Breakout Rooms are a new feature in Microsoft Teams, that can be used in any meeting.
You will first need to have created a meeting with at least one other participant. To create breakout rooms, first click the Breakout Rooms icon along the top of the meeting window.
If you can't see it immediately, you may need to select More first.
You will be asked how many rooms you want to create. I have two participants in this meeting, so I will create two rooms - one for each. You can also decide how you want participants to be distributed.
You can also create breakout rooms before inviting participants. This is useful if you want to prepare them in advance.
Automatic Assignment
If you pick Automatic, you're almost done! You now have breakout rooms, and everyone will automatically be assigned to one as soon as you click Start Rooms.
You will also be assigned to a room. To move between rooms, see the section below titled "Managing Rooms".
Once you're finished, you can click Close Rooms, and all participants will be brought back into the main meeting.
Manual Assignment
You can also choose to assign participants manually.
This will create empty rooms (again, I am using two rooms in my example), which will show up on the right hand side of your window. To assign participants, click Assign Participants.
For each room, you need to tick the participants you want to send to that room, then click Assign and pick the room you want to send them to.
Once you have assigned all your guests, click Start Rooms. Each participant will be sent to their relevant room.
Once you're finished, you can click Close Rooms, and all participants will be brought back into the main meeting.
Managing Rooms
After creating your rooms, you have additional options available to you. To access these, you can either hover over the room and click the three dots (peapod) menu; or you can right-click on the room.
- Join Room allows you to move between rooms at will. Note that your guests will not be able to do this.
- Open Room and Close Room give you control over which rooms are open and available at a time. A good use case for this is if you're holding a long meeting and you want a lunch break; this will allow you to have a temporary "break room" which you can open at lunchtime, and close when you want everyone back in the meeting.
- Rename Room does what it says on the tin; it allows you to rename the room.
- Delete Room allows you to get rid of breakout rooms once you're done with them. This can only be done if the room is closed and all participants have left.