Creating and managing breakout rooms

Breakout rooms are subrooms that can be created within a meeting or training session. They are useful for splitting a large group into smaller groups that can talk or collaborate. Breakout rooms can be used in meetings and training sessions that have 50 or fewer people and hosts can create up to 5 breakout rooms for a single meeting or training session.

For example, if you have 20 people in a session, you could create 4 breakout rooms and move 5 attendees to each room. In the breakout rooms, the attendees can speak to each other (depending on the audio configuration), use the Chat pod, collaborate on a whiteboard, and share their screens. The host can visit all of the breakout rooms to assist and answer questions. When work in the breakout rooms is complete, the host can end the breakout session and return attendees to the main room. Hosts are able to share what happened in the breakout rooms with everyone. If necessary, the host can return attendees to their same breakout rooms. If you use the room again, you can also reuse the breakout room layout and content. (However, the assignment of attendees to breakout rooms is not retained.)

Note: Acrobat Connect Pro administrators can change pod, sharing, and other settings to adhere to standards for governance. These settings affect the layout of meeting rooms and what you can do in meeting rooms. For more information, see Working with compliance and control settings.

Audio in breakout rooms

Audio in breakout rooms can be integrated telephony, non-integrated telephony, or VoIP, just like regular meetings and training sessions.

When using integrated telephony, if the telephony provider supports Acrobat Connect Pro breakout rooms, then the telephony audio conference automatically splits across breakout rooms you create. Each breakout room has its own audio and you do not have to perform separate breakout assignments for the audio bridge. When breakout rooms are closed, all attendees return to the main audio conference line automatically. If you are using a provider that does not support audio breakouts, you can ask users to mute their phones and use VoIP with a microphone while in breakout rooms. (If that is not possible, attendees can use the Chat pod in the breakout room to communicate.)

When using non-integrated telephony that does support audio breakouts, manually configure your telephony breakouts (using private audio bridges) to match the online breakout rooms.

Note: Cisco MeetingPlace is the only telephony provider that supports Acrobat Connect Pro breakout rooms currently, but other providers may add support in the future.

When using VoIP, a separate VoIP audio channel is created for each breakout room, allowing users to hold private conversations within their own rooms. Participants are automatically assigned the role of presenter in a breakout room giving them full VoIP rights. Attendees can speak and be heard, and use the VoIP controls. When a host ends a breakout session, everyone returns to the main meeting room and uses the same VoIP audio channel again.

About breakout room layouts

Hosts can use the default breakout room layout or design a new layout to use specifically with breakout rooms. Create a custom breakout room layout if you want to do preparatory work before sending content and people to breakout rooms. This can help meetings go faster and be better organized.

The layout being used in the meeting or training session when you click the Begin Breakouts button is the layout that is reproduced in all breakout rooms. For example, if layout 1 is active and you begin breakouts with three rooms, those 3 rooms use layout 1. If you change the meeting or training session to layout 2 and add breakout room 4, then breakout room 4 uses layout 2.

There are cases where you may want to have different layouts for different breakout rooms. For example, you want attendees in different breakout rooms to do different exercises that require specific layouts or if you have different content for each room that requires certain layouts. In this case, you create separate layouts for the breakout rooms and ensure that the desired layout is active when you click Begin Breakouts.

If you just want different content in each breakout room, but do not require different layouts, you can prepare the rooms before attendees join the meeting or training session. Start the meeting or training session and configure the number of breakout rooms required. Click Begin Breakouts and move yourself from room to room loading the required content into each Share pod. Then, end breakouts. When attendees join and you click Begin Breakouts again (after assigning attendees to rooms), the content is ready. If necessary, you can also alter the layout and add content to breakout rooms during a meeting. After the meeting or training session starts, click Begin Breakouts, and move yourself from room to room, altering the layout and adding content. Attendees in the different breakout rooms can see your changes as you make them.

Define breakout rooms and assign members

While in a meeting or training session, hosts can create breakout rooms and send attendees into the rooms.

In a meeting or training session, do one of the following:
- Click Create Breakouts in the lower-right corner of the meeting room.
- Click Create Breakouts in the Attendee List pod.
- In the menu bar at the top of the meeting room, click Meeting > Create Breakouts.
For the host who created breakout rooms, the Breakout Rooms pod appears on the screen. Other hosts, presenters, and participants cannot see the Breakout Rooms pod.
In the Breakout Rooms pod, three breakout rooms are available by default; click Add Breakout until you have the number of rooms you want (the maximum available is 5). For example, if you have 20 attendees, you could create four breakout rooms that could each hold 5 attendees.
Do one of the following:
- Assign attendees to breakout rooms manually. Select an attendee name in the list (use control-click or shift-click to select multiple attendees), click Assign, and select one of the breakout rooms you created in step 2.
- Assign attendees to breakout rooms automatically. Click Assign and select Evenly Distribute From Main. All attendees in the main room are evenly assigned to the breakout rooms available. Attendees previously assigned to different breakout rooms remain where they were assigned.
(Optional) To move an attendee after assigning them to a room, select their name in the list, click Assign, and select a different breakout room.
(Optional) To create another breakout room, click Add Breakout.
(Optional) To remove a breakout room, click next to the room in the Breakout Rooms pod. (All of the pods and content from the breakout room are also removed.) The numbering of all subsequent rooms is adjusted to ensure continuity.
(Optional) To remove all rooms and save the pods, such as Whiteboard or Chat, created within the rooms, click the pod options button and select Clear All Rooms. The pods are saved under the Breakout Pods menu option. Numbering of any subsequently created rooms continues from the number of the last created room.
(Optional) To remove all breakout rooms, the breakout room pods, and pods saved under the Breakout Pods menu option, click the Pod Options button and select Reset Rooms. This also resets room numbering.

Note: To hide the Breakout Rooms pod, click Hide Breakout Configurator

Begin a breakout session

After creating breakout rooms and assigning attendees to rooms, you begin the breakout session.

If you are recording a meeting or training session and send attendees to breakout rooms, the recording continues to only record the main room. For example, if attendees are sent to breakout rooms for five minutes, the main room, with no activity, is recorded for five minutes. When breakout rooms are closed and all attendees have returned to the main room, the recording captures all of the activities in the main room again. (To edit the recording so those watching do not have to view an empty main room, see Edit a recorded meeting or virtual classroom session.)

Note: If you are using compliance and control settings to force all meetings to be recorded, remember that although the meeting is being recorded, activities in breakout rooms are not recorded. If your organization requires that all online conversations and activities be recorded, consider using the compliance and control settings to disable breakout rooms so they cannot be used. For more information, see Working with compliance and control settings.

In a meeting or training session, define breakout rooms, and assign attendees to the rooms.
Click Begin Breakouts.

Attendees are placed in the breakout rooms to which they were assigned. The Begin Breakouts button changes color to green and reads Breakouts Active.

Note: When attendees are placed in breakout rooms, they are automatically assigned the role of presenter. This gives them all presenter rights such as sharing their voice, sharing content in the Share pod, modifying whiteboards, and adding text to the Note pod. When attendees are returned to the main room, they revert to their prior status.

Visiting breakout rooms

When breakout rooms are in use, hosts can visit different rooms, including the main room. You can determine what room you are in currently by looking in the Breakout Rooms pod for the room name highlighted in green or look for the room name at the bottom middle of the screen.

To visit another breakout room or the main room, click the name of the room in the Breakout Rooms pod.

Send a message to all attendees in breakout rooms

When you have attendees in breakout rooms, you can send a text notification to everyone at once. This can be useful if you have noticed one or more rooms have a similar question. It is also a good practice to send attendees in breakout rooms a warning message a few minutes before ending breakout sessions and returning them to the main room. This allows attendees to finish speaking, loading files, and working on the whiteboard before a breakout sessions ends.

From the main room or a breakout room, type a message in the box next to the megaphone .
To send the message, click the megaphone .
All attendees in all rooms see the message in a colored dialog box at the top-right corner of the meeting room.

Communicate in breakout rooms using the Attendee List

For example, ask a question and ask the attendees to respond by using the status options Agree or Disagree.

Either with or without the Host present, use the options and emoticons in the Attendee List to communicate with others. For example, ask a question and ask the attendees to respond by using the status options Agree or Disagree.

For more information, see Ask or answer a question during a training session or meeting.

Conduct a poll in a breakout rooms

Hosts can conduct separate polls in each individual breakout room by placing themselves in the room and opening a Poll pod. A new Poll pod must be opened in each breakout room.

For general information about polling, see Polling attendees.

Asking and answering questions in breakout rooms

Attendees in breakout rooms can ask the host a question at any time, whether the host is in their breakout room or not.

Attendees do one of the following:

If the host is in the breakout room and the Chat pod is available, send a chat message to Host Only. The host can then use the Chat pod to respond to the attendee only or to everyone.
If the host is in the breakout room, use the audio provided (VoIP or telephony) to ask the host a question.
If the host is not in the breakout room, type a message in box next to Contact Host and then click Contact Host . The question appears to the host in a small message box with the attendee’s name. The host can respond by clicking the name of the breakout room in the message box, entering the breakout room, and using the Chat pod to respond to the questioner.

Note: Messages sent through the Contact Host method go to all hosts in the meeting or virtual classroom.

Chatting in breakout rooms

If the Chat pod is available in the breakout room, use chat to communicate with others in your room only. You cannot chat with attendees in different breakout rooms.

For general information about using the Chat pod, see Chat and Q&A in meetings

End a breakout session

Only hosts can end a breakout session. When breakout rooms are closed, all attendees are returned to the main meeting room.

Click Breakouts Active.

The Breakout Rooms pod is closed.

Note: If you click Breakouts Active to end a breakout session, attendee assignments to breakout rooms are preserved. This enables you to click Begin Breakouts again in the same meeting or training session and return attendees to the exact breakout rooms they were in earlier. If you use the Return All To Main Meeting Room option, all information about attendee breakout room assignments is deleted.

Share breakout room content in main room

After ending a breakout session and returning all attendees to the main room, hosts can share the contents of a single breakout room with everyone in the main room.

In the main room, click Pods > Breakout Pods.
Select an individual breakout room name and then select Attendee List, Chat, Share, or Whiteboard.
The selected content appears in a new floating pod. The contents are View Only and cannot be changed or edited.
(Optional) Make the new pod larger by clicking Full Screen or dragging the boundaries of the pod.
(Optional) If you are sharing a Whiteboard, you can click Pointer to make a small pointer appear that you control with your mouse. (To close the pointer, click again.)

Re-open closed breakout rooms

After ending a breakout session, you can return attendees to the breakout rooms again. The configuration of rooms and assigned users remains in place for the entire meeting.

Note: Breakout Rooms pods remain available on the pods menu forever (just like all other pods), unless you select the Reset Rooms option.

Click Create Breakouts .
(Optional) Make changes, such as adding a room, deleting a room, or moving attendees into different rooms.
Click Begin Breakouts.