Creating Breakout Rooms Automatically

Watch this 4-minute video for an overview of the basics of how to send your Zoom meeting participants into breakout rooms by assigning them automatically. Scroll down for text + screenshot instructions.

Step 1: Create the Breakout Rooms

Start by clicking the Breakout Rooms icon at the bottom of your Zoom window to open the Breakout Rooms panel.

Click the Breakout Rooms icon to open the Breakout Rooms panel

That will open this window:

Breakout Rooms Panel - not started

Note that it says “Breakout Rooms – Not Started” at the top, because at this point the breakout rooms haven’t been opened yet.

You can see there are 3 participants who have been assigned to 2 rooms: Breakout Room 1 and Breakout Room 2, but everyone is still in the main Zoom room. Nobody has been sent to a breakout room yet.

Step 2: Add Rooms (if applicable)

You may want more rooms than Zoom created for you. If so, click the “Add a Room” button at the bottom of the Breakout Rooms panel to add more rooms.

How to Add a Room

Feel free to rename them, too, by clicking on the Rename link.

Type the new name in the field to rename it, then click "Yes"

Type the new name in the field, then click “Yes.”

Step 3: Move or Exchange Participants (if applicable)

At this point, you may realize that Norma and Ted from Marketing, who always have lunch together, have been assigned to a room together, and your goal for your meeting was to get a little cross-fertilization going.

No problem!

You can click on the “Move To” link to move one of the buddies into another room…

Or click on the “Exchange” link to swap one of them with someone else, to keep the numbers in each room even.

Easy, breezy!

Use the "Move to" or "Exchange" links to move participants between breakout rooms

…then you can click on the “Move To” link, and pick a room to assign that/those participant(s) to, as shown below (you can see I’ve added some breakout rooms here, so you can see what it looks like to have multiple options when you click the “Move To” link):

Move to options

NOTE: It’s a good idea to NOT click on the number next to the room (which is the number of participants assigned to that room). If you do, a little panel will pop up, with check boxes, as shown below. BEWARE: if you UNcheck those boxes, your participants will be removed from the Breakout Panel. This isn’t a total disaster, but it does mean you’ll have to reassign them to rooms AFTER you open the breakout rooms.
Before you click the blue “Open All Rooms” button (which is what will beam everyone up into the breakout rooms), WAIT!!
First, you’ll want to make sure your Options are configured the way you want, so be sure to check out that lesson. 🙂