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How to manage Breakout Rooms in Sessions

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Breakout Rooms can be used within Sessions so that it is easier to separate Attendees during an interactive activity. This means you don't have to create multiple Sessions or try to coordinate attendees moving throughout the Event during your segment, at the risk of them getting "lost". 

Now, with just a few clicks, organizers can split Sessions into smaller groups to facilitate discussions, brainstorming sessions, and larger networking.

Note: To be able to use Breakout Rooms within Sessions, you must have the People Area enabled.

Creating Breakout Rooms within a Session

When you are within your Session, as an Organizer or a Session Moderator, you will see a tab at the bottom of your screen named Breakouts. Click on this and it will open a panel where you will see the button for + New breakout. 

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When you click on + New Breakout a pop-up will prompt you to select the following settings.

Choose to organize the Breakout Rooms based on:

  • Number of people per room - input how many people should be in each room and the attendees will be separated accordingly
  • Number of rooms - set how many rooms you would like to create and the attendees will be separated evenly into the correct number of rooms
Refer to the section below to learn more about the limits for breakout rooms.

Then adjust the setting for "Regroup after":

  • Regroup after - set a time limit so that your attendees will automatically return to the main Session after a specified period of time.
Note: The maximum time limit for a Breakout Rooms is 1 hour and cannot be extended once they have been created. 

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Once you are happy with your settings, click Create breakout and the Attendees will be sent to separate rooms after a countdown.

Note:This room assignment is randomized; viewers and participants within this session are then sent to a random breakout room. Attendees who join this session during a breakout are sent to a random breakout room instead.

Within the Breakout Rooms

Now the Attendees are in the designated Breakout Rooms, you will see additional functions in the panel at the bottom: 

  • Regroup
  • View Rooms
  • Message All

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Note: The Organizer will remain in the main Session and will not be sent to a Breakout Room. If there is more than one Organizer or Moderator in the Session, only the creator of the Breakout Rooms will remain in the main Session and the others will be randomly assigned to a room. 

  • If you click on Regroup it will show you a pop-up asking if you are sure. Click Regroup again and it will bring everyone back to the main room. Alternatively, click Cancel or the 'x' in the corner to cancel the request and continue with the Breakout Rooms.

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  • On this button you will see a little blue icon that will tell you how many Breakout Rooms there are within your Session. Click on the button to open up a panel where you can explore the rooms further. 

    At a glance, you can see how many people are in each room by looking at the number in the blue circle, however, you can also click on each room to see who which attendees were assigned to each.

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    Click the arrow to go back to the rest of the rooms or click the 'x' to return to the video feed. 

    Alternatively, click Join Breakout to go to the room and chat directly with the Attendees onscreen. Here, you can click Return to Main Session to go back to the Main Room, or click Breakouts to view the other rooms again.

    Note: Only Organizers and Moderators will have the option to move around the different Breakout rooms. Attendees will always be limited to the same room.

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    If you click Breakouts you will see which room you are in and be able to continue browsing through the other rooms. 

  • Clicking Message all will open another pop-up where you can send a message to all of the rooms. When you do so, it will appear in the chat section in each individual Breakout Room. Everyone that is in a Breakout Room will also see a pop-up to say that the Moderator has sent a message.

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Breakout room capacity and limits

There are some important capacity limitations you should be aware of before creating breakout rooms:

  • Max number of breakouts that can be created: 75 rooms per Session
  • Min number of people to create breakout rooms: 4 people (+ Organizer/Moderator)
  • Min number of people per breakout: 2 people
  • Max number of people per breakout: 15 people
Note: there is a limit of 15 people per Breakout room when creating the rooms, however, there are 5 excess slots that allow for organizers and moderators to freely move between breakouts that have reached the 15/15 capacity

Breakout Room analytics

Although there currently are not any additional reports for Breakout Rooms, you can view which attendees joined which Breakout Rooms in the Attendee Activities report.

Recording Breakout Rooms

When you choose to record a Session, your recording will not include the individual Breakout Sessions. When viewing the recording, you will only see the main Session where the Organizer will remain. 

The Attendee experience

If you would like to learn more about the Attendee experience within breakout rooms, check out this article.

 

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