before you dive in
Breakout rooms let you split a live meeting into smaller groups for focused discussions, activities and collaboration, without anyone leaving your Meeting Room. You stay in control the whole time, from deciding who works together to bringing everyone back to the main meeting.
Use case examples
Breakout rooms are ideal for:
Training sessions and interactive workshops, where attendees practise in small groups
Coaching programs, where you create smaller groups for focused conversations
Brainstorming and team discussions, where each group works on a different idea or topic
Community conversations and peer collaboration
This guide is perfect if you want to:
Split a group session into smaller groups
Choose who works together, or let participants pick their own group
Keep group activities on time, then bring everyone back together
Record or transcribe only the group discussions you need
step 1: create and open your breakout rooms
Set up your rooms and choose how participants are grouped before anyone moves. Nothing changes for your participants until you open the rooms.
Click here for the written steps
From the main ivorey menu, go to Portals > [Meeting Room] > [My Room] > click [Start room] > and click [Start now] to begin your meeting
In the meeting toolbar, click the [Breakout Rooms] four-square icon to open the Breakout Rooms panel on the right-hand side
Enter the number of rooms you want to create. You can create up to 100 breakout rooms per session (this is the number of rooms, not a limit on participants)
Under Assign people, choose how participants are grouped:
Automatically - participants are assigned to rooms for you, ideal for quickly splitting a large group
Manually - you choose which room each participant goes to, ideal for specific teams, coaching groups or workshop groups
Let participants choose - participants select the room they want to join, ideal for topic-based discussions
Click [Create rooms]
Review your room plan:
Expand a room to see its participants
Rename rooms and adjust assignments as needed
Click [Add room] to create another room
Check the Not assigned section for anyone who still needs a room
Note: creating rooms doesn't start your breakout session. Participants stay in the main meeting while you prepare, and the panel shows a Draft label until you open the rooms.
Click [Options] to choose how participants move between rooms, and how the session ends:
Auto-move people to rooms - moves participants into their assigned rooms automatically when the rooms open. When this is off, participants receive an invitation to join their room instead
Note: this is separate from assigning people Automatically. Assigning decides which room each person goes to, while auto-move decides whether they're moved without needing to click Join.Let people switch rooms - allows participants to move between breakout rooms
Allow return to main room - allows participants to return to the main meeting while breakout rooms are open
Close after - sets how long the rooms stay open before closing automatically
Countdown - sets a countdown before the rooms finish closing and participants return to the main meeting
Return to your room list > and click [Open all rooms] to start your breakout session
To check in on your groups, go to the [Rooms] tab > expand a room to see who is in it, or use the Search people or rooms bar to find a specific person or room > and click [Join] next to a room to enter that discussion
To share instructions or reminders with every room at once, click [Broadcast] at the bottom of the panel > enter your message under Message to all rooms > and click [Send]
To record or transcribe a room, click the [⋮] three dots next to that room, and select:
Recording- use the room's recording control to start recording. While a room is recording, a REC indicator shows next to it, and the menu shows [Stop recording]
Transcribe this room - starts live transcription for that room. Click [Stop transcribing] to stop the transcription
If you set a Close after time, the remaining time shows in your panel
When you're ready to wrap up:
To close one room, click the [⋮] three dots next to that room > and select [Close room]
To bring everyone back, click [Close all rooms]. If you set a countdown, participants see it before returning to the main meeting
step 2: manage your open breakout rooms
Once your rooms are open, you can check in on each group, share instructions with everyone at once, and bring people back when it's time.
Click here for the written steps
From the main ivorey menu, go to Portals > [Meeting Room] > [My Room] > click [Start room] > and click [Start now] to begin your meeting
In the meeting toolbar, click the [Breakout Rooms] four-square icon to open the Breakout Rooms panel on the right-hand side
To check in on your groups, go to the [Rooms] tab > expand a room to see who is in it, or use the Search people or rooms bar to find a specific person or room > and click [Join] next to a room to enter that discussion
To share instructions or reminders with every room at once, click [Broadcast] at the bottom of the panel > enter your message under Message to all rooms > and click [Send]
To record or transcribe a room, click the [⋮] three dots next to that room, and select:
Recording- use the room's recording control to start recording. While a room is recording, a REC indicator shows next to it, and the menu shows [Stop recording]
Transcribe this room - starts live transcription for that room. Click [Stop transcribing] to stop the transcription
If you set a Close after time, the remaining time shows in your panel
When you're ready to wrap up:
To close one room, click the [⋮] three dots next to that room > and select [Close room]
To bring everyone back, click [Close all rooms]. If you set a countdown, participants see it before returning to the main meeting
what your participants will see
What your participants see depends on how you assigned them and the options you chose.
Assigned room - a Join breakout room pop-up shows them which room they're in. They can click Join to enter, or Not now to dismiss it for the moment. If Auto-move people to rooms is on, they're moved automatically instead
Choosing a room - when you let participants choose, they open Breakout Rooms from their meeting toolbar to see the Choose a room pop-up. They can expand a room to see who's in it, then click Join. They can switch rooms if you've turned on Let people switch rooms
Returning to the main meeting - if you've turned on Allow return to main room, they can return at any time. When rooms are closing, they see the countdown and can click Return now, or they'll return automatically when the rooms close
Need Help?
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