Mar 05 2020 03:52 PM
Is Microsoft planning on creating breakout rooms for Teams meetings? If so when? I noticed a post in uservoice and it says it is planned but no timeline and I don't see it on the M365 Roadmap, so checking here. https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/35000044-introduce-breakout-ro...
Mar 18 2020 08:20 AM
@James Skay, @Nydia Cavazos, @Yousaf Sajid, @Karuana Gatimu, wanted to follow up on my post and see if anyone knows if this is being planned and what the timeline is? THANKS!!!!! I think this would not only be a great feature for Teams but even more so with so many remote workers during this coronavirus crisis.
Mar 19 2020 09:35 AM
@Jeffrey Allen I completely agree with you. This is even more needed in these C-19 days. If zoom can do it so can MS fingers crossed
Mar 19 2020 09:36 AM
@Malene280, I agree and daily now, I'm being asked to consider moving us to Zoom because of this especially in light of the Coronavirus and us all working from home.
Mar 19 2020 09:58 AM
Breakout rooms would be greatly beneficial. We've been using BlueJeans for several years, before Zoom was even around. It works well, breakout rooms are a newer feature and will be good during these times.
Mar 19 2020 02:41 PM
@R_Legal - this functionality would be extremely useful - I'm trying to push Teams as I feel like it is the best solution going forward with the integration of existing Microsoft products, but this is a must-have as we want to offer a similar experience to an in-person meeting and all of our stakeholders will be on separate connections! I think we will be reverting to Zoom or WebEx due to this lack of functionality (hopefully not for long...)!
Mar 20 2020 06:56 AM
@Jeffrey Allen I just wanted to add my support for this ask. I will plan on transitioning my class to online for this fall. I was hoping to use Teams, because of the university's support for MS products, but, my classroom has group work and we will need breakout rooms.
Mar 22 2020 11:08 AM
Been looking for this feature as well! Should we be creating separate Teams to emulate breakouts? My issues is the cascading and sharing the same information to the larger groups based on the work the sub groups complete. Namely work done in a subTeam rolls up to the larger Team. Then I feel I can make "breakout work".
Mar 22 2020 11:42 PM
Mar 23 2020 01:04 AM
Hi @Jeffrey Allen,
Any response on this from Microsoft? I'm probably going to sign up for Zoom for my organisation in the mean time.
Regards,
Bill
Mar 23 2020 03:42 AM
@Jeffrey AllenAlso looking for breakout rooms in Teams… :(
Any workaround until MS Will release the functionality?
I'm exploring creating different channels within a team, for each room….
Mar 23 2020 05:36 AM
@Jeffrey Allen I'd love to know if there is any update on breakout rooms being added to Teams, currently having to consider zoom as a better alternative to run virtual learning sessions
Mar 23 2020 05:57 AM
@Jeffrey Allen for the time being solution with channels may work. Here is an instruction for the organizer. Includes document co-authoring and presentation of resulting poster in the main room. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUUbA53ouSo
Mar 23 2020 07:22 AM
Mar 23 2020 10:02 AM
Thanks!@Liina_Freivald, I like that temporary workaround idea but it does limit to 3 "breakout rooms" which might work for some of our users but I hope Microsoft adds a feature or at least ups the limit of meetings above 4 (1 norm and 3 meet now).
Mar 23 2020 10:14 AM
@Jeffrey Allen I would also love an answer to this questions as well!
Mar 24 2020 08:16 AM
Thanks@Liina_Freivald . That will help for the time being. I really don't want to introduce another tool in conjunction with Teams as i think this will confuse people.
I have 3 short additional questions:
Mar 25 2020 01:36 AM
@Billsmi thank you for your engaging questions; unfortunately it would be amiss of me to try to respond more as I do not work with these topics on a daily basis and would provide poor support. Was just browsing for a personal reply along the lines of breakout rooms, and thought I would share the brilliant video here as well. In addition to LinkedIn where I got the question as a direct message from a former colleague. Do you think you could engage with the creators of the video? It looks like they would be delighted to help.
Mar 25 2020 04:00 AM
1. No, you (or any participant) need to start the recording manually in each room.
2. Not sure if I understand you correctly but if you open the presentation in the browser and share your screen you are "in control" of the presentation. If you share the presentation directly in the Teams meeting the default setting is that the participant can move back and forth in the presentation on their own if the like to.
3. There is a functionality to share system audio when you share a screen. There is a small icon in the bar at the top (appears when you move the pointer) when you share for activating system audio share.
Mar 25 2020 08:38 AM
I would like to see an answer as well. My colleagues are suggesting Zoom because of this functionality.
Microsoft Teams may lose out to Zoom, particularly during the current situation when we need something easy without a lot of tech no how to get to continue working.
Apr 03 2020 09:15 AM
Solution@Jeffrey Allen there is a roundabout way to do with as many breakout rooms / small groups as you want, but it must be set up in advance. I made a video tutorial aimed at teachers, but I've included the steps below too.
Some caveats: this creates the video call as a 'Chat'--the video calls aren't being hosted within the Team itself. So any transcript of the meeting conversation will live inside the 'Chat' (not in the 'Team' itself). Additionally, while it's possible to re-use the same breakout rooms, I think anyone who has ever entered the room at any time (a) will always have access to it from the Chat tab (even if you have removed them from the private Channel), and (b) may get notifications showing the text conversations (even if you have removed them from the private Channel).
*We don't have Exchange Online accounts, but if you do, I believe step 2 can be achieved more easily without exiting Teams by clicking on the 'Meeting' button from the left-side toolbar.
**I find that it works best to paste the link into a new conversation. I tried creating a new Website tab at the top of the Channel and pasting the link, but this added some steps. When I clicked the link from the Website tab, it opened the meeting in my web browser, and then I had to click 'Open in Desktop App' (or something along those lines) before being brought into the video chat. Oddly, the only method that automatically loaded the video chat in the desktop app was pasting the link into a new conversation.