How to use breakout rooms in Collab Spaces
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We have created this guide to give you all the things you need to know about how breakout rooms work in Collab Spaces and what you can do as a presenter to set them up.
Don’t have time? Skip to chapter 6 in the video to get a quick glance at breakout rooms.
What are breakout rooms?
Breakout rooms is one of our newest additions to Collab Spaces that allow the host to split users into different rooms. With the help of breakout rooms, you can facilitate group work and discussion during lessons, trainings or meetings. Each room has its own presenter, and the host of the webinar can move freely within the rooms to check in on progress.
Groups are selected by the host, or a presenter who was selected for the role before the webinar started and joined the webinar via a special (presenter) link. Attendees can be assigned into rooms by hand or randomly thanks to the “Randomize” button.
The host of the webinar can move freely around the breakout rooms and moderate the discussions or group work going on. Attendees assigned to a specific room cannot switch rooms without the host’s help.
Please note: this feature is not available on all accounts, so if you are interested in this please speak to a member of the Event Project Management team or your Account Manager.
When can I use breakout rooms?
Breakout rooms are a great feature for creating interaction and engagement between attendees. Our users make use of the breakout room function when (for example) a given idea or project need to be discussed amongst several groups at the same time.
Here are a few more examples of use cases for this function:
If you are leading a lesson, divide the students up into groups so that each group works
independently on a given task.
When leading a meeting you can divide into groups and ask them to conduct a brainstorm or work together in a workshop environment.
While leading a business conference, use breakout rooms to facilitate networking
between participants.
In the case they you have a recruitment event on, you can gather delegates in one session and then breakout into smaller groups to have a Q&A or even hold small interviews.
How to use breakout rooms?
Here is the breakout room window. It is made up of the following elements:
Search - you can look for attendees by name.
List of attendees - here is the list of all the participants of your event.
Left pointing arrow - this arrow moves the participant back in the main attendee list.
Right pointing arrow - this arrow moves the participant to the breakout room of your
choice.
List of breakout rooms – a list of all the rooms available for participants.
Scroll button – allows you to scroll down (or up) to the other rooms.
Randomize – you can assign your attendees into rooms randomly
Start – clicking it you will start the breakout room session
How to add attendees to breakout rooms?
Mark the name of the participant to add them to the breakout room
2. Next, click on the right pointing arrow to add an attendee to the room. You can also add participants to the room by dragging and dropping their names into the selected room.
3. If you’d like to assign your attendees to rooms at random, click “Randomize”.
4. Once all of your attendees are in their selective rooms, click “Start” to begin the session.
In the case that a user joins the webinar during an active session of breakout rooms, as the host, you can still assign them to the room with the help of the “Manage” button (as seen onlthe following screenshot). This function will take you back to the breakout room window and you can manually assign the new attendee to a room.
How to start a session in breakout rooms?
Once you click on “Start” button, a menu will appear on the left side of your room. You can choose from the rooms which you created as shown on the screenshot below.
You will be assigned a maximum of 5 breakout rooms which you can use to break up your main session. You can use only 1 or some of all 5 of those breakout rooms. More breakout rooms are currently not available.
List of active breakout rooms.
List of attendees who are in the selected breakout rooms.
“Manage” button – after clicking you will be redirected to the breakout room window.
“Close” button – clicking this will end the session of breakout rooms.
How to change the name of a room?
In Collab Spaces you can change the name of the breakout room if need be. To do so, hover the mouse pointer over the room who’s name you’d like to change, and click on the cog icon that appears. Edit the name in the field that appears, and once you’re done, simply click the checkmark. You can preset your room names before the session starts but note that these room names will apply to all the breakout rooms in your other sessions.
How to give a user a role of the breakout presenter?
There are two ways to give someone the presenter role: before the beginning of the event or during it. Remember however, that these methods give the presenter two different levels of privileges.
Giving the role of presenter before the beginning of the event:
To add a presenter before the event begins, this user must be added to the list of presenters available to you in your dashboard, or they must join the event via a presenter link sent before the start of the event.
There are a few ways of doing this:
Invite the given person to the event with the help of the “Invite Participants” tab in the main menu.
2. Send the user a presenter link.
A user who received the role of presenter before the event started will be able to (like the host) move around between breakout rooms with ease.
Adding a presenter during an active session of breakout rooms:
To assign the role presenter to a user during a session, go to the list of participants in the breakout room. From that list, you can select your presenter. To do so, find the person in the list, and click on the information icon (i) by their name.
A window with the participant’s details will pop up. Go to the “Change Role” field and select the “Presenter” option. This autosaves, so just click on the (x) icon once you’re done.
How to ask presenter for help?
If attendees find themselves needing the help of the host or the main presenter who is not currently present in the room, they can use the “Ask the Presenter for Help” option at the top of the menu, to the right of the breakout room menu.
After selecting the “Ask the Presenter for Help” option, a life ring icon will appear by the room that’s asking for help. This icon will be visible to three types of users:
The host
A presenter assigned before the webinar starts
An attendee who was made a presenter in the main room during an ongoing session
of breakout rooms
The life ring icon will appear as many times as the help button was pressed. The host or presenter (made ahead of time or in the main room) can enter the room needing help.
FAQs
Q: Do breakout rooms use up concurrent sessions?
A: No, they do not. Each event planned in the dashboard corresponds with one webinar carried out, breakout rooms are part of the event, not an event within themselves.
Q: Who can move between rooms?
A: The host and a presenter can move between each breakout room, but if they are set as a presenter within the breakout room they can only stay as a presenter in that room and not move into others.
Q: How many breakout rooms can I have at once?
A: During each webinar you can lead one session of breakout rooms, but you can have multiple rooms going simultaneously.
Q: How do I assign participants to the room?
A: The host or the presenter is in charge of assigning participants to the rooms, however the participants can also be randomly be placed in rooms with the help of the “Randomize” button.
Q: Can breakout rooms be recorded?
A: Yes, within the room, the presenter simply needs to click the “REC” button to begin recording. The recording will be stored on the host’s account in the “Recordings” section of their storage. If the host chooses to run four breakout rooms and record each room, they will find four recordings in their “Recordings” tab in their storage.
Q: What is the largest concurrent audience which can use breakout rooms?
The only limit here would be number of webinar participants allowed in each one of your rooms.
Q: Can I change the layout of the breakout room?
A: Yes, you can change the layout before the session or during it, into a webinar layout or hangouts type layout. You can also change the layout of the breakout room itself.