Now in public preview: Support PSTN attendees in meetings to join breakout rooms

[Jan_Steberl]

Description

This breakout rooms feature enables PSTN participants to be assigned and join breakout rooms. PSTN participants includes dial-in users, dial-out users, and call-me users.

Following scenarios are supported:

• PSTN participants can be assigned to breakout rooms (manually or automatically).
• PSTN participants can join breakout rooms and hear an announcement.
• PSTN participants can join back to the main room and hear an announcement after breakout rooms are closed (manually closed or timer ends).

Flighting status

Available to everyone in Public Preview channel.

 

How to enable

Meeting organizers or breakout room managers can now assign PSTN participants to rooms from meeting toolbar > Breakout rooms > Open breakout rooms pane > Assign participants. You can find more details about breakout rooms scenarios in this article: Use breakout rooms in Teams meetings.

Note 1: If you need information about enabling the public preview itself, see “Enable the public preview for Teams” below.

Note 2: To be able to use this feature, meeting organizer or breakout rooms manager need to be in Public Preview. Other users are not required to be in Public Preview.

 

Supported clients and platforms

Windows	macOS	iOS	Android	Linux	Google Chrome	Firefox	Safari	Microsoft Edge
Yes	Yes

Known issues

None

Known limitations

• PSTN dial-in participants need to be reassigned to a room if they drop and rejoin the meeting.
• Accept/deny transfer to rooms is not supported for PSTN participants, they are always moved automatically.
• No pre-moving announcement for most PSTN scenarios, except for timer ends. PSTN participants will only hear an announcement "The room is closing." 30 seconds prior to room closing.

Enable your Teams client for the public preview 

1. First, IT admins need to set an update policy that turns on Show preview features. Learn how at Public preview in Microsoft Teams - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Docs.  
2. Users then choose to join the public preview individually. Learn how at Get early access to new Teams features - Office Support (microsoft.com) 

 

Send us your feedback 

Got feedback on features in the public preview or other areas of Teams? Let us know straight from Teams via Help > Give feedback.  This is on the bottom left of your client.

Thank you,

Preview Team

Quality & Customer Obsession, Microsoft Teams

[#2]

@Jan_Steberl This is AWESOME.  This was a big issue with our Training team adopting teams as sometimes users dial in or tell Teams to call them and they need to be able to participate in breakout rooms.  For this to work during the preview does just the organizer need to be in preview mode or all users in the meeting?

[#3]

Thank you for your interest in breakout rooms in Teams. Yes, to be able to move PSTN users to breakout rooms, manager or meeting organizer need to be in Public Preview, not other participants.