaps their responsibilities spanning multiple teams or their team being split in unofficial sub-teams. For whatever reason, you can create a custom contact group, with different visibility and group members than those available through the import method.

1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal.
2. In the navigation menu, click User Management then Contacts.
3. Click Add Contact Group.
4. Enter a Contact Group Name and optional Description.
5. Use the search bar to find and select users based on their name or email address.
   You can also search for and select an existing user group to include in this contact group.
6. Select a privacy setting for this group:
   • Visible to anyone, searchable by anyone: All users can see the group in the client and app (displayed in the All Contacts section on the Contacts tab). All users can search for group members.
   • Visible to members only, searchable by anyone: Only members can see the group in the client and app (displayed in the All Contacts section on the Contacts tab). All users can search for group members.
   • Visible to members only, searchable by members only: Only members can see the group in the client and app (displayed in the All Contacts section on the Contacts tab). Group members are only searchable by other group members.
7. Click Save to confirm the new group.

Determine how users and groups are shown in the contacts directory

Follow these steps to show the account's users and groups in the desktop client and mobile app. These users are displayed in the All Contacts section on the Contacts tab of the desktop and mobile clients.

1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal.
2. In the navigation menu, click User Management then Contacts.
3. At the top of the page, enable the Show users, groups, and Zoom Rooms under ‘Contacts’ on the desktop, mobile, and Zoom Room clients toggle.
4. (Optional) Select the following check boxes:
   • List all account users under ‘All Contacts’: All users will appear under Company Contacts (displayed in the All Contacts section on the Contacts tab). Any contact groups created will not be displayed in the desktop client or mobile app when this option is enabled.
     Note: If you enable this setting, Zoom Team Chat group-level settings will not take effect.
   • List all Zoom Rooms under ‘All Contacts’: Select this if you don’t want Zoom Rooms to be organized as defined in the Contacts page > Zoom Rooms tab. Instead, all Zoom Rooms will appear under Zoom Rooms (displayed in the All Contacts section on the Contacts tab).
5. Click Continue to confirm.

How to assign chat management permissions

The account owner, or an admin with elevated permissions, can create a custom role to assign chat management permissions to another user. This allows them to manage Zoom Team Chat in the Zoom web portal. For example, you can create a chat management role to allow another IT admin to create and edit user groups.

When creating a custom new role for managing Zoom Team Chat, the following permissions are relevant and can be assigned as needed, based on the custom role you want to create.

• User and Permission Management section:
  • Groups: Manage user groups
  • Contacts: Manage contact groups.
• Reports section:
  • Chat history: Manage archived chat messages.
• Team Chat Management section:
  • Chatbots: Manage available chatbots.
  • Chat channels: Manage channels for all users in the account.

Learn more about using role management.