Question
People commonly ask on the Zoom Developer Forum:
How can I capture and handle real-time participant data (join/leave times, status, metrics) for ongoing Zoom meetings using the Zoom API, and what are the best practices or challenges to be aware of?
Answer
To capture participant activity in (near) real time, use Zoom’s webhook events and, if needed, supplement with Dashboard APIs. For media streams or live transcripts, you’ll need a meeting bot.
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Use participant joined/left webhook events - Subscribe to the participant joined and participant left events to receive real-time notifications as attendees enter and exit meetings. - Process these events to track join/leave timestamps and current presence.
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Poll the Dashboard API for live participant lists (alternative/complement) - If you need to reconcile or backfill data, use the Dashboard API that lists participants in an ongoing meeting. - Combine this with webhook events to improve reliability and handle missed events.
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For real-time audio/video/transcription, build a meeting bot - Webhook events don’t deliver media streams or transcripts. - A meeting bot can join meetings to access real-time participant metadata, audio, video, and transcripts.
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Consider third-party infrastructure if you don’t want to build/scale bots - Recall.ai provides an API to send meeting bots into Zoom meetings to capture participant metadata, audio, video, and transcripts without building and maintaining the bots yourself.
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