Self-selecting breakout rooms
Organizers can create different break out rooms for different discussion topics, and meeting attendees can choose which one to go to (maybe by selecting a button at the appropriate time in the meeting)? This would be very useful for teachers or meeting organizers who want to give attendees choices without needing to preassign attendees or trying to sort attendees into the appropriate groups once meetings have started. In our case, we had Back to School Night for parents, and parents had a hard time using the different links to go to the presentations they wanted to see (similar to the way they would have been able to choose a classroom to go to on our campus).

Thank you for your feedback. The team is currently exploring options for this. We will share an update as soon as one is available.
31 comments
-
Anonymous commented
PLEASE DO THIS WE NEED THIS FUNCTIONALITY NOW!
-
Michael commented
We would like to see the ability for the organizer to allow facilitator or presenters to mange the breakout functionality as well. This is a great first step in building in the breakout room functionality though.
-
PatriceF commented
Hello,
That sure, It's really annoying that we could not change people from room on the fly, it's really static and not very collaborative. A mechanism to get out someone and reaffect him or a mechanism to move directely by himself from one room to another as described above will allow many teaching collaboratives practices.
Perhaps a way to let people jump and a way to only allow the admin to do that will be appreciated.
I'm sure you will be able to do it easily :)
Thx
-
Naomi commented
I'm also anxiously waiting for this option to be added. We're having many meetings where this would be ever so helpful.
-
Anonymous commented
This would be awesome to have. It's a great way to facilitate an open conversation and let members of the call decide which breakout conversations they are interested in joining. Zoom has this functionality and would greatly improve Teams
-
Anonymous commented
Eagerly waiting for this function. It would be perfect to virtually realize the World Cafe-Format for organisational development. Each virtual coffee table could be a breakout room. Presently we are realizing this format by creating different MS- Teams meetings which the participants have to enter and leave and the moderator cannot "make" them leave a room. The Whiteboard should also be improved in this context. https://www.wonder.me/ is not perfect for World Cafe-Format but hopefully will be in the future.
-
rocky balbao commented
eagerly awaiting this update, we are planning to use this as a business use, and using them as quick virtual meeting rooms and virtual tea break rooms, for people in the office working from home can reconnect with people not in there team.
-
Vesa Purho commented
Yes, this would be great also in cases where there needs to be some interaction between the breakout rooms. So that one person can visit a room from another room to ask a question for example.
-
Olivier Mertens commented
Agree and add the possibility to limit the number of participant when the maximum number of attendees is complete
-
Martin Olsson commented
As it is now, I cannot prepare my groups for breakout rooms, but can only assign participants once my students are actually in the meeting. This means they have to sit and wait while I divide them into groups. Letting them join a room on their own solves this issue, and also lets me as a teacher spontaneously create smaller groups where my students discuss things that we might have stumbled upon during the lesson but haven't planned for.
It is also a mental problem for students today that they aren't getting the small chats they usually have while working on something individually in class, and this would alleviate some of that loneliness I think.
-
Mats commented
This a make or break feature for switching from Zoom to Teams.
Here how I want it to work: https://youtu.be/2rh5otKpA28 -
Mats commented
@Admin, can you merge this item and other items concerning the joining of breakout rooms into one item? I believe the first item is: Please vote here: https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/41478703-self-selecting-breakout-rooms
-
Lloyd K commented
My elementary/middle school online students are now enjoying breakout rooms to help in COVID learning at home. THANK YOU SO MUCH!
We could really use student self select to enter rooms, either to change rooms after returning to the main class or to go to assigned group rather than teacher spending very limited class time to set up the groups. (would be even great if I could pre-assign when no student is in class and then have groups saved.)
Other 'saved group' idea, when I finish with class and want to use the same assigned groups that were automatically created today, in tomorrows class. Default to re-enter the last used breakout room. -
Anders commented
I am eagerly waiting for it
-
Bill Mitchell commented
Would be useful feature.
-
Larry Mangum commented
Great idea
-
Larry Mangum commented
Great idea!
-
Eruditus commented
This would be an excellent feature for training and conferences. I am fully for it.
-
Anonymous commented
We would use this feature for informal social events as well.
As in in-person meetings, when there's >10 people attending a social event, they often naturally split into sub-teams, chatting on different topics.by using this feature, people would jump from room to room at time.
An additional feature could be the ability for every participant to create a new breakout room -
Anonymous commented
Yes, please add this option, especially in education use cases this would safe a lot of time. It's not practical for the teacher to assign 30 people to their respective rooms every time - nor is it necessary. Even in business use cases putting all the burden on the organizer seems unefficient.