Now, people have adapted to the new reality where video calling and video conferencing have become the norm. Apps like Zoom have been stable for weeks after adding new features and security measures. One cool feature that caught my attention was the breakout rooms. Part of the reason is that no other video calling app offers this feature at the moment.
Team rooms allow the organizer to divide the meeting into smaller rooms and assign participants to each room. Participants in separate virtual rooms keep discussions and chats separate. No overlap gives homeowners much-needed sanity. Imagine marketing, design, and finance teams talking at the same time. You don’t want that.
Breakout rooms will allow you to invite all participants at once but divide them into different rooms. Keep the participants involved and thus the conversation together. Let’s make it more meaningful. I’m surprised why Zoom’s competitors like Google Meet haven’t released something similar.
Learn more about team rooms, how they work, and everything else you need to know about it.
Availability by Platform and Package
Breakout rooms are disabled by default. You will have to enable this feature manually to use it during calls. This feature can only be enabled on the desktop app. Smartphone users can join a breakout room controlled by the organizer, but cannot create a room.
A bit limiting considering how many people use cell phones for communication these days. On the plus side, the breakout room feature is available in the free plan, it’s generous to see that no one else even offers this useful feature.
Enable breakout room in Zoom
You need to be logged in to the Zoom site on the web to enable this feature. It’s rather strange that only desktop users can create these rooms.
You can create up to 50 group rooms with a limit of 200 participants per Zoom call, but the number can vary (check screenshot above). I believe that is more than enough for most teams, especially SMBs and startups, where the number of departments is usually less than 20-50.
Open the website, log in with your ID, social network or SSO and click My Account.
Click Settings > Meeting, then select the In-Meeting (Advanced) menu option to find the Breakout room settings.
After enabling the setting, you’ll see another option show up called “Allow organizers to assign participants to team rooms when scheduling”. That will allow you to create breakout rooms and assign the same participants even before the meeting starts. Don’t forget to hit the Save button when done.
Use the Breakout Room in Zoom
The steps to create and use a team room in Zoom remain the same for both the Windows and macOS desktop apps. I am using Windows for this tutorial.
Launch Zoom’s desktop app and sign in if you’re not already. Create a new meeting or schedule a meeting. Both are fine because only the host can create a breakout room and no one else. I am creating a new one.
Click the More button on the far right to find the Breakout Room option there.
You will see a pop-up where you can create rooms and control participants in each group room. There are two options below that. With the Auto option, Zoom will assign participants you don’t want. So, select the Manual option to have the option to decide which participants will enter which group room. Click Create Room when you’re done. You can always reassign attendees later.
You will see another pop-up. Hover over the room name to change the default name, which is Breakout Room 1, etc. Click the Assign button to assign participants to that room. You’ll find some options below, like time and countdown. Click Add Room when you’re done.
Finally, click Open All Rooms to officially start the meeting. I recommend testing this feature out with your friends and family members to make sure you get the hang of it. Avoid last-minute scrambles and awkward moments.
The truth about the breakout room
There are a few points you need to remember or keep in mind when using the group meeting room feature in Zoom. You already know the room and participant limits. But did you know that when recording a meeting to the cloud, Zoom will only record the main room regardless of which room the organizer is currently in? Yes, breakout rooms cannot be recorded.
The keyword here is ‘cloud’. That means if you are recording a Zoom call locally on your computer, it will record the room the server is currently in. The server can choose to allow multiple users to record calls. An example might be allowing one participant in each room to record. Suppose, the head of the department. Now, every room will be recorded no matter where the host is.
The organizer needs to enable local recording and allow participants to record from settings for this to happen.
Break it down
Zoom’s Breakout Rooms feature is pretty awesome. And it’s also easy to use. A better way to organize your meetings. Useful when there are too many employees from different departments or social classes. It will also help protect privacy as you may not want your employees to hear what you just discussed with your boss. I hope the competition will catch up quickly. Things are heating up in the field of video conferencing.
Next: Recorded a Zoom meeting but need to edit it? Click below to learn how to do that on both Windows and macOS.
Categories: How to
Source: thpttranhungdao.edu.vn/en/
