Everything you need to know about breakout Rooms in Microsoft Teams

Via breakout rooms you can split a meeting into small groups. You can activate this new feature during your Teams meeting.

Creating and starting a breakout room in Teams
If you want to create a Breakout Room on Microsoft Teams , these video instructions are the quickest way to get started.
In Microsoft Teams you have the option of enabling a breakout room via this button.

There are 2 ways to create a breakout room. Automatic or manual.
You choose whether to assign people to the rooms manually.

If you choose Automatic, all people in the room can go. You can only add participants if the meeting has started and the room has been created.
The only person who can manage the rooms is the person who starts the meeting.
Starting a breakout room

Select -> Start rooms to open up the rooms.

The room is open when the green icon is OPEN.

If you cannot find the icon or start the breakout meeting, it is probably because you are working in the browser. Several functions are not available in the web browser. You should use the Microsoft Teams application.
Ask people to participate in a breakout room
Select "ask to join" to add participants to the room.

Which persons are present in breakout rooms?
You can see which people are in the rooms as organisers.

Make an announcement in your breakout rooms
When you open the meeting rooms, it is practical to make an announcement so that participants know that the rooms will be open.


This announcement is for all participants

Close a breakout room
Press 'close room' to close the room. From now on it is no longer possible to use it.

At the conclusion, users are notified to return to the initial meeting.

Meeting options - general
In every breakout room, the general meeting settings are the same. You can adjust that everyone is allowed to present, for example.

Meeting options - Room 1
Or you can go into the breakout room (one level down) and organise the settings specifically for each room.

Allow users to return to the default meeting?
Automatically scheduling people into a meeting or having them return are new settings that can be activated via settings.

Teams Breakout rooms Classification before the start of the meeting
In this video you can see how to add participants before the meeting starts.
How do I automatically record a Microsoft Teams breakout rooms meeting?
Only after the meeting has been created is it possible to do specific settings. In this video you can configure general settings such as bypass lobby, recordings, who can present, allow responses.
Who can be a presenter in a breakout room?
It is possible to adjust the presenter settings in the breakout room meeting settings.


Breakout rooms redistribute participants during or before the meeting
Before the launch of Breakout Rooms V2, there is another update to the breakout room functionality. Organisers can now reassign participants even if the rooms are already in use.
Previously, you could only reassign if rooms were closed. Allocations for brainstorming rooms now persist across multiple sessions. These features are useful for managing discussions efficiently and ensuring the right participants are present at each breakout. Source.

Microsoft Tech Community:
New and exciting features available for Microsoft Teams breakout rooms - Microsoft Tech Community
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Tutorial: Microsoft Teams breakout rooms
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Only the meeting organiser seems to be able to create break-out rooms. Is there a possibility to delegate this task to someone else, for example by making them co-host? Or is it possible to change the organiser after a meeting has been created?
Hi! For now, only the hoster can create the break-out rooms.
nor on extended rights for guests or
that the meeting is held from the outset with bspw. 4 Räumen defaultmässig anlegen?
Mir geht es darum, dass meine Trainer eines Lehrgangs Breakouts für die Klassen haben und ich als Ownerin nicht im Seminar dabei bin. DAnke.
Is it possible to place people who are 'guests' in the meeting in the break-out rooms? This does not seem to work...
Is it possible to place people who are 'guests' in the meeting in a break-out room? This does not seem to work...
Is it possible to share a work file as an organiser with a breakout team? Preferably a file that is in Teams ?
You can copy the link of the document and paste it into the chat. Then everyone can open it if they have access to the folder (the Team) where the file is saved.
Hello Jasper, it is nice to get information from this site about how things work in Teams. My question is how I as an organizer can leave a break room and go to the next break room. I think I only see the button leave now but that stops the entire break room. Hgr. Richard Toussaint
Hello Jasper,
Nice to meet you again in this way!
I have read through the manual/step-by-step plan carefully. It is very clear to me. My question is the same as the previous post. How can I switch from one room to another? Can I allow one more person within the meeting to go from one room to another?
Is there a maximum number of people who can fit into a breakout room?
I ran into the problem that I could not add anyone to a break-out room. This error message came up: "This person is using a device or App version that does not support separate meeting rooms."
Enquiries made to participants reveal that after running an Teams update, there is still no access.
What could be the cause of this?
Thank you very much!
If you start a meeting in a team channel, is it only the person who starts the meeting who can create breakout rooms?
Hi, on your page, under the heading "make an announcement" it says: "If you open the meeting rooms, it is practical that you make an announcement"...
I would change the spelling to "opens".
Modified! Thank you 🙏🏻