Breakout Rooms allow hosts and assistants to split participants into smaller groups. The Breakout rooms are completely isolated from the main session regarding audio and video input.
You can use Breakout rooms as stand-alone tools or you can integrate them in agendas.
- 🏗️ How to configure Breakout Rooms
- A. Main room:
- B. Rooms:
- 👨👩👦👦 Managing participants
- ⚙️ Breakout tool management
- ➕ How to add a Breakout Room live (no agenda):
- ❌ If you want to stop using Breakout Rooms:
- 📝 How to add a Breakout Room to an agenda item (during a live session):
- 📜 How to add a Breakout Room to an agenda template (before a session starts):
- 🚨 Breakout Room particularities
- 🏠 Rooms
- 📺 Hosts & Assistants
- 👥 Assistants
- 👩👩👧👧Participants
🏗️ How to configure Breakout Rooms
Breakout tool has two parts:
A. Main room:
Everyone gathers here first. To assign participants to a room, you have three options: 1. Drag and drop participants into their designated room 2. Auto-assign (right upper corner): This option will automatically split your participants into equal groups, according to the number of breakout rooms you’ve created. 3. Let participants choose what rooms to join
👉 To bring back all participants to the Main Room, click Un-assign all.
B. Rooms:
For each room, you can customize it as follows:
- Change the name & description of the room
- Choose the view mode for the rooms
At this moment, it’s not possible to add an agenda, tools or start the recording or the transcript of a room.
If you click on an individual room’s More options button (⋮) you have the following options:
- Un-assign all: participants from that room will be brought back to the Main Room
- Delete room
👨👩👦👦 Managing participants
In the Main Room you see all participants.
To assign your attendees to a room, you can:
👉 Drag and drop their icons from the main room to their appointed room
👉 Click on Auto assign (upper right corner). Participants will be split in order to create equally divided groups.
👉 Let participants choose what rooms to join
By default, your participants have the liberty to jump back and forth between rooms and the Main Room. To disable this feature:
- Click on the Breakout options (upper right, next to View modes).
- Toggle off the option to allow participants to choose rooms.
⚙️ Breakout tool management
Should you want to add more rooms, use the ➕ button.
To delete a room, click More options (⋮) and Delete.
➕ How to add a Breakout Room live (no agenda):
- Click on the Share button (bottom left corner) or click on the Share button that’s next to the turn on/off microphone.
- Select Embed a tool.
- Type in “Breakout Room”.
- Click on the Breakout Rooms tool.
- Confirm.
❌ If you want to stop using Breakout Rooms:
- Find the Breakout Rooms button (bottom left corner).
- Click on the red Stop sharing button (⊖).
- Everyone will return to the main session.
📝 How to add a Breakout Room to an agenda item (during a live session):
If you have an agenda already embedded in the live meeting and you want to include Breakout Rooms, this is how you can do it:
- Click on the Show agenda button (if it’s hidden).
- Click on Edit agenda (📝).
- Click on ➕ to add a new agenda item.
- Click on the Add resource button.
- Type in “Breakout Room” or click on Embed a tool → Breakout Room.
- Click on Update agenda.
❌ To remove the Breakout Room you've attached to an agenda item, follow these steps:
- Click on the Show agenda button (if it’s hidden).
- Click on Edit agenda (📝).
- Click on the red ⊖ button next to the Breakout Room.
- Update the agenda.
📜 How to add a Breakout Room to an agenda template (before a session starts):
- Go to Sessions Home → Agendas.
- Click on New agenda.
- Give the agenda item a name and description (optional).
- Click on the Add resource button that's attributed to each agenda item.
- Type in “Breakout Rooms”. Click on it.
- Done.
- Changes are automatically saved.
❌ To remove it from the agenda item, click on red ⊖ button next to Breakout Rooms.
🚨 Breakout Room particularities
🏠 Rooms
- A room functions as a separate and independent session within the main session or event.
- Recording the activity of a breakout room is not possible at the moment.
- Switching between rooms doesn’t affect a participant’s audio-video settings (On/Off camera and mic, blurred or customized background). They remain as set by the participant across all rooms.
- You can use a room’s More options (⋮) to un-assign everyone from that room or delete the room. More options are available for Hosts and Assistants in the Main Room.
📺 Hosts & Assistants
- Hosts and assistants have an overview of the rooms and can jump between them.
- When participants submit Questions or raise their hands, hosts and assistants they will see a notification. However, they don’t know who submitted the question or raised a hand unless they join that room.
- Hosts and assistants receive notifications of questions and raised hands even if they’re in a Breakout Room.
- Hosts and assistants can send Chat messages across all rooms. However, participants’ chat conversations will be visible only inside their rooms.
👥 Assistants
- Those assigned the Assistant role in the Main room can act as Assistants across all rooms.
- On the other hand, those Assistants appointed inside a room can serve as Assistants only in that room.
👩👩👧👧Participants
- When Hosts or Assistants move a participant from one room to another, there is a 10 seconds count-down letting them know they’re about to switch rooms. However, the counter doesn’t appear when the participant changes rooms independently.
- Switching between rooms doesn’t affect a participant’s audio-video settings (On/Off camera and mic, Blurred or customized background). They remain as set by the participant across all rooms.