Create Breakout Rooms

In Zoom you can create "Breakout Rooms", which is a way of splitting the participants into smaller groups, where each group gets its’ own separate meeting room. Start off by clicking on the button "Breakout Rooms" in the meeting toolbar:

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A new window will open where you can create your breakout rooms. Do like this:

1. Choose the number of rooms you want to create. 

2. You can either allow the computer to automatically assign the participants into groups, do it manually or allow the participants themselves to choose room. Even if you choose to automatically assign the participants, you will still be able to manually move the participants between the different rooms.

3. Click on "Create" to create your breakout rooms.

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Once you have clicked on "Create", a list showing the participants and breakout rooms will come up. You can now do the following:

1. Move participants from one room to another if needed.

2. Click on "Options" to make further adjustments to the rooms (see more information regarding this in the next section). 

3. When you are done with all preparations, click on "Open All Rooms", allowing the participants to enter the breakout rooms.

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Settings for the Breakout Rooms

Before you open the breakout rooms that you have created, there are a few settings you can choose by clicking on the button "Options" (see number 2 in the picture above). A new window opens, and you can select the following settings:

1. Allow the participants to choose room themselves.

2. The participants can return to the main session at any time, but can also go back to the breakout rooms again if needed. 

3. Move all participants into the breakout rooms they have been assigned to without them having to accept an invitation.

4. Set the time for how long you want the rooms to be open. The rooms will close automatically when the time has run out.

5. If you do not want the rooms to close automatically when the time has run out, then you must choose this alternative. When the time has run out you will receive a notification, and you can manually close the rooms whenever suitable.

6. Choose this alternative if you want to have a countdown before the rooms close. You can set the time for the countdown yourself.

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Join the Breakout Rooms

As the host of the meeting, you can join the different breakout rooms by clicking on the button "Join" for each respective room.

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The participants can ask you to come to their breakout rooms by using the button "Ask for help". You will get a notification when a room asks for help, and you can join that room by clicking on "Join Breakout Room".

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If you have previously split the participants into groups and want them to have discussions in these, you can create breakout rooms in advance. You can also ask the participants to write their group numbers in front of their names, and then manually create breakout rooms, where you assign the participants with the same number into the same room.

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