Breakout rooms in Zoom make it easy to split participants into smaller groups for focused discussions, brainstorming sessions, or team activities within a single Zoom meeting. They're an essential for those of you looking to improve on meeting management. With that in mind, here’s a step-by-step guide to setting up and managing Zoom breakout rooms. This article covers creating breakout rooms for all relevant devices, including desktops and mobile apps - we really have left nobody in the dark when it comes to the breakout room.

What Are Zoom Breakout Rooms?

First up, what are they? Breakout rooms are smaller rooms (off the main meeting room) that allow a meeting host or co-host to divide participants into separate virtual meeting areas. As I say, this can be ideal for group discussions, workshops, and brainstorming sessions. Once breakout rooms are enabled, hosts can create and manage these smaller groups, which can let participants discuss topics that are relevant to them in depth, before then rejoining the main session.

Prerequisites for Using Breakout Rooms

Before setting up breakout rooms, you need to make sure of the following:

• You have a Zoom account with the Zoom client downloaded (desktop or mobile).
• Breakout rooms are enabled in Zoom settings.
• Your Zoom client (for Windows, macOS, or Linux) is up-to-date with the global minimum version.

Note: Users on mobile can join breakout rooms but may have limited management options compared to desktop users.

Setting Up Breakout Rooms

Step 1: Enabling Breakout Rooms in Zoom

1. Sign in to your Zoom web portal.
2. In the navigation menu, head over to Settings.
3. Under In Meeting (Advanced), look for Breakout room and toggle it on.
4. Check Allow host to assign participants to breakout rooms when scheduling if you’d like to pre-assign participants.

Step 2: Creating Breakout Rooms During a Meeting

1. You don't need to do anything different at first, so just start or join a Zoom meeting as the host or co-host.
2. In the toolbar at the bottom, click Breakout Rooms.
3. Once you do step 2, a dialog box will appear, letting you set the number of rooms and how you would like to assign participants. You have a few options:
   • Assign Automatically: Zoom will take over, dividing participants evenly across breakout rooms.
   • Assign Manually: Select participants for each room individually by using the Assign button.
   • Let Participants Choose Room: Hand over control and allow participants to select and join breakout rooms on their own.
4. Click Create Rooms to complete the setup. The rooms are now created but won’t open until you click Open All Rooms.

Managing Breakout Rooms

Once you do open those breakout rooms, hosts and co-hosts can manage them with various options. We've laid them out for you here:

• Move Participants: Hover over a participant’s name to move them between rooms.
• Add or Delete Rooms: If you need to, you can add more rooms or delete existing ones.
• Broadcast Messages: Attention all! Send a message to all breakout rooms to give updates or instructions.
• Screen Sharing: This option is pretty cool. Hosts can share their screen across all rooms to present information to multiple groups at once.

Options for Breakout Rooms

Before opening breakout rooms, you actually have even more options available to you (as shown below). You can adjust these settings by clicking Options:

• Allow participants to choose room: This means that participants can select and enter breakout rooms themselves.
• Allow participants to return to the main session: Allows participants to return to the main session whenever they want to.
• Automatically move participants: Moves everyone into their assigned breakout rooms automatically.
• Auto-close breakout rooms after [time] minutes: If you have a lot of participants on your hands, you can set a timer for sessions to close automatically.
• Countdown Timer: Equally, you can set a timer giving participants time to wrap up before returning to the main session.

Ending Breakout Rooms

1. To end the breakout sessions, click Close All Rooms. Participants will receive a notification with a 60-second countdown before returning to the main meeting room, to give them a bit of warning.

Advanced Breakout Room Management

Pre-Assigning Breakout Rooms for Scheduled Meetings

Pre-assigning participants is helpful for large meetings or recurring sessions where again, you will have a lot of people to manage. Here's how to do this:

1. Schedule a Meeting through your Zoom web portal.
2. In the meeting settings, enable Breakout Room Pre-assign.
3. Manually assign participants by entering their email addresses, or upload a CSV file for bulk assignments.
4. Save your settings and you will be using the pre-assigned breakout rooms for the upcoming meeting, as desired.

Responding to Requests for Help

Participants can click Ask for Help to request that the host of the Zoom meeting joins their room. You (as host) will receive a notification and can click Join Breakout Room to assist them.

Sharing Your Screen to All Breakout Rooms

Back to this snazzy feature! Hosts and co-hosts can share their screen from the main meeting to all breakout rooms. This is helpful for delivering instructions or visual aids to each room at the same time, and can be done easily:

1. Click Share Screen in the main meeting controls.
2. Select Share to breakout rooms at the bottom of the screen-sharing window.
3. Choose the content to share (screen, application window, or specific document) and click Share. You will now be broadcasting to your Zoom audience.

How to Record, Transcribe, and Summarize Breakout Rooms

For a complete record of your Zoom meeting and breakout sessions, Bubbles offers an AI-driven solution for recording, transcribing, and summarizing meetings. We recommend Bubbles as you are able to get started for free (with a 2 week free trial of their Pro plan).

How to Use Bubbles for Breakout Room Meetings:

• Option 1: Go to the Bubbles app, sign up, and connect your calendar. Bubbles will automatically join and record all future meetings on your calendar (you can also toggle recording off for specific meetings), providing a full transcript, recording, summary, and action items after each session.
• Option 2: Use the Bubbles Chrome or Edge extension to invite Bubbles to your Zoom meeting. Just paste the Zoom meeting link, and the Notetaker will join to record and capture all essential information from the session.