Message center notification MC247659 (March 30 – roadmap item 81372) covers additional controls over participants when Teams meetings split into breakout rooms. Breakout rooms are separate online workspaces associated with a main meeting. Each room has its own chat and other resources. The new controls provide more flexibility in how breakout rooms function.
Update May 7: After a short delay, this update is now rolling out.
Three new controls are available:
Assignment of attendees to breakout rooms is persistent across sessions and recurring meetings. If people leave a meeting and then come back, they rejoin in the same room unless the meeting organizer moves them. Names assigned to breakout rooms are also persistent.
Meeting organizers can move participants between breakout rooms and the main meeting (unassigned to a room). The difference here is that reassignment can happen when breakout rooms are active. Up to now, it was possible to move participants only when breakout rooms are closed.
Meeting organizers can set a timer to control how long a breakout room lasts.
Because persistence of attendees in rooms is managed on the server, persistence works in the Teams desktop, browser, and mobile clients. However, new functionality in the Teams desktop client is needed before meeting organizers can move participants between rooms and the main meeting when rooms or active or set timers for room duration. Microsoft has scheduled deployment of the necessary server and client components to tenants for mid-April.
Setting Breakout Room Timers
Although persistence and the ability to move participants are valuable updates, room timers are likely to be the most obvious new feature because room participants can see the countdown happening. Timers governing the closing of rooms relieve organizers from having to keep an eye on how long rooms have been active before reassembling participants in the main meeting. The timer starts when the first participant enters an open breakout room.
Room timers last from five to sixty minutes (the same value applies to all breakout rooms in a meeting). The value is set through Room settings (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Setting a timer value for Teams breakout rooms
The other settings govern if users return automatically to the rooms when assigned and back to the main meeting when the rooms close and whether users can choose to return to the main meeting. Normally, you want people to stay in breakouts until the breakout period finishes, so this setting is off.
Counting Down the Minutes
When active, a timer is visible to users in the breakout room. Unlike the normal elapsed time shown in meetings, this is a countdown clock. In Figure 2 we can see that the room participants have 26 seconds to complete their business, so they had better wrap things up soon. The alert that the room will shut down appears 30 seconds before the timer reaches zero.
Figure 2: The timer clock counts down to an automatic closure of a breakout room
The room closes if everyone leaves before the countdown timer gets to zero. Otherwise, once the timer expires, the room closes, and participants are either returned to the main meeting (if the organizer enables the auto-move to rooms option) or can choose to return or leave the meeting. If participants do nothing, Teams returns them automatically to the main meeting.
Good Changes
Breakout rooms are already a popular feature for Teams meetings. These changes remove some of the friction involved in managing breakout rooms for both enterprise and education tenants. As such, they’re welcome updates.
Keep an eye on changes in Teams and the rest of Office 365 by subscribing to the Office 365 for IT Pros eBook. We update the book monthly to make sure our subscribers don’t miss out on important details.
We use Teams with clients everyday but have not seen the option to activate the countdown clock. Is this something that needs to be installed into Teams? I saw somewhere that some folks have the 3-dots next to “Breakout Rooms” but I don’t have that option and the countdown clock option isn’t under Breakout Room Settings either.
I support meetings and have the role of rooms manager, assigning the participants, communicating with the rooms etc. I am not joining any of the rooms. Therefore I don’t see the countdown clock running in the room. Can you please make this countdown clock visible for the person managing the rooms?
{"id":null,"mode":"button","open_style":"in_modal","currency_code":"EUR","currency_symbol":"\u20ac","currency_type":"decimal","blank_flag_url":"https:\/\/office365itpros.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/tip-jar-wp\/\/assets\/images\/flags\/blank.gif","flag_sprite_url":"https:\/\/office365itpros.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/tip-jar-wp\/\/assets\/images\/flags\/flags.png","default_amount":100,"top_media_type":"featured_image","featured_image_url":"https:\/\/office365itpros.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/cover-141x200.jpg","featured_embed":"","header_media":null,"file_download_attachment_data":null,"recurring_options_enabled":true,"recurring_options":{"never":{"selected":true,"after_output":"One time only"},"weekly":{"selected":false,"after_output":"Every week"},"monthly":{"selected":false,"after_output":"Every month"},"yearly":{"selected":false,"after_output":"Every year"}},"strings":{"current_user_email":"","current_user_name":"","link_text":"Virtual Tip Jar","complete_payment_button_error_text":"Check info and try again","payment_verb":"Pay","payment_request_label":"Office 365 for IT Pros","form_has_an_error":"Please check and fix the errors above","general_server_error":"Something isn't working right at the moment. Please try again.","form_title":"Office 365 for IT Pros","form_subtitle":null,"currency_search_text":"Country or Currency here","other_payment_option":"Other payment option","manage_payments_button_text":"Manage your payments","thank_you_message":"Thank you for supporting the work of Office 365 for IT Pros!","payment_confirmation_title":"Office 365 for IT Pros","receipt_title":"Your Receipt","print_receipt":"Print Receipt","email_receipt":"Email Receipt","email_receipt_sending":"Sending receipt...","email_receipt_success":"Email receipt successfully sent","email_receipt_failed":"Email receipt failed to send. Please try again.","receipt_payee":"Paid to","receipt_statement_descriptor":"This will show up on your statement as","receipt_date":"Date","receipt_transaction_id":"Transaction ID","receipt_transaction_amount":"Amount","refund_payer":"Refund from","login":"Log in to manage your payments","manage_payments":"Manage Payments","transactions_title":"Your Transactions","transaction_title":"Transaction Receipt","transaction_period":"Plan Period","arrangements_title":"Your Plans","arrangement_title":"Manage Plan","arrangement_details":"Plan Details","arrangement_id_title":"Plan ID","arrangement_payment_method_title":"Payment Method","arrangement_amount_title":"Plan Amount","arrangement_renewal_title":"Next renewal date","arrangement_action_cancel":"Cancel Plan","arrangement_action_cant_cancel":"Cancelling is currently not available.","arrangement_action_cancel_double":"Are you sure you'd like to cancel?","arrangement_cancelling":"Cancelling Plan...","arrangement_cancelled":"Plan Cancelled","arrangement_failed_to_cancel":"Failed to cancel plan","back_to_plans":"\u2190 Back to Plans","update_payment_method_verb":"Update","sca_auth_description":"Your have a pending renewal payment which requires authorization.","sca_auth_verb":"Authorize renewal payment","sca_authing_verb":"Authorizing payment","sca_authed_verb":"Payment successfully authorized!","sca_auth_failed":"Unable to authorize! Please try again.","login_button_text":"Log in","login_form_has_an_error":"Please check and fix the errors above","uppercase_search":"Search","lowercase_search":"search","uppercase_page":"Page","lowercase_page":"page","uppercase_items":"Items","lowercase_items":"items","uppercase_per":"Per","lowercase_per":"per","uppercase_of":"Of","lowercase_of":"of","back":"Back to plans","zip_code_placeholder":"Zip\/Postal Code","download_file_button_text":"Download File","input_field_instructions":{"tip_amount":{"placeholder_text":"How much would you like to tip?","initial":{"instruction_type":"normal","instruction_message":"How much would you like to tip? Choose any currency."},"empty":{"instruction_type":"error","instruction_message":"How much would you like to tip? Choose any currency."},"invalid_curency":{"instruction_type":"error","instruction_message":"Please choose a valid currency."}},"recurring":{"placeholder_text":"Recurring","initial":{"instruction_type":"normal","instruction_message":"How often would you like to give this?"},"success":{"instruction_type":"success","instruction_message":"How often would you like to give this?"},"empty":{"instruction_type":"error","instruction_message":"How often would you like to give this?"}},"name":{"placeholder_text":"Name on Credit Card","initial":{"instruction_type":"normal","instruction_message":"Enter the name on your card."},"success":{"instruction_type":"success","instruction_message":"Enter the name on your card."},"empty":{"instruction_type":"error","instruction_message":"Please enter the name on your card."}},"privacy_policy":{"terms_title":"Terms and conditions","terms_body":null,"terms_show_text":"View Terms","terms_hide_text":"Hide Terms","initial":{"instruction_type":"normal","instruction_message":"I agree to the terms."},"unchecked":{"instruction_type":"error","instruction_message":"Please agree to the terms."},"checked":{"instruction_type":"success","instruction_message":"I agree to the terms."}},"email":{"placeholder_text":"Your email address","initial":{"instruction_type":"normal","instruction_message":"Enter your email address"},"success":{"instruction_type":"success","instruction_message":"Enter your email address"},"blank":{"instruction_type":"error","instruction_message":"Enter your email address"},"not_an_email_address":{"instruction_type":"error","instruction_message":"Make sure you have entered a valid email address"}},"note_with_tip":{"placeholder_text":"Your note here...","initial":{"instruction_type":"normal","instruction_message":"Attach a note to your tip (optional)"},"empty":{"instruction_type":"normal","instruction_message":"Attach a note to your tip (optional)"},"not_empty_initial":{"instruction_type":"normal","instruction_message":"Attach a note to your tip (optional)"},"saving":{"instruction_type":"normal","instruction_message":"Saving note..."},"success":{"instruction_type":"success","instruction_message":"Note successfully saved!"},"error":{"instruction_type":"error","instruction_message":"Unable to save note note at this time. Please try again."}},"email_for_login_code":{"placeholder_text":"Your email address","initial":{"instruction_type":"normal","instruction_message":"Enter your email to log in."},"success":{"instruction_type":"success","instruction_message":"Enter your email to log in."},"blank":{"instruction_type":"error","instruction_message":"Enter your email to log in."},"empty":{"instruction_type":"error","instruction_message":"Enter your email to log in."}},"login_code":{"initial":{"instruction_type":"normal","instruction_message":"Check your email and enter the login code."},"success":{"instruction_type":"success","instruction_message":"Check your email and enter the login code."},"blank":{"instruction_type":"error","instruction_message":"Check your email and enter the login code."},"empty":{"instruction_type":"error","instruction_message":"Check your email and enter the login code."}},"stripe_all_in_one":{"initial":{"instruction_type":"normal","instruction_message":"Enter your credit card details here."},"empty":{"instruction_type":"error","instruction_message":"Enter your credit card details here."},"success":{"instruction_type":"normal","instruction_message":"Enter your credit card details here."},"invalid_number":{"instruction_type":"error","instruction_message":"The card number is not a valid credit card number."},"invalid_expiry_month":{"instruction_type":"error","instruction_message":"The card's expiration month is invalid."},"invalid_expiry_year":{"instruction_type":"error","instruction_message":"The card's expiration year is invalid."},"invalid_cvc":{"instruction_type":"error","instruction_message":"The card's security code is invalid."},"incorrect_number":{"instruction_type":"error","instruction_message":"The card number is incorrect."},"incomplete_number":{"instruction_type":"error","instruction_message":"The card number is incomplete."},"incomplete_cvc":{"instruction_type":"error","instruction_message":"The card's security code is incomplete."},"incomplete_expiry":{"instruction_type":"error","instruction_message":"The card's expiration date is incomplete."},"incomplete_zip":{"instruction_type":"error","instruction_message":"The card's zip code is incomplete."},"expired_card":{"instruction_type":"error","instruction_message":"The card has expired."},"incorrect_cvc":{"instruction_type":"error","instruction_message":"The card's security code is incorrect."},"incorrect_zip":{"instruction_type":"error","instruction_message":"The card's zip code failed validation."},"invalid_expiry_year_past":{"instruction_type":"error","instruction_message":"The card's expiration year is in the past"},"card_declined":{"instruction_type":"error","instruction_message":"The card was declined."},"missing":{"instruction_type":"error","instruction_message":"There is no card on a customer that is being charged."},"processing_error":{"instruction_type":"error","instruction_message":"An error occurred while processing the card."},"invalid_request_error":{"instruction_type":"error","instruction_message":"Unable to process this payment, please try again or use alternative method."},"invalid_sofort_country":{"instruction_type":"error","instruction_message":"The billing country is not accepted by SOFORT. Please try another country."}}}},"fetched_oembed_html":false}
We use Teams with clients everyday but have not seen the option to activate the countdown clock. Is this something that needs to be installed into Teams? I saw somewhere that some folks have the 3-dots next to “Breakout Rooms” but I don’t have that option and the countdown clock option isn’t under Breakout Room Settings either.
I support meetings and have the role of rooms manager, assigning the participants, communicating with the rooms etc. I am not joining any of the rooms. Therefore I don’t see the countdown clock running in the room. Can you please make this countdown clock visible for the person managing the rooms?
You’ll have to ask Microsoft about that requirement. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/send-feedback-or-suggest-a-feature-a557a90a-828c-482f-8a71-f933499e70f4