With breakout rooms you split the participants of a Teams meeting into small groups, ideal for a workshop, a training or a brainstorm. The tricky part is often timing: one group finishes early, another keeps talking. Put a timer on the rooms, and everyone sees how much time is left and returns to the main meeting automatically at the end. This article shows how to set it up and which other settings make your workshop run more smoothly.
Prepare the rooms
- Open the meeting in your calendar and choose Breakout rooms. You can create the rooms before the meeting, or during the meeting through Rooms in the meeting toolbar.
- Choose the number of rooms, and whether Teams assigns participants automatically or you assign them manually.
- Give the rooms recognisable names through the three dots, such as "Group 1 – Customer journey".
Only the organiser (or an assigned room manager) can manage breakout rooms. Read the full guide in breakout rooms in Microsoft Teams.
Set a time limit
- In the Breakout rooms pane, click More options (...) > Rooms settings.
- Turn on Set a time limit.
- Choose the duration, for example 15 minutes.
- Click Open rooms or Start. Participants see a countdown at the top.
What happens when time is up?
Shortly before the end, participants see that the room is about to close. At zero, all rooms close automatically and everyone returns to the main meeting. So someone finishing a sentence drops out mid-conversation: announce the end in time. To close the rooms earlier, click Close rooms. Need more time? Change the time limit while the rooms are open.
Announcements to all rooms
With Make an announcement in the pane, you send a message to the chat of every room at once. Perfect for:
- "2 minutes left, wrap up and note your top 3."
- "Don't forget to choose one spokesperson."
- "The working document is in the main meeting chat."
As the organiser you can also join a room yourself to help, and then return to the main meeting.
Other useful settings
- Automatically move people into rooms: if this is off, they have to click Join themselves. On is usually smoother.
- Participants can return to the main meeting: handy when a group finishes early or someone has a question.
- Room managers: assign presenters who may also open and close rooms and make announcements. Then the organiser doesn't have to do everything alone.
A script for a smooth workshop
- Prepare the rooms and the split before the meeting.
- Explain the assignment in the main meeting and also post it in the chat.
- Start the rooms with a timer of 10 to 20 minutes.
- Send an announcement halfway and two minutes before the end.
- Afterwards, let each group report back for one minute in the main meeting.
That keeps your schedule on track and gives every group the same time. More tips on roles and good meetings in roles in a Teams meeting and tips for good Teams meetings.