Amazon Chime now gives meeting organizers additional options to determine who can access their meetings and how those attendees can join. Meetings can now be set up to restrict or allow access to attendees based on their relationship to the organizer, which is established using the Amazon Chime account registration and authentication mechanisms. The options are (from most to least restrictive):
- Anyone from the organizer’s company or registered Amazon Chime users who are invited can join the meeting.
- Anyone who has created an Amazon Chime account and is signed in can join.
- Anyone with the meeting information can join including those without an Amazon Chime account.
As an additional option, the organizer may now choose whether or not to allow attendees to join the meeting using in-room video systems or dial-in.
Notes:
- To minimize the impact on organizers and attendees for existing meetings and to provide users time to familiarize themselves with the new join controls, all existing meeting IDs will continue to allow access to anyone who has the meeting information.
- When organizers schedule new meetings, the new join controls will be set to allow anyone with the meeting information to join. To take advantage of the new join controls, organizers should schedule new meetings and choose appropriate options to restrict access.
- Once the join controls are set for a meeting ID, they are always set for that meeting ID.
- If a meeting is set to allow access to anyone with the meeting ID, hosts, their delegate(s), and moderators can use the Event Mode, Lock, and Remove attendee controls to manage the meeting.
- If a meeting is set to restrict access to registered or invited users, attendees can use the meeting controls to Invite others to the meeting - this requires that the user has registered, is signed in, and another attendee invites the registered user to the meeting from their contacts.
- Registering for Amazon Chime is free and does not require a paid account. Users can go to https://app.chime.aws and Sign up for an account and complete the email verification process.
Attendees who try to join the meeting and who are not allowed will receive a message that the meeting is locked.
Adding the Enhanced Meeting Join Controls to a Meeting ID
Amazon Chime Pro users assign the new join control options to a meeting ID when scheduling the meeting using the Meeting scheduling assistant from an Amazon Chime Windows, macOS or web application or using the Amazon Chime Add-In for Outlook when using Microsoft Outlook O365. Note: The Amazon Chime Add-In for Outlook on Windows is not currently supported.
From the desktop clients and web app, navigate to Meetings and choose Schedule a Meeting. If you are using the Amazon Chime Add-in for Outlook, open the Outlook calendar and choose Schedule Chime Meeting.
Note: Join controls are not available when you select My personal meeting ID.
Decide who can join
The table below describes the options and related controls for who can join and who is locked out.
| Options selected | Who can join? | Who is locked out? | |
| When both the Attendees outside of my company who are signed in and Anyone with the meeting ID are checked: |  |
Any attendee that has the meeting ID may join the meeting, including those that have not yet created an Amazon Chime account. | Users that don’t have the meeting ID cannot join. Organizers, their delegates or moderators may also use the Lock host control to prevent any new attendees who are not invited from joining the meeting. |
| When Attendees outside of my company who are signed in is checked: |  |
Any attendee that has the meeting ID and is signed into Amazon Chime may join the meeting. | Attendees who are not signed in to Amazon Chime are locked out of the meeting. Anonymous attendees are locked out of the meeting. |
| When no options are checked: |  |
Attendees in the same company (based on the Amazon Chime account that the organizer belongs to) can join. Registered users whose Amazon Chime account is associated with an email that was invited to the meeting along with meet@chime.aws are allowed to join the meeting. |
Registered users outside the organizer’s company that are not invited, but try to join, receive a message that the meeting is locked and cannot join. Anonymous users trying to join receive a message that the meeting is locked and cannot join. |
Decide if attendees can use in-room video systems or dial-in to join
In addition to deciding which attendees are allowed to join a meeting, organizers may now determine if attendees are permitted to join from in-room video systems or dial-in attendees with the meeting ID.
In-room video systems
- When In-room video systems is checked, attendees can join from an in-room system using the 10-digit meeting ID and instructions on how to join are provided in the attendee invitation.
- When In-room video systems is not checked, attendees cannot join from an in-room system using the 10-digit meeting ID.
Note: Amazon Chime generates a unique 13-digit meeting ID for each invited attendee when the meeting begins which can be used to join using an in-room video system when the In-room video systems join option is not checked. An invited attendee signed into Amazon Chime may obtain their 13-digit meeting ID by choosing the Dial-in tab when first joining the meeting from a client or by choosing the Switch to dial-in option under the More menu on Windows, macOS or web applications or under the Options menu on iOS or Android clients.
Dial-in
- When Dial-in is checked, attendees can join by dialing in to the meeting. The organizer may choose to select countries from the list of toll or toll-free numbers and instructions on how to join are provided in the attendee invitation.
- When Dial-in is not checked, attendees cannot dial-in using the 10-digit meeting ID.
Note: Amazon Chime generates a unique 13-digit meeting ID for each invited attendee when the meeting begins which can be used to dial into a meeting when the Dial-in join option is not checked. An invited attendee signed into Amazon Chime may obtain their 13-digit meeting ID by choosing the Dial-in tab when first joining the meeting from a client or by choosing the Switch to dial-in option under the More menu on Windows, macOS or web applications or under the Options menu on iOS or Android clients.
Delegate Scheduling
Delegates who use Amazon Chime on macOS or Windows when running Outlook on the web in Office 365 and Exchange version 2013 or higher can use the Amazon Chime Add-in for Outlook to schedule meetings for someone else.
Additional Resources
User documentation can be found here: Amazon Chime User Guide.
For an overview of the security of Amazon Chime, see our blog post: Understanding Security in the Amazon Chime Application and SDK
