Insights
10 Zoom add-ons for transcription, scheduling + more
If there’s one piece of software that really took off during the pandemic, it’s — you guessed it — Zoom. Many individuals, companies, organizations, schools, and even governments flocked to the now-ubiquitous video call platform to make up for the lack of in-person contact.
And it’s easy to see why this video conferencing platform got so popular. It gives you just enough features to be able to hold a meeting, webinar, or lecture.
But when you want the app to do something more complex to make your meetings better, you have to turn to extra tools. Some of the best Zoom add-ons will let you do things like record and transcribe your meetings, add virtual whiteboard functionality, and much more.
Here are our picks for the top add-ons that will make your Zoom meetings more productive and effective (plus an all-in-one alternative to using Zoom with a bunch of add-ons).
Disclaimer: The information below is accurate as of January 3rd, 2023.
The 10 best Zoom add-ons (+ use cases)
There are many Zoom add-ons on the market, each with its own strengths. Here are the main use cases for each of the apps on our list.
Grain – Annotate, clip, and transcribe your meetings
Slack – Schedule and join meetings right from your Slack channels
Fellow.app – Create meeting agendas and work on meeting notes together with your team
Krisp.ai – Block background noise for more pleasant meetings
Google Workspace – Integrate Zoom into the Google ecosystem
Calendly – Schedule meetings with prospects without the email back-and-forth
Asana – Assign action items during your meeting so that nobody forgets them
Miro – Power your brainstorming meetings with a digital whiteboard
Panopto – Share meeting recordings with a secure solution
Zapier – Automate tasks and connect different platforms to each other (and Zoom!)
1. Grain
Grain is a Zoom plugin that can record and automatically transcribe your Zoom calls.
Image Source: Zoom App Marketplace
While Zoom can create meeting recordings (local files for free users and cloud-enabled for those on paid plans) and provide transcription in a separate file, Grain goes a step further.
One useful feature is that Grain works even if you’re not the meeting host. Another is that through Grain’s interface, you can annotate, clip, and share key moments from your video meetings.
Because of these features, Grain is a good tool for those who want to create engaging meeting recaps or compelling stories based on customer calls or Zoom webinars.
Download the Grain add-on for Zoom >
Related: How HomeRoom saved time and $$ after switching from Zoom + Grain to Vowel
2. Slack
Slack is a popular team communication tool, blending asynchronous communication through instant messaging with video and audio calls.
Image Source: Zoom App Marketplace
Connecting Slack to your Zoom account means you can:
Join or start a Zoom meeting from Slack
Get notifications about who’s joined or left the meeting on Zoom
Share video recordings from Zoom to any Slack channel
Download the Slack add-on for Zoom >
3. Fellow.app
Fellow.app is a meeting productivity app that lets you take collaborative notes and create meeting agendas.
Image Source: Zoom App Marketplace
A meeting agenda is a document that contains discussion points and action items for any given meeting. Using an agenda helps align the team and keeps the meeting on track.
When you connect Fellow.app with Zoom, you have all your meeting notes in one place (a convenient panel) so you don’t have to worry about having other documents open alongside Zoom.
If you have to create meeting minutes or recaps, it’s a good idea to have detailed notes.
Fellow.app also lets you assign and track action items for team accountability.
4. Krisp.ai
Krisp.ai is a tool that helps eliminate distracting background noise from your meetings and improves video call quality.
Image Source: Krisp.ai
Barking dogs, hissing cats, screaming children, construction site noise … the list goes on and on. Anyone who's worked remotely knows the pain of trying to discuss something while distracted by noise. The memes speak for themselves.
Krisp.ai claims to go beyond Zoom’s built-in noise-reduction features to deliver crisp (get it?) sound.
5. Google Workspace
Google Workspace is the collective name for Google’s office productivity and team communication tools.
Image Source: Zoom App Marketplace
Many companies use Gmail and Google Calendar to arrange and schedule meetings, so integrating Google Workspace with Zoom makes a lot of sense.
Once you do that, you can schedule, join, customize, and manage all your Zoom meetings right from the Google suite of apps. For instance, you can create a Zoom meeting from Gmail or Google Calendar.
For companies already in the Google ecosystem with G Suite (as Google Workspace was formerly known) and Workspace, this integration is a no-brainer.
Get Zoom for Google Workspace on Google Workspace Marketplace >
6. Calendly
Calendly is a meeting-scheduling app that lets your collaborators, clients, or potential customers quickly arrange a meeting with you when you’re available.
Image Source: Zoom App Marketplace
Adding Calendly to Zoom means that a meeting link will be created automatically anytime someone books a meeting using your Calendly. That way, you won’t have to engage in the tiresome back-and-forth of emails to pick a meeting time that works.
Note that you need to be a paid user of Calendly to get the Zoom integration to work.
7. Asana
Asana is a project management platform for tracking productivity.
Image Source: Zoom App Marketplace
With Asana, project managers can create a dedicated workspace for each project and then assign tasks and subtasks. The app supports a kanban-style board view of tasks as well as a list and calendar view.
Connecting Asana to Zoom makes sure all the tasks and next steps you discussed during a meeting are actually followed up on (because people do forget, especially when they have too many meetings).
If you use the Asana add-on for Zoom, you can create tasks during the meeting so that nothing is forgotten.
Download the Asana plugin for Zoom >
8. Miro
Miro is a digital whiteboard that lets teams collaborate virtually in real time.
Image Source: Zoom App Marketplace
In a classic brainstorming session, the kind that happens in an office, there’s usually a whiteboard to jot down ideas. In the age of virtual meetings, the whiteboard can be virtual, too.
You can connect Miro to your Zoom account and use the whiteboard inside the meeting, without having to switch tabs or windows.
If you schedule Zoom brainstorms often, this tool can help make them more interactive and engaging.
9. Panopto
Panopto is a secure tool for storing and sharing Zoom recordings.
Image Source: Zoom App Marketplace
Meeting recordings are useful, but you don’t necessarily want what you talked about to be broadcast to the world.
This is where Panopto comes in. Admins have control over the video and access to analytics and metrics. Employees can see recorded meetings in one spot.
Using this tool, you can also edit your videos within Zoom and put your branding on the video before you share it.
10. Zapier
Zapier is the workflow automation tool that all the podcasts are talking about.
Image Source: Zoom App Marketplace
The tool integrates with hundreds of different communication and productivity apps and enables you to create automations (called “Zaps”) that send data and complete tasks between them. Users can create their own Zaps or use templates.
Connecting Zoom to Zapier means that Zoom is now one of the apps that you can add to Zaps. For instance, if you organized a Zoom webinar you can automatically send the registrant data to Salesforce or another CRM solution.
The problem with Zoom add-ons (and why you need an all-in-one tool instead)
If you use Zoom to power your virtual meetings, you might start to see a problem: to make the most of it, you have to become overly dependent on third-party add-ons and plug-ins.
Obviously, there’s a budget issue since all those yearly subscriptions add up. An automatic transcription tool here, a meeting recording tool there, then you might also want collaborative notes…
There’s also the issue of customer support. Each add-on you use is made by a different company with a different support team.
If you want to become less platform-dependent on Zoom and switch to a tool that doesn’t require a bunch of add-ons, try Vowel. Vowel is a video tool that lets remote teams host, capture, search, and share video meetings — no add-ons required.
It has meeting agendas and collaborative notes (similar to Fellow), and you can clip and organize important meeting moments (similar to Grain). It also has integrations with Slack and Calendly, and a Zapier integration is coming soon!
Best of all, it has built-in live transcription, recording, and search, plus AI-powered meeting summaries to help you remember the most important parts of your video calls. No more combing through recordings to find something you need, or holding recurring meetings where no one remembers what was discussed last time.
See a more in-depth comparison of Vowel with Zoom to learn more, or see this case study about a team who switched from Zoom + Grain to Vowel (and saved huge time and money in the process!).
