Breakout Rooms

Overview

Breakout rooms allow you to split your Zoom meeting in up to 50 separate sessions. The meeting host can choose to split the participants of the meeting into these separate sessions automatically or manually, and can switch between sessions at any time.

This information covers:

Enabling breakout rooms
- User settings
Managing breakout rooms
Limitations of Pre-assigning breakout rooms
Pre-assigning RTMSD PERSONNEL with Zoom accounts
Pre-assigning STUDENTS

Note: Before using breakout rooms, see the limitations of breakout rooms.

User settings

To enable the breakout room feature for your own use:

Sign in to the Zoom web portal: https://rtmsd-org.zoom.us/
In the navigation menu, click Settings.
Navigate to the Breakout Room option on the Meeting tab and verify that the setting is enabled. If the setting is disabled, click the toggle to enable it. If a verification dialog displays, choose Turn On to verify the change.Note: If the option is grayed out, it has been locked at either the Group or Account level, and you will need to contact your Zoom administrator.
(Optional) Click the checkbox to allow meeting hosts to pre-assign participants to breakout rooms.

Managing Breakout Rooms

Note:

Make sure to enable breakout rooms in "Settings" on the website client.
You can also pre-assign participants to breakout rooms when you schedule the meeting instead of managing them during the meeting.
Breakout room participants have full audio, video, and screen share capabilities.
Take note of the limitations of breakout rooms.

Watch this 3 minute and 18 second video to learn more about managing breakout rooms.

Limitations

Only the host can assign participants to breakout rooms. The co-host can leave and join any breakout room only if they join a breakout room assigned to them by the host.

Users joined into the Zoom meeting from the Zoom Mobile App or H.323/SIP devices can participate in breakout rooms, but cannot manage them.

If the meeting is being cloud recorded, it will only record the main room, regardless of what room the meeting host is in. If local recording is being used, it will record the room the participant who is recording is in. Multiple participants can record locally.

You can create up to 50 breakout rooms. The maximum number of participants in a single breakout room depends on the meeting capacity, number of breakout rooms created, and if participants are assigned during the meeting or before the meeting.

These numbers only apply to breakout rooms created during a meeting. Up to 200 participants can be pre-assigned to breakout rooms.

Number of breakout rooms

Maximum number of participants who can be assigned to breakout rooms*

20 breakout rooms: Up to 500 participants

30 breakout rooms: Up to 400 participants

50 breakout rooms: Up to 200 participants

Pre-Assigning Participants to Breakout Rooms

As a meeting host, you can split your meeting participants into breakout rooms when scheduling the meeting. This can be useful if you already know how you want to split up your participants.

You can also manage your breakout rooms during the meeting.

Limitations

You can only pre-assign participants that have a Zoom account (internal or external Zoom users).
When pre-assigning RTMSD PERSONNEL with Zoom accounts use the website client (https://rtmsd-org.zoom.us/). SEE DIRECTIONS BELOW.
To pre-assign STUDENTS (external Zoom users), import a CSV file. SEE DIRECTIONS BELOW.
Up to 200 participants can be pre-assigned to breakout rooms.
If you scheduled recurring meetings, the pre-assigned breakout rooms will only work if it's applied to all meetings in the recurrence. You can't edit a single meeting in the recurrence and apply a unique pre-assignment.

Pre-assigning STUDENTS to breakout rooms (USE THE WEBSITE CLIENT)

*Follow these directions when preassigning breakout rooms for RTMSD students, who are considered to be external Zoom users. These directions are current as of 9/16/20.*

Collect student email addresses. A quick way is to create a Google Form, like this one. Ask students to complete the Google Form. Watch this step.
After students complete it, click the "Responses" tab to "Create a New Spreadsheet." Open the spreadsheet and view the results. Watch this step. Keep this spreadsheet open.
Go to https://rtmsd-org.zoom.us/. Log into your Zoom account. Open (or schedule) the meeting that you want breakout rooms to occur during. In the Meeting Options section, select Breakout Room pre-assign and click Create Rooms. Click "Import from CSV," then "Click to download template." Watch this step.
Open the Zoom template. Navigate to the Google Sheet that you used in Step #2, then highlight and copy the student email addresses. Go back to the Zoom template and paste them into the correct column. Assign students as you wish to the correct breakout rooms. Click File --> Save As... and fill out the fields in the dialog box. Make sure that you are saving a CSV file. Watch this step.
Go back to the Zoom website client and check that you are in the correct meeting. Click "Import from CSV" and "Browse to Choose a File." At this point, find the file that you created and saved in Step #4. Highlight it and click "Open." At this point, you will see your breakout rooms appear in the Zoom website client. You can edit your rooms right here. Watch this step.

*Please note that you can change the breakout room assignments at any point before meetings by following this process. Also, you can customize the names of the breakout rooms. Watch this process!*

Pre-assigning RTMSD PERSONNEL with Zoom accounts to breakout rooms (using the web portal)

*Follow these directions when preassigning breakout rooms for RTMSD personnel.*

Sign in to https://rtmsd-org.zoom.us/.
Click Meetings and schedule a meeting.
In the Meeting Options section, select Breakout Room pre-assign and click Create Rooms.
Click the plus icon beside Rooms to add breakout rooms.
Hover over the default breakout room name and click the pencil icon to rename it.
In the Add participants text box, search for participants' name or email address to add them to the breakout room. Note: You can add internal Zoom users that are in the same account.
(Optional) Use these options to edit your breakout rooms and participants:
1. 1. 1. 1. Click and drag a participant's email address to change the order.
      2. Hover over a participant's name to see options to move them to another room or remove them from the current room.
      3. To delete a breakout room, hover the room name in the left panel and click the trash bin icon.
Click Save.

Editing breakout rooms assignment

If you have already pre-assigned participants to breakouts rooms, you can edit the assignments BEFORE you start the meeting.

Note: You can also manage breakout rooms during the meeting through the desktop client.

Sign in to the Zoom web portal: https://rtmsd-org.zoom.us/
Click Meetings and click the meeting you want to edit.
In the Breakout Room section, click View detail.
Edit the breakout rooms as needed. See the previous section for more details.
Click Save.

This screenshot depicts using the breakout room on the web portal.

Starting a meeting with pre-assigned breakout rooms

Start the meeting with participants pre-assigned to breakout rooms.
Click Breakout Rooms in the meeting controls to access the breakout rooms you created.
Note:
1. 1. 1. If a participant is not be automatically assigned to the breakout room you specified when scheduling the meeting, recover to pre-assigned breakout rooms to re-assign participants to their pre-assigned breakout rooms.
    2. You can manually assign participants using the in-meeting breakout room controls.
Click Open All Rooms to start the breakout rooms.

Recovering to pre-assigned breakout rooms

After starting the breakout rooms, you can recover to the breakout rooms assignment you previously specified. This can be useful if you changed your breakout rooms during the meeting, or pre-assigned participants have joined the meeting after you joined the meeting or started breakout rooms.

Start the meeting with participants pre-assigned to breakout rooms.
Click Close All Rooms to end all breakout rooms.
Click Recreate then Recover to pre-assigned rooms.
Participants will be re-organized into the breakout rooms you specified when scheduling the meeting.

Participants will be re-organized into the breakout rooms you specified when scheduling the meeting.

This screenshot depicts using the breakout room on the web portal.

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