Effect of Zoom Team Chat settings on inter-account communications

Zoom Team Chat admins on paid accounts have a number of different settings they can configure to manage their account's Team Chat cloud retention and security. Understanding how these settings are enforced when using Zoom Team Chat with external contacts is important. This article provides examples of how various Zoom Team Chat admin settings affect both users on your account, as well as external users in chats and channels created on your account.

This article covers:

• Zoom cloud storage retention
• File sharing
• Advanced chat encryption
• Chat Etiquette Tool

Zoom cloud storage retention

Team Chat cloud storage retention policies are applied to 1:1 chats, group chats, channels. While 1:1 chats use the shortest chat retention period between both users, group chats and channels use the chat retention period of the owner of that group chat or channel.

Below are a few examples of how chat retention periods are handled based on the chat interactions of 2 accounts, with Account A having a retention period of 2 years and Account B having a retention period of 5 years.

Cloud Storage Retention period	Account A (2 years)	Account B (5 years)
Retention period for a 1:1 chat between a user in Account A and a user in Account B (Shortest retention period chosen)	2 years	2 years
Retention period if user in Account A is the owner of a group chat or channel that includes members from Account B	2 years	2 years
Retention period if the owner of the group chat or channel is changed to a member in Account B Note: The associated retention period only applies to messages sent after the channel owner is changed. Messages sent before the channel owner is changed would have a 2 year retention period.	5 years	5 years

Note: Chats that contain free and paid users can also affect cloud storage retention. Learn more about how these scenarios can affect cloud storage retention.

File sharing

Both users must have file sharing enabled by their account owner/admins to send or receive files in chats and channels. If their settings conflict, the following logic applies.

	Account A	Account B
File sharing setting	Enabled and all file types allowed	Disabled
Users can send files to internal or external users	Yes	No
Users can receive files from internal or external users	Yes	No

Note: If enabling file sharing, admins can restrict the allowed file types that users can send.

Advanced chat encryption (ACE)

While Team Chat messages in-transit between users and the Zoom Cloud are encrypted by default using TLS, advanced chat encryption (ACE) facilitates more secure Zoom Team Chat messaging between Zoom users. This setting requires a paid Zoom account and can be enabled by an account admin. When ACE is enabled, among other chat feature limitations, chat messages subject to the advanced chat encryption are not available for archiving, review in the Chat History Report, or recovery in the event of device loss. In general, this applies to all members of an ACE-enabled account. However, any 1:1 chats, group chats, or chat channels started by a user with ACE enabled will use ACE for all messages, including by external users without ACE enabled.

The following table outlines how ACE operates between two accounts with different settings. As a reminder, you can send chat messages to 3 different recipient groups: a single contact directly (1:1 chats), a group (group chats), or an established chat channel (channels).

Note: 1:1 chats behave differently than group chats and channels with respect to advanced chat encryption.

	Messages from ACE enabled user	Messages from Non-ACE enabled user
1-on-1 chats started by ACE enabled user	Encrypted with ACE	Encrypted with ACE
1-on-1 chats started by non-ACE enabled user	Encrypted with ACE	Encrypted with ACE
Group chat/channel started by ACE enabled user	Encrypted with ACE	Encrypted with ACE
Group chat/channel started by non-ACE enabled user	Encrypted with ACE	Not encrypted with ACE

 

Chat Etiquette Tool

Chat etiquette policies only apply to the users on the account where the policy is enabled. Polices do not apply to the external users.

	Account A	Account B
Chat etiquette policy(ies)	Enabled	Disabled
User’s messages can trigger chat etiquette policies from account A	Yes	No