Microsoft will be rolling out its most anticipated feature "Breakout Rooms" for its Microsoft 365 Tenants and plan to complete it by November 2020, which is delayed delivery earlier planned for October 2020.
Breakout rooms are generally available in Microsoft Teams now.
Microsoft 365 Roadmap - Virtual Breakout Rooms 65332
Introduce breakout room functionality - UserVoice
Microsoft Teams - Virtual Breakout Rooms (Feature ID: 65332)
Meeting hosts can create breakout rooms to be used by meeting participants for smaller group discussion. They can assign participants to a room and call them back to the larger group when the breakout is complete. We anticipate delivering this feature no later than early Q4.
Tags: Microsoft Teams, GCC, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant), General Availability
❓️ Where breakout rooms are useful ?
Creating meaningful connections can be difficult in larger groups. Breakout rooms allow organizers to divide the meeting into sub-groups to facilitate discussions and brainstorming sessions.
Corporate Meetings - Meeting organizers can create virtual breakout rooms so they can split and assign participants to smaller groups for focused discussions and come back to the main room when done.
Teams for education - Teachers can create virtual breakout rooms so students can work within their smaller groups on a discussion or assignment, then easily be called back to the larger group.
Board Meetings - Host can create mini meeting rooms adding board members to relevant committee discussions and come back with their conclusion on a topic.
Human Resources - HR can create smaller brainstorming breakouts and split employees to brainstorm together and work on the given task together, and later return to the main room.
❓️ What is required to use breakout rooms ?
- Teams Admin needs to enable the required settings from Teams Admin Center.
- You need to be the Meeting Organizer. Presenters and attendees cannot provision yet.
- Works only with Teams Desktop Cleint App, Web or Mobile. Microsoft Teams Rooms do not have breakout room capabilities yet.
- Works only with the new Teams meeting experience. Enable here, Teams --> Settings --> General --> Check "Turn on new meeting experience".
- Be meeting organizer to record meetings, participants cannot.
❓️ How can universirty/school teachers and students use Breakout Rooms ?
- Breakout Rooms for university teachers and student work the same way as it works for organizational accounts.
- Educators can push students into the breakout rooms and pull them back to the main meeting.
- Students can be assigned to breakout rooms and they can join breakout rooms from Desktop/Mobile/Web.chat.
- Students can use the whiteboard or screen share if they are allowed.
- Same security policies and options apply to the breakout room.
⭐ Features of breakout rooms ?
- Works for organizational and external users.
- Create up to 50 rooms.
- Add upto 10 participants per room.
- Assign and organize participants manually or automatically.
- Start, open/close rooms.
- Move participants between rooms.
- Reopen rooms.
- Record, share files, sue whiteboars, capture notes, download attendance.
- Participants logged in from multiple devices will have all end points join the same breakout room.
Comments:
- Is there a way to have more than one meeting organizer? We have co-teachers who both need the rights to send students to breakout rooms.
14 Dec 2020 08:32:33 GMT
- Tested this today for an event with the breakout rooms feature. Not being able to assign some users to rooms but also users appearing as 'Unknown' in the participant list (not being able to see who's who to assign).
14 Dec 2020 09:30:12 GMT
- Very much want the feature to assign participants prior to the meeting in advance. This is possible in Zoom.
13 Dec 2020 15:44:27 GMT
- Participant name appearing as unknown in the participant list, can't make out who the person is.
13 Dec 2020 12:55:23 GMT
- So if I join a meeting via my desktop but have the meeting call my phone for the audio, I can't be put into a breakout room? This is a major flaw for our use, professional training where often our participants will join via there phone because they are attending the class in a common area.
12 Dec 2020 04:29:37 GMT
- I get an error message "This person is using a device or app version that doesn't support breakout rooms."
10 Dec 2020 17:12:41 GMT
- Getting this, any suggestions? - You don't have access to this toom. The link might have expired, or you may have been reassigned.
07 Dec 2020 03:15:22 GMT
- Similar to one of the previous comments, it would be nice to assign team members in rooms ahead of the meeting. This will save time and not require ad-hoc work.
03 Dec 2020 22:43:02 GMT
- Do I need a certain license to use this feature? My M365 consultant mentioned it requires some E3 license.
02 Dec 2020 09:03:39 GMT
- Can I pre-assign students to breakout rooms? This will make it easy for Me to split projects.
23 Nov 2020 23:49:07 GMT
- I don't see this option yet, which Teams update is required for this???
14 Nov 2020 14:05:23 GMT
- Further comments disabled!
- How to track and download Microsoft Teams meeting attendance report of participants/students
- How to Install Microsoft Teams App on M1 or M2 Mac
- How to uninstall/remove or disable Microsoft Teams
- How to enable, create and use Virtual Breakout Rooms in Microsoft Teams
- Cannot open or preview pdf with view only and restricted download access in Microsoft Teams
- [Fix] Microsoft Teams a JavaScript error occurred in the main process Error
- How to enable Do Not Disturb (DND) mode in Microsoft Teams
- Microsoft Teams - Where would you like to start - Business or Personal
- [fix] White Screen when open Teams on Windows
- How to turn on channel notifications for Microsoft Teams
- Fix: Teams is in preview in Safari on Mac
- Microsoft Teams Error code - 6 issue
- Microsoft Teams Zoom In and Zoom Out Keyboard Shortcut
- [Microsoft Teams] You're not on Teams yet, but you can set it up for your organization.
- Microsoft Teams meeting Full Screen mode option missing - bring it back
- Fix Something went wrong 0xCAA20004 [Microsoft Teams]
- Cannot access files within Microsoft Teams - We are setting up your file directory
- How to Enable Dark Mode Theme in Microsoft Teams
- [Fix] Modern authentication failed here, but youll still be able to sign in. Your status code is 4c7 - Microsoft Teams
- Microsoft Teams enable or disable Spell check
- Fix Microsoft Teams Admin Center error - The Security zone setting isn't configured correctly
- Microsoft Teams adds New Conversation Button
- Microsoft Teams Error - You cannot add another work account to Teams at the moment
- How to Update Microsoft Teams to the latest Version
- Cannot create new Microsoft Team using PowerShell, even as Admin
- SharePoint PowerShell Merge-SPLogFile filter by time using StartTime EndTime - SharePoint
- Outlook and Hotmail not working - email issue, message not delivered, send receive problem - Microsoft
- How to rename a tab in Notepad++ - NotepadPlusPlus
- SharePoint Server 2016 error Microsoft Office Online Server 2016 cant be installed on the same machine as a Microsoft SharePoint Server product - SharePoint
- How to run Python file from Mac Terminal - Python
- Access URL for SharePoint Tenant Admin Center (Online Office 365) - SharePoint
- fatal: Unable to create '/c/git_repo/.git/index.lock': File exists. If no other git process is currently running, this probably means a git process crashed in this repository earlier. - Git
- Find Hostname of Mac running on macOS Ventura 13 - MacOS