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Zoom’s Year in Review: Advancing Business Communications in 2019 and Beyond

As 2019 comes to a close, we’re highlighting some of the great features that separate Zoom from the competition...

7 min read

Updated on September 23, 2022

Published on December 31, 2019

In this blog

01 Zoom Phone - Jumplink to Zoom Phone
02 Zoom Meetings - Jumplink to Zoom Meetings
03 Zoom Webinars - Jumplink to Zoom Webinars
04 Conference Rooms - Jumplink to Conference Rooms
05 Zoom Team Chat - Jumplink to Zoom Team Chat
06 Zoom App Marketplace - Jumplink to Zoom App Marketplace
07 Additional highlights - Jumplink to Additional highlights

Nitasha Walia

Group Product Manager

Over the past year, there have been more than 300 improvements to the Zoom platform that have enhanced the usability, security, and flexibility of the technology. Each improvement is designed with our customers in mind and to improve modern business communications. As the year comes to a close, we’re highlighting some of the features that have helped make Zoom the most reliable and complete video communications software on the market. Here are some of the highlights from the past 12 months:

Launched in January 2019, Zoom Phone was created to deliver a unified communications experience and provide Zoom customers with even greater flexibility in their business communications. The really amazing feat, however, is how quickly enterprises began adopting Zoom Phone, and that’s largely due to the pace of innovation to the platform and service.

International expansion — Zoom quickly expanded Zoom Phone’s international presence offering VoIP phone services in the U.S., Canada, UK, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and Puerto Rico. Zoom also launched a beta service for qualified customers in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.
Cloud & premise peering — Enterprise customers can redirect existing voice circuits to the Zoom Phone cloud or implement a hybrid solution with an existing on-premise PBX. This allows customers to enjoy all of the great Zoom Phone features while keeping their existing service contracts, phone numbers, and calling rates with their preferred carrier of record.
Upgrade Zoom Phone call to a meeting — You can now elevate a Zoom Phone call directly into a Zoom Meeting without disconnecting or creating a new meeting.
Automatic call recording — System administrators can turn on automatic call recording, which records any calls made over Zoom Phone and places them in a database for easy access.
Call delegation and shared lines — You can assign others to handle calls on your behalf, and you can share your phone line with someone to make or take calls on your behalf.
Salesforce integration — Click on any phone number within Salesforce CRM to seamlessly connect with your contacts.
Contact center integrations — Zoom Phone added integrations with four popular cloud contact center platforms. The native Five9, Talkdesk, and Twilio integrations enable efficient on-net SIP trunk peering and easy-to-manage call routing options. Zoom Phone also supports direct network peering to select Genesys cloud contact center solutions.
Linux app support — Linux users love Zoom, and now they can also access Zoom Phone features in the native Zoom desktop app.
Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) — Zoom apps have been optimized for VDI environments, including Citrix and VMWare.
Slack integration — Start Zoom Phone calls from any Slack channel or group direct message. When the “/zoom call” is entered in a Slack message, the Zoom app presents you with a “Call” button to dial out to your chosen contact via Zoom Phone.

Capacity increase — Business subscribers can now have up to 300 video participants in their meetings.
Microsoft Teams integration — Zoom has expanded its integration with Microsoft Teams and brings the best video communications options to your productivity hub. With our Microsoft Teams app, there’s an easier way to start and schedule a Zoom meeting right from your Microsoft Teams space.
Virtual background improvements — Use a virtual background without a green screen and create a work-appropriate background no matter where you are.
Simultaneous interpretation — When you have your own interpreter, Zoom provides multiple audio channels at a ratio that allows listeners to understand the interpreter but still hear the tone of the speaker.
Video preview — Before joining a meeting, get a preview of your video feed and make sure you have an appropriate background and are camera-ready.
Recording consent — Meeting participants are now asked to give consent to being recorded during a meeting so everyone is aware they are being recorded.
Pre-assign breakout rooms — Meeting hosts can pre-assign breakout rooms before the meeting begins.
Require passwords for all meetings — Administrators can now require all users to set a password when scheduling all new Zoom Meetings.
Audio watermark — This feature embeds an inaudible watermark into the meeting recording, which helps the organization determine who shared a recording without permission.

Marketing integrations — Zoom added and expanded integrations with Marketo Engage, Pardot, and HubSpot to streamline your marketing and lead-generation initiatives.
International currency support for PayPal integration — Zoom created international currency support for our PayPal integration, making it easier to accept registration fees from a global audience.
Post-webinar survey — Webinar hosts can now collect attendee feedback about their webinar experience with post-webinar surveys, which will automatically launch in a new tab once the webinar ends.

Zoom Rooms Appliances — With purpose-built, turnkey appliance endpoints, it has never been easier to deploy, scale, and manage Zoom Rooms.
In-room people counting — The Zoom Rooms dashboard provides data on the number of in-room attendees, providing insight on conference room utilization and meeting attendance.
One-touch to join third-party meetings — Zoom Rooms now supports one-touch to join a meeting with HD audio and video for Webex, Skype for Business, GoToMeeting, and Bluejeans invitations.
View in-meeting chat — You can now view in-meeting chat messages when in a Zoom Room.
Digital signage split-screen layout and weather display — Digital Signage admins can choose different split-screen content layouts and select the content shown in each section. They'll also have the ability to display local weather.
Reserve other rooms and view floor map — You can reserve other Zoom Rooms and view the Zoom Rooms floor map from the scheduling display of any Zoom Room.
Zoom Rooms device management — System administrators can now remotely manage their iOS Zoom Rooms App and upgrade the OS on Mac and Windows devices.
Native room control integration — Native room control integration allows you to control IP-addressable devices, such as lighting, shades, air conditioning, and more, right from the Zoom Rooms Controller.
Zoom Rooms for Touch companion whiteboard — Admins can deploy an additional Zoom Rooms for Touch device in an existing Zoom Room. The additional device can be used as a digital whiteboard or for screen sharing and annotation.
Virtual background with green screen — You can select virtual backgrounds in Zoom Rooms that have a green screen and create your own broadcast studio.
Shape recognition on Zoom Rooms for Touch — When you draw a shape on the Zoom Rooms for Touch display, it will automatically detect the shape and perfect it, making collaboration neat and seamless.

Replies and reactions — You can now reply and add emoji reactions directly to messages in Zoom Team Chat, with all replies and reactions grouped with the original message to make following and engaging in conversations easier.
File integrations with Box, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive — Share files directly from your Box, Dropbox, or Microsoft OneDrive account in Zoom Team Chat.
Alert when available — You can set an alert to let you know when a specific person is available to chat.
Personal space for note taking — This feature provides a “personal space” within the Zoom client where you can take notes during meetings.
Chat apps to increase productivity - Over 50 new chat apps will help you stay on top of your most important work and collaborate quickly to get more done with services like ServiceNow, Jira, Docusign, and Google Calendar.

We introduced the Zoom App Marketplace last year and continue to add and enhance integrations with leading business applications. Year over year, we have seen almost a 5x growth in app usage and now have more than 200 apps and integrations. Highlights include new integrations and updated Zoom apps for:

Atlassian: Schedule and start Zoom Meetings from Jira and Service Desk. Solve issues quickly and close service tickets faster by utilizing video collaboration natively. Use Zoom as the video bridge of your Incident Command Center sessions in Atlassian OpsGenie and stay on top of critical incidents.
Cornerstone: Seamlessly integrate live video training sessions and present with confidence by utilizing Zoom Webinars and Zoom Meetings directly from Cornerstone Learning Suite.
Microsoft Teams: Start, schedule, and join Zoom Meetings right from your Team space.
Salesforce: Close business faster with Salesforce by seamlessly meeting with your customers and efficiently managing your sales calls.
Slack: Zoom Meetings and Zoom Phone are at your fingertips within your Slack channels or group messages. Easily make calls and manage your meetings.
Zapier: Trigger an action when a Zoom Meetings or Zoom Webinars event occurs to automate your workflows through Zapier.

See which features and highlights Zoom’s product managers talked about at Zoomtopia 2019 during the “A Year in Review” session: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtaXyis1k0E To schedule a personalized demo, contact a Zoom product specialist today!