Master virtual breakout rooms in Microsoft Teams meetings
Published Sep 20 2020 03:17 PM 283K Views
Microsoft

Join us to learn about the latest innovations with virtual breakout rooms in Teams. In this session we'll highlight use cases and best practices for facilitating small group ideation, brainstorming, learning, and discussions with virtual breakout rooms.

44 Comments
Copper Contributor

@James Skay At about 9:45, why did Together Mode flip the cameras of the participants? Looks like a bug.

Copper Contributor

@James Skay can meeting organizers prebuild the breakout rooms before people join the meeting? It'll save time if we can create sub-committees for a project.

Copper Contributor

@mtgarden Um, maybe I should have watched the whole video before posting.... 

Copper Contributor
Looks great and I am glad it is finally here. One question, however. I work providing training to clients and the Organizer (usually a learning and development administrator) is NEVER in the training / meeting. I am guessing that the ability to manage breakouts will also be available to a presenter if the organizer isn’t in the meeting?
Iron Contributor

@James Skay hi, in Education (University) we would like to be able to break out students into different groups and not have their content come back for all-Team visibility. Is that possible? Essentially private work but without using private channels. We've an example at the moment of 400 students to be split into 16 break out areas and the content to remain contained within those 16 as opposed to visible to all 400. Thanks

Microsoft

@Matthew P  - Great catch.  Yes, in this instance Together mode did flip the cameras around.  Since I am in an earlier ring than production, let me check with the team if this is the expected production experience. 

Microsoft

@mtgarden - when we launch in October, you will need to build the breakout rooms during the initial meeting.  We are working on the ability for organizers to pre-define their breakout rooms ahead of time.  If you jump to 13:35 in the video you can see a sneak preview.

Microsoft
No worries!
Microsoft

Hi @DazzaR.  Yes, your scenario is what we will support.  Only the assigned individual participants in the breakout rooms (including the organizer) will have access to the meeting chat, documents, whiteboard, transcripts, meeting recording, etc., that were created while in the breakout room.

Microsoft

Hi @RichardN78 - to start, only the meeting organizer can create and assign breakout rooms.  In the future we will offer the ability for additional individuals to manage breakout rooms.  If you jump to ~15:40 in the video above you can see Nakul talking about and sharing this capability.

Copper Contributor
Many thanks - I have already had discussions with clients about using the feature as soon as launched, and ways we can ensure that the trainer or their producer can also be organizer using an account from the organization.
Copper Contributor
Not test yet
Iron Contributor

@James Skay thanks James, so if these are not channel based (Teams based and using SharePoint), the file storage is Onedrive? So in our case we might run this for a number of years and that would be 400 participants split into 16 breakout rooms all accruing shared course work in Onedrive? We'd also have to navigate not putting in place a retention policy that zaps breakout room content prematurely. I'm hoping our Microsoft EDU colleagues will provide good community guardrail user-ed so we don't bake this into our services without knowing all the good bits and any wrinkles.

Copper Contributor

I have a similar concern that the meeting organizer is not always the facilitator of the meeting who'll be making the break-out groups.

Copper Contributor

@James Skay thank you for providing the video. There's an issue with the video showing on the page. It's showing a message that the video might have been moved. I was able to copy the URL from the video, and after removing the "-nocookie" from the addresss, it opens successfully from YouTube.

 

~Ken

Copper Contributor

Can only bring the meeting owner all persons back to the main session?

Copper Contributor

@James Skay Hi I was looking at the video and I am basicaly wating for the brakeout room to be lunched is there a date for it ?? 

Copper Contributor

@James Skayhello, is it possible that breakout rooms are not available in Poland? I cant find this feature in my ms teams (desktop app)

Thanx

Copper Contributor

@James Skay Hello 

We still cannot see breakout rooms in our organization. Please advise. I have reached out to our IT...they too are not sure. 

Brass Contributor

@Shorouq 

@James Skay

We - the educators and lecturers - are still waiting for this feature to be rolled out. Till now, I can't see the breakout rooms icon on my Teams.

Copper Contributor

@RichardN78 I have the same question and am in need of troubleshooting this issue as I develop the right workflow. Have you heard any additional information on this request?

Copper Contributor

@James Skay 

 

James, 

I develop programs at two tech business accelerators in Florida. We use teams extensively to deliver our programs to tech startups.  When will the breakout rooms feature be available?  I did not see it mentioned in the Roadmap.

 

Thanks

Brass Contributor

@James Skay Thanks for going over break out room. I really love it. Is it possible to start break out room at particular time? for an example, if we have multiple BR with different participant combination then can we start specific BR at 1:00 PM and another at 2:00 PM?

Copper Contributor

@James Skay Hi, the demo looks great.  To help us in education delivering to large groups as open sessions rather than pre-booked places, will there be a facility within breakout rooms that allows the organizer to record participants automatically?  Thanks, Andrew.

Copper Contributor

@mtgarden . @James Skay We are using conferencing to allow distant participants to join a film shoot in South Africa.  We use Zoom for the most part but clients are asking us to include Teams as an option.  Critical to the success of this process is being able to feed a video link from the film set into the conference.  With Zoom we convert the HDMI signal from the film set camera to a USB or USBC and apply this "second camera" as the hosts view and Pin it as the main image.  A problem exists where we cannot PIN this image into all the breakout rooms.  We have the director sitting in New York in one room talking to his crew on set.  In another room, we have the ad agency and client who need to continually see the video feed.  The director visits the breakout room for discussion with the agency/client and then leaves again.  Is there any way that we can get a video feed into all breakout rooms at the same time with Teams?  Regards Philip

Copper Contributor

@mtgarden Is it possible to PIN the same video feed into multiple breakout rooms/channels?  We are using the conferencing system to communicate between a film set in South Africa and ad agencies and clients from different parts of the world.  We feed a video signal into the host computer as a "second Camera" but it cannot also be in a breakout room or multiple breakout rooms at the same time.  Is there a solution?  Regards Philip

Copper Contributor

@HananB I'm also waiting for the feature rollout - I wonder if its an Aministrative selection.

Copper Contributor

@James Skay Could you please help - is it possible to have breakout rooms with free Microsoft teams version? I am struggling long hours to find the feature but without result. 

Brass Contributor

@James Skay You message about breakout rooms was in September and till now nothing is being added to Teams. I thought someone mentioned the early or the mid of November for the rolling out of breakout rooms for all users. Is something wrong? Am I missing something?

Copper Contributor

@James Skay  - Amazing Content for the breakout room capabilities and it's characteristics. Thank you.

Copper Contributor

@HananB @James Skay 

I have the same question as HananB, where are the break out rooms?  They do not appear on our Teams platform.

Copper Contributor
James, can you please reply, even if the answer is no. We need breakout rooms so if Teams cannot do the rooms, we need to use another platform.

Thanks
Copper Contributor

@Bob_Reed 

 

According to the admin portal, this feature is to be rolled out over the next two weeks (to be complete mid December 2020). So, any day now.

Copper Contributor

@mtgarden THANKS for the info.  Appreciate it.

Copper Contributor
It was September, then October, then November, then early December. This is the first I'm hearing of mid-December. Wouldn't hold your breath.
Iron Contributor

@James Skay Hi James is the possibility of more than one organiser in the plans? My org has asked me how multiple facilitators hop between rooms. Some of these are external to our org. Thanks

Copper Contributor

@James Skay 

 

I tried it today - first time it is available for us in Malta. I noticed that members in a breakout room can rejoin main meeting when they wish. This is not something teachers would desire to have. In tutorials I have followed it says that they cannot -but actually they can.

Copper Contributor

@James Skay  Hi James, Happy Holidays! I was curious to know if we will be able to run Teams reports or download Attendance lists along with the rooms there were assigned? asking for a friend :)

Copper Contributor

@James Skay  Video doesn't work.  Error says Can't be reached :(

Copper Contributor
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Copper Contributor
HOO NAME ES POLIAL
Copper Contributor

@James Skay 

I am teaching a course using MS Team. We have lab sessions where people must be divided into small groups. Every group is led by a TA. My question is: Can we breakout rooms for the entire term with fixed names for the recurring meetings?

Copper Contributor

@James Skay I wanted to follow up and ask if there was a date for the ability to create and pre-populate Breakout rooms in advance.  You showed a sneak preview and it looks exactly like what we will need for an upcoming training session.

 

Also, is there an ability to set up additional organizers?  The use case would be to have an external educator (not the meeting organizer) jump between breakout rooms.

 

Thanks

Copper Contributor
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