How to setup Breakout rooms in Microsoft teams

Owned by David Pazuchowski (Deactivated), created
Last updated: Jan 28, 2021 by Andrea Aznar Porreca (Deactivated)
5 min read

This tutorial explains how to set up Breakout rooms in Microsoft Teams. This feature was just added and can be useful in holding big meetings or separating teams into groups.

Important note: people who dial in on a phone line cannot join breakout rooms.

Prerequisites:

All Users in the Organization Should do the Following in their Teams Desktop Client:

  1. To see the breakout rooms option within your meetings, you must turn on the new Teams meeting experience by

    1. Clicking on your profile image within Teams

    2. Selecting Settings

    3. Checking the “Turn on new meeting experience” option within General settings.

    4. Restart your Teams client.

    5. You can double-check that the setting is set up correctly by starting a meeting and verifying that the meeting opens in its own window.

  2. Make sure all participants, including the meeting organizer, are using the latest version of Teams. If joining on Android or iOS mobile or tablet, make sure participants go to their App Store and download the latest update.

  3. As a meeting organizer, join a channel / private scheduled meeting, or channel / private meet now meeting. Once you are in the meeting you should see the breakout room option next to the raise hand control.

    • You must be a meeting organizer to see the option. Meeting attendees and presenters will not see the breakout rooms option.

Instructions

Demo video: (137) 🏢 How to use NEW Breakout Rooms in Microsoft Teams - YouTube

Create breakout rooms - Use these steps to create a breakout room once a meeting begins:

  1. In the Teams desktop client, select the breakout rooms icon on the control bar.

  2. Use the dropdown menu to select the number of rooms you would like to create. You can create up to 50 breakout rooms in a single meeting.

  3. Choose the breakout room option you prefer:

    • Automatically: Teams divides participants equally between the rooms.

    • Manually: You can choose which room each participant is placed in.

  4. Select Create Rooms. The breakout rooms pane will open.

Start breakout rooms - When you are ready to start your breakout sessions, select Start rooms.

You will see participants leaving the main meeting and joining their breakout rooms.

If a participant leaves their breakout room, the organizer can move the participant back to the breakout room by selecting the ellipses […] next to the participant’s name and then selecting Ask to join.

If a participant joins the main meeting late after breakout rooms have opened, the organizer can add the participant to a breakout room. If the participant misses the notification to join the room, select Ask to join.

Send announcements

The meeting organizer can send announcements to all participants while breakout rooms are open. Select the ellipses […] in the breakout rooms header.

For example, remind participants to @mention the meeting organizer when they need help, or give them a five-minute countdown before pulling them back into the main room. Participants receive the announcement in their breakout rooms’ chat.

Maintain rooms

  1. When you are done creating the rooms, you can then rename them. This is done by clicking the three dots on the right-hand side of the room. When you do this, you will see a menu like below.

  2. Here you can open, close, or delete rooms if they are no longer needed.

Close rooms and pull participants back to the main meeting

Select Close rooms to pull all the participants back to the main room.

Alternatively, select the ellipses […] for a specific breakout room, then select Close room. Once a breakout room is closed, chat for that session is closed. Participants can’t continue to chat there.

 

Features available for Organizers:

  • Breakout room setup on Teams desktop client

  • Create breakout rooms in scheduled private meetings (including recurring) and private meet now meetings

  • Meeting organizers can manage rooms and hop between rooms freely

  • Setup breakout rooms during an active meeting

  • Create up to 50 breakout rooms in a single meeting

  • Add, remove, delete breakout rooms

  • Rename rooms to the title of your choice

  • Reassign room participants from one room to another before as well as while the rooms are open

  • Room transition: as an organizer, you can decide if participants get moved to the room automatically when you open the room, or, if they need to click to confirm the move. The “auto-accept” setting is available per meeting.

  • Send an announcement that will show up as a meeting chat message in each room.

  • Chats, files, and recordings: only the organizer will always have access to all rooms meeting artifacts

 

Features available for the participants:

  • Join breakout rooms from web, desktop, iOS, iPads, Android mobiles and tablets. Note that organizers cannot move participants who joined via Desk phones or Teams devices join to a breakout room, they can stay in the main meeting as their breakout room.

  • Participants join the room as presenters, so they can present, share Whiteboard, etc. freely.

  • Participants cannot add others to meeting chat, copy meeting details, nudge others to the meeting, or use “call me back”

  • Hoping between rooms: Meeting participants cannot hop back to the main meeting or between rooms on their own. They must wait for the meeting organizer to pull them back to the main meeting.

  • Chat during the breakout session. Chat and artifacts shared during meetings are viewable for room participants.

  • Chats, files, and recordings: Participants have access to artifacts, but only the organizer has access to the links – if the link is shared by the meeting organizer, then participants will have access

  • Multi-device join: breakout room is not supported when the participant joins the same meeting and same account from multiple devices

Where and when can I set up breakout rooms?

  • You can set up breakout rooms after you join the meeting as the organizer. You can bulk create rooms at the start, or manually add or remove rooms.

  • You can set up breakout rooms from the desktop client, but not on mobile and web.

  • We plan to enable the ability for you to set up breakout rooms before the meeting very soon.

When can I assign participants to breakout room?

  • You can assign participants when you are setting up the rooms. You can do so manually before the rooms open or reassign participants to a different room while the room is open.

  • You can also auto-assign the participants to rooms when you first set up the rooms in the meeting.

 

For questions regarding Teams roles (who can do what?), please reference his article: Roles in a Teams meeting - Office Support (microsoft.com)