How Whereby is Making Meetings Even Safer for You

At Whereby, we’re on a mission to enable a world where anywhere works, without sacrificing your privacy and security. That's why we’ve added new conditions to our platform that make joining and participating in Whereby Meetings a safer and more secure experience. 

Since November 17 we have started implementing the following changes, and they will be added to all Whereby Meetings accounts in the coming weeks:

1. In unlocked meeting rooms, the host (i.e. room owner) must be present for guests to join the meeting.

2. A licensed Whereby user can only join one meeting room at a time.

So why were these changes made?

In a world so dependent on video, we want the experience to be easy and even delightful. For us, that means no downloads, an intuitive user interface, and beautiful branding. But making getting started and joining a meeting so easy comes with some drawbacks. Up until now, Whereby Meetings users have been able to secure meetings with built-in features like Room Locking, which prevents unwanted guests from joining. While this is handy, we’ve heard from users that they tend to forget to lock the room when their meeting ends. This sometimes leads to instances where unauthorized participants enter Whereby rooms without the knowledge or consent of the room owner. 

The solution? 

Now, when guests attempt to join a meeting in an unlocked room, they are prompted to wait for the host to arrive before they can enter.

Browser tab fatigue

We also learned that browser tab fatigue is very real! Some users had so many tabs open on their browser that they sometimes forgot to leave one Whereby room before joining another in a different tab. In certain cases this led to the unintentional sharing of sensitive information when new meeting participants hear what is happening in the previous room. 

The solution? 

To prevent this from happening, now when users try to join a new meeting room, they’ll be prompted to leave the meeting they’re currently in and join the new one.

How does this change impact Shared Rooms?

Shared Rooms is a Whereby user favorite! And used daily by the Whereby team ourselves. Meetings in Shared Rooms can be hosted by anyone registered on your account, but Whereby users must be present in the Shared Room for unlicensed guests to join the meeting. The Shared Room can be locked or unlocked at any time by the licensed user of the account. 

You can learn more about locking rooms in our Support Center here.

What do you need to do?

You don't need to do anything to enable these new settings. They are automatically enabled for every Whereby Meetings user. But to keep your meetings running smoothly we recommend the following: 

• Review your scheduled Whereby meetings and make sure to join your meeting room to allow guests in at the start of any meeting.

• If you want other Whereby users in your account to be able to host meetings you’ve created, make sure to use a Shared Room for those meetings.

• If you currently share your Whereby user account details with other people, we encourage you to invite them to sign up as independent users in order to avoid disruptions to your meetings (see how to manage team members for more information).

If you have any questions about these changes, let us know! You can contact our support team straight through your dashboard by clicking the help button in the bottom corner.