With Breakouts, participants can be manually or automatically separated into smaller groups to encourage conversation and deeper collaboration.

This feature is still in Beta. Please help us continue to improve Breakouts by letting us know if you’re experiencing any issues. You can email us at support@around.co


Start Breakouts

Breakouts can be started by any member of a permanent room or the creator of an ad-hoc room. To begin, select Breakouts from the ⚡Tools menu in the bottom of the meet window:

Setup Options

  • Number of rooms: How many breakout rooms are available for participants to be placed into (up to 20). This number is in addition to the main room which is reserved for facilitators or non-breakout participants.
  • Reshuffle: Randomly re-organizes all participants into the available rooms
  • Rooms: For more granular control, participants can be manually moved between rooms by dragging and dropping from the left side of the participant’s name

Once ready, press Start Breakouts. All participants will receive a notification and be moved to the appropriate room after 5 seconds.


Stop Breakouts

To return everyone to the main room, open the Breakouts sidebar by selecting Breakouts from the ⚡Tools menu in the bottom of the meet window and then click the Stop Breakouts button at the bottom of the sidebar.


Move between Breakouts

While Breakouts are active, facilitators can move to any of the available breakout rooms by pressing the Join button to the right of the associated room title in the Breakouts sidebar.


Global features

While Breakout rooms mostly function like normal meeting rooms, some features are global and will affect all active Breakouts:

  • Notes: Any notes made can be seen by all breakout participants. This can be a useful place to create an agenda that all groups can follow
  • Chat: Chat can be seen by all participants and is helpful for moments when a group or participant needs to reach out to the facilitator
  • Miro Board: All groups have access to the same shared Miro board. Groups can work on activities in different parts of the board while helping the facilitator by keeping everything in one place
  • Timer: Useful for keeping groups on task, the timer is visible to all participants. Please note that Breakouts will not automatically end when the timer expires. It is still necessary for the facilitator to manually stop Breakouts


FAQs

Can I move members of an Echo Prevention to different breakouts?

All members of an Echo Prevention group must be in the same breakout room in order to both prevent echo and ensure all participants can be heard

Where can I find the timer?

To setup a new timer, select Start Timer from the ⚡Tools menu in the bottom of the meet window. Please note that Breakouts will not automatically end when the timer expires. It is still necessary for the facilitator to manually stop Breakouts

Why is the Breakouts option disabled for me?

Breakouts can only be started by a member of a permanent room or the creator of an ad-hoc room

How do I start Breakouts in Event mode?

Breakouts are not yet available in Event mode but are planned for a future release

How do I record Breakouts?

Currently recording is unavailable during Breakouts. Any active recordings are automatically stopped until Breakouts have ended


Have a question that isn't answered here? Please reach out to support@around.co and include "Using Breakouts" in the subject line. Thanks!