Huddles and meetings

A huddle is the moment Arjun swivels his chair and says, “Can you look at this cut?” A meeting is the same room with a call sheet taped to the door: a time, an agenda, invited people, and a place for the decisions that follow.

Start a huddle

Open any channel or DM and select the headphones button. Zoabase joins with audio first. From the call window you can mute, turn the camera on or off, chat, raise your hand, invite people, expand to full-screen view, or leave.

The small call window floats over whatever you're doing. Drag it by its header to anywhere on the screen — it glides to the nearest side and stays there as you move between pages. Double-click the header (or select the expand button) for full screen.

Each tile shows the person's camera or face, a moving voice meter while they talk, whether they're muted, their connection quality, a phone icon for people on the Android app, and a badge when their hand is raised. When someone shares a screen, the full-screen view gives it the main stage and keeps people in a side strip. Pick Automatic, Grid or Speaker layout from the top of the full-screen view, and pin any tile to keep it large.

Other teammates see that a huddle is active in the channel sidebar and on the conversation header. They can join with one click. Select Invite in the call controls to ring an active teammate who is not already there. Starting a huddle from a person’s profile joins the DM room and rings that person automatically.

Share a call with anyone

Select the link button in the call controls, then Create and copy link. Anyone with the link — a client, a freelancer, someone without a Zoabase account — opens it, types their name, picks whether to join with microphone and camera, and lands in the same call. Guests are labelled “guest” on their tile. Teammates who open the link while signed in join as themselves.

Guests count toward your plan’s people-per-call limit like everyone else. To stop new people joining by link, open the same panel and select Turn off link; anyone already in the call stays. Creating a link again gives the call a new address, so the old one keeps failing.

Use the settings button in the call controls to switch microphone, camera or speaker at any time.

Chat, reactions and raised hands

Select the chat button to message everyone in the call. Chat works between the web and the Android app, and it isn't saved: people who join later don't see earlier messages, and it's gone when the call ends. Unread messages show a count on the chat button.

Send a quick reaction (👍 👏 😂 🎉 ❤️ 😮 🤔 🙏) to float it over everyone's call, or raise your hand to queue up without interrupting — raised hands move to the front of the grid in the order they went up, and the People panel lists them first.

In full-screen view, keyboard shortcuts keep your hands on the keys: M mute, V camera, H raise hand, C chat, F small window, and hold Space to talk while muted.

Call settings, sounds and ringtones

The Call settings panel (in a call, or Settings → Calls & meetings) holds:

1. Audio — devices, a microphone test, noise suppression, echo cancellation, automatic volume, joining muted, and hold-space-to-talk.
2. Video & layout — layout, mirroring, hiding your own tile, the quality you send (down to a data-saver 180p), the quality you receive, and audio-only mode for weak connections.
3. Sounds & ringtone — join and leave chimes, mute clicks, chat and hand sounds, their volume, and the ringtone for invitations (Aurora, Marimba, Classic, Pulse or Digital), each with a preview.
4. Recording — how compact recordings should be.

When someone invites you into a call, an incoming-call card rings with your chosen ringtone: Join, Video or Decline. With do-not-disturb on, or while you're already in a call, it shows without ringing. On Android the invitation rings like a phone call even when the app is closed.

Record a call

On paid plans, select the record button (or More → Record the call in the small window). Everyone in the call sees a recording badge. Pause and resume from the red pill at the top; stop to save.

Recordings are compressed in your browser before they're uploaded, so they take little storage: Audio only is about 11 MB an hour, Compact video (360p) about 100 MB an hour, and Standard video (720p) about 290 MB an hour. When you stop, the recording is posted in the call's chat — the channel or DM for a huddle, the meeting's conversation for a meeting — or linked in the meeting's notes. If the upload fails, the file downloads to your computer instead.

Heads up: Recording isn't included in the Starter plan. Guests who join by link can't record.

Join from your phone

Call links and meeting invitations open straight in the Zoabase Android app. On an Android phone, the call page also offers Open in the Zoabase app — calls are smoother there and keep going in the background.

Tip: A huddle belongs to its channel or DM. Start the Northwind rough-cut review in the project channel so the live-call indicator appears where Priya, Arjun, and Maya already work.

If microphone access is denied, Zoabase still joins in listen-only mode and marks you muted. Camera and screen sharing each request their own browser permission.

Schedule a meeting

Open Work → Meetings, then select Schedule meeting. Enter:

1. A title, date, start time, and duration.
2. An optional project and lead or client.
3. An optional external meeting link and physical location.
4. An agenda.
5. Teammates to invite.

When a project is selected, Invite all KEY members adds the project team in one step. The organizer is always included and starts as Going; other attendees start as Invited. Creating the meeting adds in-app invitations and, when it belongs to a conversation, a system message there.

For example, Priya can schedule “Northwind launch-film rough cut,” attach it to the video project and client organization, invite Arjun and Maya, and write three agenda bullets. No separate calendar is required to hold the working context.

Heads up: “Invites sent” means Zoabase activity notifications, not email invitations. Use the .ics download, Google Calendar link, or your existing communication channel when people need a calendar or external notification.

RSVP and keep the calendar honest

Attendees can respond Yes, Maybe, or No on the meeting page. The organizer sees each response. The Meetings view can show meetings you are in or all team meetings, arranged as a Monday-to-Sunday week; use the arrows to move between weeks or return to This week.

Ten minutes before a meeting, the built-in scheduler notifies attendees who have not declined. The meeting’s Join control becomes available five minutes before the start and remains live through the scheduled end. You can also start the built-in call from the meeting detail page.

Organizers, attendees, and admins can edit meeting details. The organizer or an admin can delete a meeting. Canceling notifies attendees and marks the event canceled without erasing it.

Call from the meeting page

Select Start call or Join call. Meeting calls use the same controls as huddles: audio, optional video, screen share, ringing, speaking indicators, and expanded view. If people are already inside, the page names them and shows the participant count before you join.

An external link is optional. It is useful for guests who are not workspace users; team members can always use Zoabase’s built-in room.

Capture decisions and follow-through

The meeting page keeps the agenda at the top and shared notes below it. Anyone invited can edit the notes. Changes save after a short pause, and the rendered view supports headings, lists, checkboxes, and other rich-text patterns.

If the meeting belongs to a project, select Create follow-up issue to turn a decision into project work. Zoabase also shows open issues created by meeting attendees around the meeting window as action items. Priya can write “Swap the music track,” create the issue, assign Arjun, and open its detail drawer without abandoning the meeting record.

Use Download .ics for Outlook or Apple Calendar. Add to Google Calendar opens a prefilled Google Calendar event. Both include the meeting time and useful joining context; the .ics file includes attendees, location when set, and the Zoabase or external join URL.

Tip: Put discussion in meeting notes and commitments in issues. Notes explain why the team chose a direction; issues make the next move assignable and trackable.

Understand call networking

Zoabase calls run through a media server: each person sends their audio and video once, and the server passes it to everyone else. That keeps big calls smooth. How many people fit in one call depends on your plan — up to 15 on the free plan, more on paid plans. Once a call is full, the next person sees a message saying so.

Heads up: Some strict corporate networks block the ports calls use (UDP 7882 and TCP 7881). If a call connects at home but not at the office, try another network or ask your IT team to allow them.

Your browser asks for camera, microphone and screen permission the first time you join; allow them for Zoabase to be seen and heard.