Chapter 32 Moderator Presenter Guest

Joining Breakout Rooms

When a moderator creates breakout rooms, participants receive an invitation to join their assigned room. Inside breakout rooms, everyone has equal rights and can collaborate freely using chat, whiteboard, and shared notes.

Receiving an Invitation

How you receive your breakout room invitation depends on how the moderator configured the assignment:

  • Assigned rooms (random or manual) — a new browser tab opens automatically with a prompt asking you to join the breakout room.
  • User selection — you see a list of available rooms and can choose which one to join.

Entering a Breakout Room

Click Join room when the invitation prompt appears.

Select your audio mode — microphone (to speak and listen) or listen only.

Your browser may ask for microphone and camera permissions again. Grant them to participate fully.

The breakout room opens in a separate browser tab. Your main room session remains active in the original tab.

Working Inside a Breakout Room

Each breakout room is a separate conference with its own set of features:

  • Separate chat for group discussions
  • Shared whiteboard for visual collaboration
  • Shared notes for collaborative text editing
  • The last presentation slide from the main room is displayed

All participants in breakout rooms have moderator rights. This means everyone can become presenter, upload files, and manage the whiteboard equally.

A countdown timer is visible showing the remaining time until the breakout session ends automatically.

Saving Your Work Before Time Runs Out

Important: Chat messages, whiteboard drawings, and shared notes are permanently lost when the breakout room closes. Make sure to save your work before time expires.

To export shared notes, click the export icon in the notes toolbar.

To save whiteboard content, use the screenshot export button in the whiteboard toolbar.

Returning to the Main Room

You return to the main room in one of two ways:

  • Automatically — when the breakout session timer expires. You will receive a 60-second warning before the room closes.
  • By moderator action — the moderator can end all breakout rooms early, returning everyone to the main room.

If you experience audio issues after returning to the main room, try leaving and rejoining the audio connection using the headphone icon at the bottom of the screen.

Frequently Asked Questions

No. Breakout rooms open in a new browser tab — no additional software or plugins are required.

Only if the moderator selected the "User selection" option when creating the breakout rooms. Otherwise, you are assigned to a room automatically (either randomly or manually by the moderator).

No. Chat, whiteboard, and shared notes are lost when the room closes. Export any important content before the timer runs out. If the moderator enabled "Capture shared notes", your shared notes will be transferred to the main room.

Because the breakout room opens in a new browser tab, your browser may ask for microphone and camera permissions again. This is normal browser behavior for new pages requesting media access.