Screening & Taking Live Phone Calls on Zoom Live Streams - A D.I.Y. Budget-Friendly Guide to Talk-Show Style Phone Guests

To add interactivity to our Zoom live stream events at the Kelly Writers House at the University of Pennsylvania, we like to take phone calls from live viewers on the air, similar to a radio-talk show.

The way it works; A call comes in, I screen the call, alert the hosts and then we put the phone caller on the air live to make their comment or ask their question.

Technically speaking, there are probably other ways to accomplish this, but this method is a relatively cheap, quick, do-it-yourself method. One limitation is that only one call can be screened and put on the air at a time.

The necessary software

• Skype - for receiving phone calls
• Rogue Amoeba Loopback - for routing our audio signals, digitally! Super cool.
• Zoom - for hosting the meeting/live stream

The steps

1. Install Skype and create a Skype account. You can now take calls over a traditional Skype call (via your username). This might be good enough for your use case and, in any case, is a really useful option to offer to long-distance / international callers. If you'd like to take phone calls to a traditional phone number, you can also setup a Skype phone number that will be associated with your account. This means, if someone dials this number, it will ring in your Skype just like a regular Skype call. Note that the Skype phone number feature is an add-on for about $30 for 3 months.

2. Skype setting hack - In order to prevent the Skype ringtone from playing the ringtone when another Skype call is already underway, enable the NDI feature in Settings->Calling->Allow NDI Usage. Not sure why this works, but it does!

3. Download and install Rogue Amoeba Loopback. There is a free trial but the license is a $99 + tax. This software allows us to do amazing audio routing between the various softwares and audio inputs/outputs on the computer.

• Create an audio route from Skype and the call screener to Zoom
• Create an audio route from Zoom to the Skype and call screener

--To Be CONTINUED-- Please comment below if you want me to continue this post!