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How to manage Breakout Rooms in Sessions as a Moderator

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Breakout Rooms offer a convenient way to segment attendees within Sessions, simplifying the process of organizing interactive activities. This functionality eliminates the need to create multiple Sessions or manage attendee movement throughout the Event, reducing the risk of participants feeling disoriented or 'lost.'

With just a few clicks, Moderators can effortlessly divide Sessions into smaller groups, fostering productive discussions, brainstorming sessions, and facilitating larger networking opportunities.

Note: The Breakout Rooms functionality within Sessions is available when the People Area is enabled.

Creating Breakout Rooms within a Session

When you are within your Session, as an Organizer or a Session Moderator, you will see the moderation toolbar at the bottom left of your screen. Click on the button to open the menu with options, select Breakouts Rooms and + New breakout. 

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
Tip: 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. 

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

Important notes: 
  • The allocation of Attendees to breakout rooms is randomized, and there isn't presently a way to designate or control specific room assigment for individual Attendees.
  • Additionally, this feature divides all Attendees, including those who are passively observing without sharing their audio and video.
  • In the event of an Attendee joining late, the system will automatically assign them to a breakout room.

Within the Breakout Rooms

Once the Attendees are in the designated Breakout Rooms, the moderation toolbar button will display a red tag with the number of rooms created and you will see additional functions in the menu: 

  • Regroup
  • View Rooms
  • Message All

Note: The Moderator 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.

  • Clicking on View Rooms will 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 red circle. 

    You can click on each room to see who which attendees were assigned to each.

    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 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.

  • 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.

 

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 per Session: 75 rooms
  • 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
  • You can have unlimited Sessions in your event, with 75 Breakout rooms each

The Attendee experience

If you would like to learn more about the Attendee experience within breakout rooms, check out How to navigate Breakout Rooms in Sessions.

 

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