Breakout rooms

Breakout rooms are separate sessions that are split off from a main VMR or Virtual Auditorium that allow smaller groups of people to meet together. When participants are in a breakout room they can only see, hear or share content with each other — they are separated from the main room and any other breakout rooms.

Typically, a Host participant using Webapp3 will manage the breakout rooms — creating rooms, assigning participants to rooms, specifying any time limits, and moving people between rooms or bringing them back to the main room as and when required. Guests in a breakout room can request help from a Host, and any Hosts can join (with full audio and video) any of the breakout rooms at any time.

This topic covers:

• How it works
• What's noteworthy?
• Enabling breakout rooms on a VMR / Virtual Auditorium
• Call and participant live status and history
• Using a Webapp3 client to control the breakout rooms
• Using breakout rooms as a Guest

How it works

To manage the breakout rooms within a conference (add/remove breakout rooms, assign participants to rooms and so on), you have three options:

• Join the conference as a Host participant using a Webapp3 client, and use the Breakout rooms panel to control the rooms and participants.
• Use local or external policy to create breakout rooms and assign an incoming caller to a room.
• Use your own bespoke management application in conjunction with the Pexip client APIs.

Note that participants using other Pexip apps (desktop and mobile apps) or devices such as SIP and H.323 endpoints can participate in breakout rooms, but they cannot manage the participant and breakout room assignments (even if they have Host privileges). Skype for Business endpoints are not supported.

All participants can join the main VMR or Virtual Auditorium in the usual manner, using any of its assigned aliases or other standard joining methods for that room.

When using breakout rooms as a Webapp3 Host, you can:

• Assign people automatically (randomly) to each breakout room, or assign them manually.
• Move people between rooms, and add or close further rooms during the breakout sessions.
• Specify a time limit, after which everybody is automatically returned to the main room.
• Join any breakout room at any time with full audio and video, presentation and chat capabilities within that room.
• Get notified of requests for help from a breakout room.

What's noteworthy?

When using breakout rooms, note that:

Enabling breakout rooms on a VMR / Virtual Auditorium

Breakout rooms must be enabled at the platform level via Platform > Global settings > Breakout rooms > Enable Breakout Rooms.

Administrators can then configure breakout rooms on a per-VMR / Virtual Auditorium basis (they are disabled by default). To enable breakout rooms for a VMR or Virtual Auditorium:

1. Go to the required VMR (Services > Virtual Meeting Rooms) or Virtual Auditorium (Services > Virtual Auditoriums).
2. Expand the Advanced options section.
3. Set Breakout Rooms to Yes. (Use No to disable breakout rooms.)

4. Consider the Participant authentication settings, so that you can distinguish between Hosts and Guests (so that Host Webapp3 users can control the breakout rooms).

   We recommend that the room has either a Host and Guest PIN, or a Host PIN with Allow Guests to make the separation between Hosts and Guests. See About PINs, Hosts and Guests for full information about how roles are assigned.

5. When configuring a Virtual Auditorium you may want to consider the Guests can see other guests option, which controls whether Guests see other Guests when there is no Host present. See the Virtual Auditorium advanced options for more information.
6. Save your changes.

Additional participant-level settings (bypass locked conference)

There is an additional bypass_lock configuration option in participant policy which allows a participant to bypass the locked state of a conference and enter the conference as if it was not locked. This setting can only be configured via external or local participant policy.

Call and participant live status and history

Live view (Status > Live View) shows each breakout room while it is in progress, and call and participant status and history all show the start and end time of each participant in each breakout room.

The service name is followed by "_breakout_<unique identifier>" to distinguish between separate breakout rooms.

Using a Webapp3 client to control the breakout rooms

To use the Webapp3 client to control the breakout rooms, you must join the VMR / Virtual Auditorium as a Host participant.

When breakout rooms are enabled for the VMR / Virtual Auditorium, an additional Breakout rooms icon appears in the toolbar. This opens the Breakout rooms side panel that you can use to set up and manage the rooms.

Setting up the rooms

To set up the rooms, from the Breakout rooms side panel:

1. Select the initial number of Rooms.

2. Choose how you want to Assign rooms:

   • Automatically: this divides participants randomly and as evenly as possible across the rooms. You can still reallocate participants manually afterwards.
   • Manually: this starts with empty rooms and you assign participants manually to the desired rooms.

   

3. Select Next.

4. To set a timer and define the options for leaving the room, from the Breakout rooms panel select More and then Settings.

   This opens the Room settings dialog.

   • You can optionally set a timer duration. When the time is up, all participants are automatically returned to the main room.

   • You can optionally Allow participants to leave at any time. When this is selected, Webapp3 Guest participants see a Return to main room button at the top left of their screen which allows them to go directly back to the main room:

     

     Note that leaving this option disabled does not prevent guests leaving a breakout room by disconnecting and then redialing the same conference and rejoining the main room.

   

    

   

5. Perform any final adjustments:

   • To change the name of a room, select Edit .

     You can't change a room's name after you have created the rooms.

   • To move participants between rooms manually, either select More next to the participant's name and select the room you want to move them to, or select Move and drag and drop the participant into the room.

     You can also move participants after the rooms have been created.

   

6. When you are ready, select Open Rooms.

   Webapp3 participants are notified that they are about to be moved, and can elect to move immediately by selecting Join now (all other participants will move immediately).

   

Managing the rooms

While the rooms are open, the Breakout rooms panel shows the current list of rooms and assignments.

From here you can Close a specific room, close all rooms or Join a room:

When editing a room, any changes you make do not take effect until you select Save.

Participant list (roster), requests for help and raised hands

The participant list only shows the other participants who are in the same room (breakout room or main room) as you.

Guest participant/room ask for help

Guest participants in a breakout room can ask for help i.e. summon a Host to the room. When a participant in a breakout room asks for help, all Hosts who are not already in that room see a message:

• If a single room is requesting help, Hosts can select Join room to join the room immediately.

• If there are multiple rooms, Hosts can select Show who needs help. This opens the Breakout rooms panel which shows a list of all pending requests for help and provides an option to join that room. The requests are shown in time order (oldest at the top):

  

The help request is removed from the list as soon as any Host joins the room in response to that request for help.

Note that help requests are for a room, even though they are triggered by an individual participant. If a participant requests help and subsequently disconnects, that request for help remains open until a Host responds to it or another participant in the room removes the request.

Guest participant raises a hand

If a Host is in the same room as the person who raises their hand, then the Host sees a toast notification and an indicator in the participants list (as per standard behavior).

However, if a Host is in a different room from the person raising their hand, then the Host does not see any notifications or indicators.

Using breakout rooms as a Guest

Guest participants (using a Pexip app or a hardware endpoint) cannot control any aspects of the breakout rooms.

Guests in a breakout room can only see, hear, share content or chat (via a Pexip app) with each other. While in a breakout room, the participant list in a Pexip app only shows the other participants who are in the same breakout room.

Ask for help (summon a Host)

As a Webapp3 participant, if you need to speak to a Host, you can summon a Host to a breakout room by using the Ask host for Help option from the toolbar at the left of the screen. You need to confirm that you want to summon the Host and then the Hosts will see a message that somebody in that breakout room is asking for help.

If you no longer need help, select the option again to cancel the request.

Note that:

• The Raise hand option from the toolbar at the left of the screen only shows the raised hand toast to the Host if the Host is already in that breakout room.
• Participants on hardware endpoints cannot summon the Host.

Moving between breakout rooms

You cannot move yourself between breakout rooms, but if you are a Webapp3 participant, when a Host moves you between rooms you see a message that you are about to be moved.

You can optionally select Join now to move immediately.

Returning to the main room

If you are a Webapp3 participant, depending upon how the breakout room is configured you may see the option to Return to main room: