Zoom Web Portal: How do I set up pre-assigned breakout rooms in Zoom?

Tags zoom

Issue/Question

  • How do I pre-assign breakout rooms in Zoom?
  • Can I keep the same breakout room pre-assignments for all occurrences of a recurring meeting? Can I change the pre-assignments for different occurrences of a recurring meeting?

Environment

  • Oregon State University
    • Instructor
      • Zoom

Resolution/Answer

The organizer of a Zoom meeting can set up breakout room pre-assignments for up to 200 participants. The meeting host and co-host(s) will only see the breakout room pre-assignments if they access the meeting through the Zoom desktop app version 5.4.0 or higher. For recurring meetings, pre-assigned breakout rooms apply to all occurrences of the meeting.

Note: Participants must be signed in to Zoom using their Oregon State account (ONID) for the breakout room pre-assignments to be applied. To help your meeting participants get signed in properly, share this information with them: https://is.oregonstate.edu/zoom/getting-started.

I. Enable breakout rooms in the Zoom Web portal

  1. Sign in to your Oregon State Zoom account through the Zoom Web portal (https://oregonstate.zoom.us/).
  2. In the navigation menu click, "Settings."
  3. On the Meeting tab, navigate to the Breakout Room option and enable the setting.
  4. Check the box to allow meeting hosts to pre-assign participants to breakout rooms.

II. Pre-assign participants to breakout rooms

  1. Sign in to your Oregon State Zoom account through the Zoom Web portal  (https://oregonstate.zoom.us/).
  2. On the Meetings tab, click Schedule a Meeting.
  3. Under Meeting Options, check the box for Breakout Room pre-assign and click Create Rooms.
  4. Click the + icon beside Rooms to add breakout rooms.
  5. To change the default breakout room name, click the pencil icon and rename it.
  6. In the Add participants text box, search for the participant's name or ONID email address to add them to the breakout room. (NOTE: alternatively, you can click Import from a CSV and download and fill out a sample CSV, then import the breakout room pre-assignments).
  7. Edit your breakout rooms and participants, as needed: change the order by dragging a participant's email address; see options to move a participant between rooms by hovering over their name; hover over the room name in the left panel and click the trash icon to delete a breakout room.
  8. Click Save.

III. Start the meeting with pre-assigned breakout rooms

  1. Start the meeting with breakout room pre-assignments.
  2. Access the breakout rooms the meeting organizer created by clicking Breakout Rooms in the meeting controls (meeting host and co-hosts have access to these controls).
  3. If a participant is not automatically assigned to their pre-assigned breakout room, the host can manually assign participants using the in-meeting breakout room controls.
  4. Click Open All Rooms

Note: If you change breakout rooms during the meeting, or if pre-assigned participants have joined the meeting after you started the breakout rooms, you can recover the breakout rooms pre-assignments: Click Close All Rooms to end all breakout rooms >> click Recreate >> click Recover to pre-assigned rooms.

Still have questions?

If you have questions about this topic or related topics, please use one of the following methods to contact the Canvas team at Oregon State:

  • Sign in and add a comment/question to this article using the tools below the article.
  • Send an email to Canvas@Oregonstate.edu.
Print Article