Using Breakout Rooms in Microsoft Teams Meetings
Table of Contents
- 1 Overview
- 2 Create breakout rooms
- 2.1 Before meeting
- 2.2 During the meeting
- 3 Change breakout room settings
- 4 Rename breakout rooms
- 5 Open breakout rooms
- 6 Join a breakout room
- 7 Leave a breakout room
- 8 Send an announcement to all breakout rooms
- 9 Chat in breakout rooms
- 10 Close breakout rooms
- 11 Room assignments in recurring meetings
- 12 Attendance reports for breakout rooms
- 13 Additional Resources
Related Content
Overview
Meeting organizers using Teams for desktop can create and manage breakout rooms.
Breakout rooms in Microsoft Teams Meetings are a helpful tool for active learning, collaboration, and student engagement in online or hybrid classrooms. They allow instructors to split students into smaller groups for discussions, group work, or problem-solving activities.
To ensure smooth breakout room operation:
Have all participants sign in to Microsoft Teams with their SPU account (not as guest users) to get full access to breakout room features. Note: Guest or free account users can’t be pre-assigned, and even if the instructor enables automatic moving to breakout rooms, they won’t be moved automatically.
If guests are expected to join breakout rooms, ask them to join the meeting early so you can manually assign them after they enter. Once assigned, they can be moved automatically when rooms open, as long as the “automatically move participants” option is turned on.
Have all participants use the Teams desktop app whenever possible: It’s more stable and supports full breakout room features (some features may not work on mobile or browser).
Create breakout rooms
To create breakout rooms, you must be a meeting organizer or a presenter in the meeting organizer's organization who's been appointed a breakout rooms manager.
Before meeting
To create breakout rooms before a meeting:
In your Teams calendar, select a meeting and click Edit.
Select Breakout rooms from the toolbar.
Click Create rooms.
Choose the number of rooms you want (up to 50) and select Add rooms.
Select Assign participants.
Choose to assign people to rooms automatically or manually.
Select Next .
As soon as the meeting starts, you can open the breakout rooms.
If you select Assign people to breakout rooms manually
Assign participants to each breakout room if you didn't do so automatically or need to reassign someone to another room. To assign people, you must be a meeting organizer or presenter who's been appointed a breakout rooms manager, and you must first join the meeting.
Select checkboxes to group people together and assign them to the same room.
You also can randomly assign participants to breakout rooms before and during a meeting. Shuffle everyone or only shuffle people who haven't been assigned a room yet.
You can unassign or reassign rooms for your participants as you want to.
Click Assign Participants button.
Rearrange rooms for each participant.
Allow people to choose their rooms
You can enable this feature in the breakout room settings if you want to allow participants to choose their own breakout rooms during the meeting.
Click the Settings button on the Breakout Rooms page.
Toggle on the “Let people choose their own rooms” option. You can also enable the “Let people return to the main meeting” feature to allow participants to leave their breakout rooms.
When this option is enabled and the breakout rooms are open, the "Let people choose their own rooms" option does not appear for Mobile Users. In this case, the facilitator or organizer must manually assign participants to their desired rooms.
Allow people to return to the main meeting
You can also enable the “Let people return to the main meeting” feature to allow participants to leave their breakout rooms anytime they want.
Mobile Users (guest join) do not have the option to "leave the room”. They must wait for the organizer to close the breakout room in order to return to the main meeting. If they accidentally leave the meeting, they can rejoin.
Browser Users: Participants using a browser have a "Return" button that allows them to return to the main room, if the meeting settings allow participants to return while the breakout rooms are still open. If they accidentally leave the meeting, they can rejoin.
During the meeting
To create breakout rooms during a meeting:
Start the meeting.
In the meeting controls, select Rooms.
Do the following:
Choose the number of rooms [1] you want (up to 50).
Choose to assign people to rooms automatically or manually [2].
Select Create rooms [3].
To add another breakout room during the meeting, select Rooms
> Add room
[1] in the meeting controls.
From this panel, you also can assign participants manually by clicking Assign participants [2].
Note: You won't be able to automatically assign people to breakout rooms later in the meeting.
If you select Assign people to breakout rooms manually
You can click "Assign Participants" button to assign people in different rooms. Or click "Shuffle" to assign people randomly.
Change breakout room settings
Make your meetings more efficient by adjusting breakout room settings before they start. Meeting organizers can plan ahead by creating and naming breakout rooms, sorting attendees into rooms, setting timers, and more.
To change breakout room settings before a meeting:
In your Teams calendar, select a meeting and click Edit.
Go to Breakout rooms > Rooms settings
.
Change the settings to meet your needs.
You can assign presenters to manage rooms by toggling the button up. You can choose the presenters from the participants list.
You can set a time limit for breakout rooms by entering hours and minutes. Breakout rooms will be closed once the duration you set has elapsed.
If you toggle on the option "Automatically move people to rooms," participants will be moved to their breakout rooms immediately when they open. If you toggle off this option, participants need to select "Join the room" manually.
If you toggle on the option to "Let people return to the main meeting," participants will have the option to leave their breakout rooms and return to the original meeting before the breakout rooms are closed. If you toggle off this option, participants will not be able to return to the original meeting until the breakout rooms are closed.
breakout room settingsSelect Save to apply changes.
Rename breakout rooms
If you want, rename each room to reflect its purpose (for example, what the people in that room will be working on).
In your Teams calendar, select a meeting to Edit.
Select Breakout rooms.
Hover over a room and select More options
> Rename
.
Enter a new name.
Select Rename.
During the meeting, you can delete all the breakout rooms and set them up differently.
Click Rooms
Delete all existing rooms by clicking the "trash can" button.
Recreate rooms by clicking +.
Open breakout rooms
When breakout rooms open, people will go to their breakout rooms right away. If in the Breakout Rooms settings, you choose "Automatically move people to rooms".
To open and start breakout room sessions:
In the meeting controls, select Rooms
To open all the rooms at the same time, select Open.
To open a single room, hover over the room and select More options
> Open [2].
Join a breakout room
If you're the meeting organizer or a breakout rooms manager, you can join any of the rooms.
In the meeting controls, select Rooms
Hover over a room and select More options
> Join.
Leave a breakout room
To leave a breakout room and return to the main meeting, select Return in the meeting controls if you toggle up the option "Let people return to the main meeting," in the Breakout Rooms settings.
Send an announcement to all breakout rooms
You may want to tell everyone what the remaining breakout session time is, offer discussion ideas, or just give general updates.
In the meeting controls, select Rooms
[1].
Select Make an announcement
[2]. * It is available when breakout rooms are open.
Enter your announcement and select Send.
Participants will see your announcement in their meeting chat.
Chat in breakout rooms
Each breakout room has its own chat. All of the chats are available in your main Teams chat list. Here you can chat with the members of any breakout room.
After you join a breakout room, you can also select Chat
in the room to chat with the people there.
When the breakout room closes, the room chat ends and can't be continued. However, you'll still be able to view the chat history and any shared files in your main Teams chat.
Close breakout rooms
When you close the breakout rooms, participants will return to the main meeting.
If you turn off the Automatically move people into opened rooms setting (see breakout rooms settings), participants will have the option of returning to the main meeting or leaving the meeting when the rooms are closed.
To close rooms individually:
In the meeting controls, select Rooms
Hover over a room and select More options
> Close.
To close all rooms at the same time:
In the meeting controls, select Rooms
.Select Close rooms.
You'll know a room has successfully closed when its status changes to Closed.
Notes:
Breakout rooms remain open until the organizer manually closes them. If you set a time limit for breakout rooms, the rooms will close automatically after time runs out.
If the rooms reopen later in the meeting, participants will stay assigned to the same rooms.
Room assignments in recurring meetings
When an organizer assigns people to breakout rooms in a meeting series, the room assignments will apply to future meeting occurrences unless the organizer manually changes them.
Attendance reports for breakout rooms
If you organize a meeting, you can gain insight into its participants and their breakout room activity through attendance reports. Learn which breakout room each person has joined, when they entered it, and when they left.
To view breakout room data from a meeting:
Go to your Teams calendar.
Select the meeting you want to see attendance reports for.
Select Attendance.
Under Participants, select an attendee to see which breakout room they entered and what time they joined and left it.
Notes:
Only meeting organizers can view attendance reports.
Attendance reports don’t include data from deleted breakout rooms.