Within the past few years, more organizations have been making frequent use of virtual platforms for most of their meetings. Some platforms, such as Microsoft Teams keep creating additional features to replicate the physical meeting experience as much as possible. One of these features is Microsoft Teams breakout rooms.
A breakout room is a small meeting room or a separate part of an internet meeting where a small group can discuss a particular issue before returning to the central meeting.
The Microsoft Teams breakout room was first launched in December 2020 and has since received numerous upgrades. Organizational heads and team leaders, and other users need to understand how to use the breakout feature to get the best out of it.
How to Use Microsoft Teams Breakout Rooms
Using the Microsoft Teams breakout rooms might appear complicated at first. However, it is hardly different from navigating any other feature on the Teams app. Users can only create a breakout room before or during the meeting.
Creating Breakout Rooms
Users can do this before the meeting or after the meeting has started.
Before the meeting starts
Go to the meeting invite on the Teams calendar and open it.
- Then click on the break out rooms feature and select the create rooms
- Choose the number of rooms needed up to a maximum of 50 rooms for each meeting
- The rooms will be empty initially. Then you click on the “assign participant” button
- Users will be given two options. Choose whether you want Teams to randomly assign 5-6 people to rooms (Automatically) or if you will manually assign members
After the meeting has started
- After participants have joined, click on the breakout rooms icon from the meeting controls.
- Select the number of rooms you want to create.
- Add participants automatically or add manually.
- Click on “create rooms.”
Assigning Participants to Breakout Rooms
How to manually add participants
Before the meeting begins:
- After opening the meeting invite and choosing the manual option, click next.
- Then, select the participants you want in a room by hovering over their names till a check box shows up.
- Click the arrow next to ‘assign’ and choose a room for all the selected participants.
- Repeat the steps to assign all members to rooms and select confirm.
After or during the meeting:
- Click on break out rooms
- Select participants using the check box
- Assign them to the room you want by clicking the drop-down menu next to ‘room’
- Repeat for all the rooms created and select confirm.
You can also repeat the process if new participants join the meeting and need to be assigned to break out rooms.
How To Appoint Break Out Room Managers
Initially, when Microsoft Teams added the breakout room feature, only the meeting organizers could manage the control of the breakout rooms. Now, you can appoint team presenters to be room managers and delegate tasks to them. They can assign participants, create or delete rooms, open the rooms, etc.
To do this either before or after the meeting has started:
- Go to breakout rooms and select room settings
- There is an ‘assign presenters to manage room’ toggle’.
- Click on search for presenters and assign the person you want to be the breakout room manager
- If there are no presenters, go to meeting options and assign presenters. Then you can select the room manager
- Click on the back button to automatically save changes
You can only choose one person to manage the breakout room at a time.
Set Time Limit for Breakout Room Sessions
Users can set a time limit for breakout rooms, like in physical meetings where people break up into smaller discussions. A timer will be visible in each of the rooms, and when the time runs out, the room closes, and participants can return to the central meeting.
- Go to meeting controls and select breakout rooms
- Select room settings
- Click on ‘Set a time limit
- Choose an option for how long the session should last
- Click the ‘Back’ button to save changes
When setting a time limit, there is an option to move people to rooms automatically. Turning this off means that after the time is up, participants can decide whether or not they want to go back to the central meeting or leave.
Limitations and Prerequisites to Microsoft Teams Breakout
There’s no doubt that the Microsoft Teams breakout rooms are a handy tool to have during online meetings. However, there are still some limitations and prerequisites that may impact the user experience.
- Users cannot create breakout rooms in meetings with more than 300 participants. Creating rooms before the meeting automatically limits the number of people joining the conference to 300. Large webinars or lectures may not be able to use the feature
- You can only create breakout rooms from the app’s desktop version installed on Windows or Mac OS
- Users can’t add people from the participants panel
- You can’t add additional people to join the meeting chat
- A maximum of 50 breakout rooms can be created in each meeting
- Participants cannot access the join meeting link, move from one room to another, or use the call me option
- The breakout rooms feature is not supported by multi-device join in
Benefits of Microsoft Teams Breakout Rooms
Despite these limitations, the breakout rooms are of enormous benefit to organizations. Companies with remote workers or even full-time on-site employees can gain from this feature:
- Having departments meet during a general meeting and getting the feedback in real-time
- Preservation of privacy during group meetings.
- Allows for meaningful online communication when people are split into smaller groups
- There can be easier delegation of tasks, break out rooms can be given assignments to perform, research, etc. and then report back to the entire organization
- Task delegation with breakout room managers who can add or delete rooms, assign participants, join other rooms, etc., thus reducing the meeting organizer’s burden
- One-on-one interaction between the organization head and different rooms to make inputs, corrections, assess progress, etc., for team members.
With Microsoft Teams breakout rooms, you can increase the productivity of online meetings in your organizations with branched discussions.
from UC Today https://ift.tt/NUOhmM4
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