Creating breakout rooms in Zoom

Do you want to split up a large meeting at the office with your colleagues into groups? Then, when you are physically together, you can ask participants to form groups and sit at different tables or in a different room, in order to work on for example a subtask.

Online, of course, this works differently. You want people to be able to consult in smaller groups, but not to have to start their own separate Zoom meetings. The solution? Breakout rooms in Zoom.

What are Zoom breakout rooms?

Breakout rooms are individual, virtual meeting rooms where colleagues can hold meetings together, separate from the general meeting room. The administrator of the general meeting room can then monitor and participate in all breakout rooms individually, but the participants cannot move to other breakout rooms without permission. This is ideal for group assignments, after which the participants must return to the main virtual meeting room to for example present their assignment. In Zoom, you can create up to 50 breakout rooms in a single meeting.

How to create breakout rooms in Zoom

If you have the appropriate rights to create breakout rooms in Zoom, you can easily create breakout rooms from the meeting.

• Step 1: at the bottom of the screen you will find the ‘Breakout Rooms’ button: click this;
• Step 2: this will open a screen, where you can indicate how many breakout rooms you want to create and how you want to distribute your participants over the rooms. You can assign them automatically, make the distribution yourself or let the participants choose. The rooms are created but not yet started;
• Step 3: Did you choose to assign the participants manually? Then a screen opens, where you can add participants per room;
• Step 4: Via ‘Options’ you can choose various settings, such as the names of the rooms and how long the breakout rooms will remain open. With the button ‘Open all rooms’ you start the sessions in the breakout rooms and all participants are sent to the right room. As the host, you remain active in the main session.

As a host you then have full control and can easily join any of the sessions. You can chat with participants, move participants between rooms and answer questions from participants.
Want to learn more about breakout rooms in Zoom, are you interested in implementing Zoom’s collaboration tool, or is your organization looking for a way to improve virtual collaboration? We are ready to advise you on the tools that fit your company and we will help you implement them. With our unique approach we ensure that your colleagues are included from step one and that they start using your new tools with confidence!

Contact us for more information.