Hey Makers
Today, I’m coming in with a fun-packed solution for you to check out! Before diving in, I’d like to give a huge shout-out to @dzisner - a Make partner and the wizard behind the story
You might think that sharing a Zoom recording isn’t that hard, and you’d be absolutely right: Sharing a single Zoom recording can be done in just a few clicks without much hassle.
But what happens when you have to share hundreds of recordings on a regular basis?
That’s a whole different story, and also the problem that online language learning company Citizen Cafe faced during the height of the covid pandemic.
To understand the scope of the problem, and why manually sharing Zoom recordings can suddenly become a gargantuan task, let’s look at the situation Citizen Cafe had to deal with:
- 65 different online classes per semester
- 10 to 15 students in every class
- 20 lessons in every class
After doing the math, we’re looking at 1,300 Zoom recordings that need to be distributed to 875 students every semester.
Quite a different picture from having to share a single Zoom recording now and then, huh?
Fortunately, Citizen Cafe was lucky enough to have expert Maker David Zisner on their side, who automated the whole process of creating and distributing the Zoom lessons using everyday tools like Airtable, Vimeo, WhatsApp, Make, and (of course) Zoom.
We asked David about his solution, and this is what he told us.
What problem were you trying to solve with your automation?
Streamlining the process of making Zoom class recordings available to students.
Why did the problem exist?
Getting Zoom recording to students was a long process that required many staff members to manually make each class available as soon as it ended.
They’re dealing with 1,000+ recorded classes each semester, so neither the workload nor the user experience were acceptable.
How did you solve the problem? What does your solution look like?
With just one manual action in Airtable (creating a new class) we automated the entire process that follows: Creating the lessons in Zoom, reading all recordings as they’re coming online, uploading them to Vimeo, updating all the data back to Airtable, and generating a dynamic dashboard, at the click of a button, inside a Make webhook.
The link to the dynamic dashboard is then made available to all students in their WhatsApp group for the semester!
What did your solution achieve?
It made Zoom class recordings available to all students right after the class ended.
Plus, it reduced the workload of the team by a huge margin, and decreased customer support queries while providing a great user experience for the students.
If you’re curious to learn more, check out the awesome video David created around this topic.
Just a side note here: The scenarios showcased in the video are built on Integromat but the logic and functionality would be identical on Make. 
Helpful Resources:
We’re eager to hear what you think so feel free to post your questions and comments below 