Breakout Rooms

Breakout rooms in Microsoft Teams allow meeting organisers to create and name up to 50 separate rooms within scheduled and "meet now" meetings. 

They are separate, virtual rooms within a meeting that groups can move to during the meeting.

You can decide how you want to make use of the breakout rooms feature, but it may be particularly useful for people running workshops or other sessions that require separate group discussion. 

Using Breakout Rooms with students

If you intend to use Teams breakout rooms with your students, please read the following guidelines and recommendations on ensuring your students' safety within Teams:

"Keeping students safe while using Teams"

Breakout rooms organiser

To organise breakout rooms, you must be using the latest Teams Desktop client, as the feature is not available in the web browser version.

Please note that there is no breakout rooms function in Private Channel meetings and as of now there is no update when this feature might be available in future. Meeting organisers will need to schedule meetings in the general channels to create Breakout Rooms for participants.

However, Breakout rooms in a normal channel are essentially private to the participant(s) which the organiser adds to the room. The chat function or group chat function also allows for more private conversations.

Presenter-assigned breakout room manager role

If you are a presenter in the meeting who has been assigned the breakout room manager role by the organiser, you must similarly use the latest Teams Desktop client, as the feature is not available in the web browser version.

Meeting participant 

If you are a participant in a meeting using breakout rooms, you can join on the desktop, web, or mobile app version of Teams.

However, please make sure you are using the latest version available. 

• If joining via the Teams mobile app, make sure you have gone to the App Store and downloaded the latest update.
• If joining via the Teams desktop client, make sure you have checked if you have the latest update. To do this, click "Settings and more" to the left of your profile picture, then "check for updates", then "Refresh Teams" if this shows as a banner. 

What types of Teams meeting are breakout rooms available in?

The Breakout Rooms feature is available for:

• Scheduled meetings
• Both private (meetings without a Channel added) and Channel meetings (not including private channels)
• Ad-hoc meetings set up via the "Meet now" button
• Teams Webinars

The Breakout Rooms feature is not available for:

• Private Channel Meetings - Microsoft have removed the ability to use breakout rooms in private channel meetings. This is because they were seeing issues and errors with this feature. There is currently no timeline for when or if the feature will be reintroduced.
• Calls in Teams
• Town Hall Events

What can meeting organisers do with breakout rooms?

Meeting organisers can:

• Create up to 50 breakout rooms
• Assign specific presenters as breakout room managers
• Move between breakout rooms freely
• Add, move, and delete breakout rooms
• Rename breakout rooms
• Add participants automatically, or give them the choice to join
• Reassign participants to different rooms
• Have access to all breakout room artefacts (chat, files, recordings)
• Set a timer
• Automatically close the breakout rooms when time is up
• Re-use the same rooms and assignments for recurring meetings
• Allow participants to return to the main meeting

What can breakout room managers do with breakout rooms?

Meeting organisers can assign the breakout room manager role to specific presenters in a meeting. This allows those presenters to:

• Add and delete rooms
• Assign and reassign participants to rooms
• Open and close rooms
• Join any rooms
• Set time limits for room sessions
• Send announcements
• Recreate rooms

What can meeting participants do with breakout rooms?

Note - Breakout rooms are not private chat spaces. While only the participants that are assigned to a breakout room can see the conversations and presentations within it, the meeting organiser can join any breakout room at any time. 

Participants can:

• Join breakout rooms from Teams for browser, desktop, and mobile
• Share content (PowerPoint presentations, Whiteboards) in the breakout room
• Chat in the breakout room (this will only be visible to those in the room and the meeting organiser)

Participants cannot:

• Move freely between breakout rooms and the main meeting.
• Participants must wait until the organiser brings them back to the main meeting or reassigns them to another breakout room. However, they can request that the meeting organiser call them back. 

Creating your breakout rooms

If you are the meeting organiser, your breakout rooms can be created before or during your meeting. 

For help creating your breakout rooms either before or during your meeting see the following guidance:

How to create breakout rooms (Microsoft site) 

Assigning participants to the breakout rooms

You can either automatically or manually assign users to breakout rooms. 

Automatically assign participants

To automatically assign users, select "automatically assign" when creating your breakout rooms.

Manually assign participants

If you want help with manually assign participants to breakout out rooms see the following guidance:

How to manually assign participants to breakout rooms (Microsoft site) 

Meeting organisers can now allow presenters to manage breakout rooms on their behalf. 

To do this:

1. Open your meeting and set up your breakout rooms as normal
2. Then, open the breakout rooms tab on the right side
3. Click "Settings" (icon of a cog)
4. Click the toggle beside "assign presenters to manage rooms"
5. Type the name of the presenter that you want to assign as a manager

To see the capabilities and limitations of these managers, see "What can breakout room managers do with breakout rooms?" above. 

Guidance from Microsoft

Microsoft provide in depth and up to date guidance on breakout rooms via the following link:

Microsoft Guidance on Breakout rooms in Teams