When scheduling interviews via Optimal Interviews, you have the option to automatically record your interview sessions with the Optimal Recorder for Zoom, Google Meets, and Microsoft Teams meetings.

What to expect with Optimal Recorder enabled

When the Optimal Recorder is enabled for your interview sessions, here’s what to expect:

Automatic Recording: The Optimal Recorder will automatically join your sessions and start recording as soon as the session begins or when the Optimal Recorder is admitted into the meeting. It will exit once all participants have left.
Automatic Uploads: The recording will be automatically uploaded to the Results > Recordings section within Optimal Interviews.
Transcription: Once the session ends, a transcript of the conversation will be automatically generated and available under Results > Recordings.
Summary and Insights: The recording will be incorporated into the automated summary, insights, citations, and highlight reels generated for your interviews.

Participant Experience

When the Optimal Recorder is enabled for your sessions, after your participants click on Join session in the invite email, your participants will first see a message informing them that the audio and video will be recorded and that the Optimal Recorder will be automatically joining the call.
If you want to obtain explicit consent, consider adding a participant consent question during the screening or recruitment process through your moderated recruitment provider.

Enabling automatic recording with the Optimal Recorder

Follow these steps to enable automatic recording for your interviews:

Schedule an Interview via Optimal Interviews.
Under the Scheduler Details section, check the Recording option.
If you select this, the Optimal Recorder will be automatically invited to your meeting.
Add your Zoom, Google Meets, or Microsoft Teams link to your scheduled meetings.

Note: If Recording is not enabled for your Workspace, your Workspace admin must enable this feature. The admin can find this option under Workspace Settings > Features.

If you are an organization admin of multiple Workspaces, please navigate to your Admin Team Workspace. Then go to Manage Organization > Features to enable this feature. Learn more.

Important notes for Microsoft Teams users

Admins need to enable Anonymous users can join a meeting under Teams > Meetings > Meeting Settings in their Microsoft settings to allow the Optimal Recorder to record.
For Microsoft Teams (teams.microsoft.com) sessions, the Optimal Recorder will appear with an “Unverified” label. This is expected behavior and part of Microsoft Teams' current settings. Learn more.

Additional notes

Automatically invited: By default, the Optimal Recorder will automatically be invited to your meeting and join your meeting when it starts.
Waiting rooms: The Optimal Recorder cannot bypass waiting room prompts. Depending on your video conferencing setup, a meeting organizer or member of your team will need to admit it.
Meeting passwords: The password needs to be embedded in the meeting URL or the Optimal Recorder cannot join.

The Optimal Recorder may be blocked depending on your organisation’s settings. Please check with your video conferencing admin to update these settings where possible.

External participants: If your organization blocks external/out of organization participants from joining meetings, Optimal Recorder will be rejected and not be able to join.
Locked meetings: If meetings are locked after starting, the Optimal Recorder cannot join mid-session. Note that by default, the Optimal Recorder joins at the beginning of the session.
IP address allowlisting: If your organization restricts meetings joined by IP, Optimal Recorder will be blocked.
Domain restrictions: If your organization has set up that only their company email domain accounts can join, Optimal Recorder will not be allowed to join.