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Online Meetings

Online Meetings is where you set up the Zoom sessions for your groups, keep the list of people who attend, and get the link for everyone to join. This guide walks through each step.

In this Guide

Signing In
Finding your way around
Setting up your Profile
Adding people to your Address Book
Importing Contacts
Putting People into Groups
Scheduling a Meeting
Scheduling a Recurring Meeting
Editing a Meeting
Cancelling a Meeting
On the Meting Day: Starting your Meeting
Starting a Meeting right now
Signing Out

1. Signing In

Do this once each time you open the site.

Open the Online Meetings web address in your browser: meetings.communitybiblestudy.org
Enter your CBS Email address, then click Sign In.
If you are already signed in to your CBS account on that computer, you will be logged in automatically. If you are not, sign-in with your usual CBS email and password when asked.
You will land on the Dashboard, with your initials in a circle at the top right and your name at the bottom of the menu on the left.

2. Finding your way around

There are four places, listed down the left side of every page:

Dashboard — your home page. A calendar on the left, and your scheduled Meetings on the right that shows upcoming meetings.
Address Book — add your contacts and create groups.
My Meetings — everything you have scheduled, with full details for each.
Start New Meeting — opens a meeting straight away, without scheduling it first.

Your initials in the circle at the top right open a small menu with Profile and Sign Out.

Each meeting shows its name, its date and time, and its description. A blue Recurring tag means it is one date from a repeating series. If nothing is scheduled yet, the card simply reads No Meetings with a button to create your first one.

3. Setting up your Profile

Before you schedule any meetings, set your preferences.

Click your initials in the circle at the top right, then Profile.
Check your Name, and choose a Language if the list offers yours.
Set your Time Zone. Click the box and start typing — the list is organized by UTC offset, so type the name of your zone rather than your town. Typing Mountain finds “(UTC-07:00) Mountain Time (US & Canada)”; typing the name of a city usually finds nothing.
Click Save.

Good to know. If meeting times ever look several hours out from what you expect, come back here and check your time zone first. If a participant is located in a different time zone, the time will appear in their time zone.

4. Adding people to your Address Book

Worth doing once for everyone in your group or people you meet with frequently. Then, you can send invitations with a click rather than typing an email addresses each time you schedule a meeting.

Click Address Book in the left menu, then make sure you are on the CONTACTS tab.
Click Create Contact. A short form opens on the right.
Fill in the three boxes: First Name, Last Name, and Email — the address their invitation should go to. The email is required.
Click Create. They appear in the list on the left straight away.

You can import contacts from an existing list as long as the header contains the listed contact information. Additional fields will not be imported. — see Importing Contacts.

Finding a Contact

Type any part of a name or an email address into the Search box and the list narrows as you type. The Sort by dropdown next to it re-orders the list four ways: A–Z or Z–A, by first name or by last name.

Changing a Contact’s Details

Click their name in the list. Their details appear on the right.
Click the pencil icon in the top right of that panel.
Edit whatever needs changing, then click Save. Cancel backs out without saving.

Good to know. If you change someone’s email address, the app tells you it will also update that address on every meeting they are already invited to. That is usually exactly what you want — one change and they are right everywhere.

Removing a Contact

Click their name in the list.
Click the red bin icon at the top right.
Read the message, then click DELETE CONTACT to confirm, or CANCEL to keep them.

Careful. Deleting a contact cannot be undone. If you only want to leave them out of one meeting, edit that meeting instead — see Editing a meeting.

5. Importing Contacts

Quicker than adding people one at a time if you already have your class list in a spreadsheet.

Go to Address Book, CONTACTS, and click Import Contacts.
Get your spreadsheet ready. It can be an .xlsx or a .csv file, and the first row must use these exact column names: FirstName, LastName, Email.
Don’t have one set up? Click Download a template in the same box, fill it in, and save it.
Click Browse files and choose your spreadsheet.
The button at the bottom counts what it found — Import 24 Contacts, for example. Check that number looks right, make any edits that are needed, then click Import.

Good to know. Spelling of the column headings matters — FirstName as one word, not “First Name”. The template gets this right for you, so it is the safest starting point.

6. Putting People into Groups

A group is a saved list of contacts — your whole class, or a core team. Invite the group and everyone in it is invited at once.

Go to Address Book and click the GROUPS tab.
Click Create Group.
Give the group a Name — this is the only part you must fill in. A short Description is optional but helps other leaders know what it is for.
Click Add Contact. A box opens listing everyone in your address book.
Tick the people you want. There is a search box at the top, and a Select All tick box if you want everybody.
Click Add. The people you chose appear as small circles under Contacts.
Click Create. Your group is saved.

Changing Who is in a Group

Click the group’s name, then the pencil icon.
To take someone out, click the small red × on their circle.
To add someone, click Add Contact and tick them. Anyone already in the group will not be listed again.
Click Save.

You can also rename the group or rewrite its description in the same place. To remove a whole group, click the red bin icon and confirm — the people in it stay in your address book.

7. Scheduling a Meeting

For a one-off session. Setting up a weekly class? Skip to Scheduling a repeating meeting.

Scheduling takes three short steps, shown as tabs across the top of the box: Meeting Details, Add Participants, then Review & Confirm.

From the Dashboard, click Create A New Meeting. (You can also go to My Meetings and click Create Meeting — it is the same form.)
Fill in the details:
- Meeting Title — what your class will see. Required.
- Meeting Description — a line or two about the session, such as the passage you are covering.
- Start Date — type the date, or click the small calendar icon and pick it.
- Start Time — type it, or click the clock icon and set the hour, minutes and AM/PM, then OK.
- End Time — when you expect to finish. It must be later than the start time.
Click Next to move to Add Participants. There are three ways to invite people, and you can mix them:
- Contacts — tick anyone from your address book.
- Add Email — type one address and click Add Email, for a guest who is not a saved contact.
- Groups — tick a whole group. Click Click here to view the group members first if you want to check who is in it.
Everyone you pick appears as a small tag above the tabs. To drop someone, click the × on their tag.
Click Review. Check the summary — title, date, time and the number of people invited.
Click Create Meeting. Your meeting appears in My Meetings and on your Dashboard.

Good to know. Use BACK at any point to return to an earlier step — nothing you have typed is lost. When you invite a group, the meeting lists its members individually afterwards, so you can see exactly who was included.

8. Scheduling a Recurring Meeting

For a class that meets on the same day every week, or any other regular pattern.

Go to My Meetings and click the RECURRING MEETINGS tab, then Create Recurring Meeting.
Fill in the title, description, date and times exactly as you would for a single meeting. The Start Date is the date of your first class.
Tick the Recurring Meeting box. A Recurrence Details section appears underneath.
Set the pattern: an End Date for the last date the series should run to, and a Frequency Type — Daily, Weekly, Bi-Weekly, Monthly or Quarterly.
Read the sentence underneath — it describes your schedule in plain English, for example “Meeting occurs every week on Wednesday from 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM starting Sep 30, 2026 – Oct 28, 2026.” Adjust the boxes until that sentence says what you mean.
Click Next, add your participants, click Review, then Create Meeting.

The RECURRING MEETINGS tab shows each series with how many meetings it contains and how often it repeats. Click the series to see every date under Meeting Occurrences, and click any date there to see who is invited to it. The individual dates also appear in the SINGULAR MEETINGS list, each marked with a blue Recurring tag.

Good to know. Your first meeting falls on the start date you chose, and the rest follow at the interval you picked. A weekly series running from 30 September to 28 October gives you five meetings: the 30th, and then the 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th.

9. Editing a Meeting

Something moved, or you need to invite additional people.

Edit a One-Off Meeting

Go to My Meetings, SINGULAR MEETINGS, and click the meeting.
Click the pencil icon at the top right of the details panel.
Make your changes, clicking Next and Review to step through, then Update Meeting to save.

Good to know. If you move the start time, the end time shifts with it automatically so the meeting keeps the same length. Change the end time afterwards if you want it to run longer or shorter.

Edit One Date in a Repeating Series

Say your class meets weekly but one week you start half an hour late.

Go to SINGULAR MEETINGS and click that specific date.
Click the pencil icon. The box reminds you that you are editing only this one date and that the rest of the series will not change.
Make the change and save. That date is then marked with an orange Edited tag so you can see at a glance that it differs from the others.

Edit the Whole Series

Go to the RECURRING MEETINGS tab and click the series name.
Click the pencil icon. A warning tells you the change will apply to every meeting in the series.
Make the change and save. Every date in the series updates together.

10. Cancelling a Meeting

Deleting is permanent, so it is worth knowing which of the two you are doing.

Delete One Date Only

Go to SINGULAR MEETINGS and click that date.
Click the red bin icon, then confirm with DELETE MEETING.

If that date belonged to a repeating series, only that one meeting goes. The rest of the series carries on, and its meeting count drops by one.

Delete a Whole Series

Go to the RECURRING MEETINGS tab and click the series.
Click the red bin icon. The message names the series and tells you how many meetings will be removed.
Click Delete Series to confirm.

Careful. Neither of these can be undone. Take a moment over the confirmation message — it always names exactly what is about to happen.

11. On the Meeting Day: Starting your Meeting

Open the meeting from My Meetings and look at the Meeting Links section. Until shortly before the start time it reads “The meeting link will be generated within 30 minutes before the meeting starts.” Close to the start, two links appear in its place:

Host Link — yours. This is the one that opens the meeting and makes you the host.
Participant Link — everyone else’s. There is a copy button beside it so you can paste it into an email or message.

Click your Host Link. A Zoom page opens in a new tab.
Choose Join from Zoom Workplace app if Zoom is installed on your computer, or Join from browser if it is not. Your browser may ask permission to open Zoom — say yes.
Zoom opens and your class can join.

Careful. Send your class the Participant Link, never the Host Link. The host link carries your host permissions with it — anyone who has it can take control of the meeting.

12. Starting a Meeting Right Now

For an unplanned conversation — a prayer call, or a quick catch-up with an individual or group.

Click Start New Meeting in the left menu.
Add anyone you would like invited, using the Contacts, Add Email or Groups tabs. You can also skip this entirely and simply share the link yourself.
Click Start New Meeting. A confirmation appears reading Meeting Started! with your two links.
Copy the Participant Link using the copy button beside it, and paste it wherever you are inviting people from — a text, an email, a group chat.
Click Click HERE to open Zoom as Host, then choose the app or the browser as before.
When you are finished with the confirmation box, click Close.

Good to know. The meeting is saved in My Meetings as “Instant Meeting”, so if you close the box before copying the link you can open it again from there.

13. Signing Out

Click your initials in the circle at the top right, then Sign Out.

Careful. On a shared or public computer, close the whole browser afterwards as well. Signing out of Online Meetings does not sign you out of your CBS account on that machine.

Still stuck?

If something is not behaving the way this guide describes, the first thing worth trying is refreshing the page — Online Meetings does a lot of its work behind the scenes and an occasional refresh sets it right.

If that does not help, please submit a ticket through Answers.