This article outlines how to create, join, and close breakout rooms during your session (Bevy Virtual or Bevy Virtual Conference).
Create a breakout room
As a host, use Rooms tab in the right sidebar to create breakout rooms. You can do this as soon as you have two or more non-host attendees.
To create a breakout room:
- From the Dropdown list, select the number of attendees per room. You can specify up to 50 attendees per room (excluding hosts, who can join and leave any room).
The number of total breakout rooms is calculated automatically. For example, for 200 attendees with 10 per room, Bevy Virtual Meetup will automatically create 20 rooms. - Optional: set a breakout session time limit by selecting Time limit and inputting the duration in minutes. Attendees will return to the main event when time's up.
- Select Create Rooms.
All attendees will see a Dialog Box informing them to move into a breakout room in 10 seconds.
As a host, once the breakout rooms start, you will see a Countdown at the top of the page indicating when the breakout rooms will be closed according to the time limit set.
If attendees join the event after you have created the breakout rooms, they will not be able to join a room. In this case, close all the rooms and recreate the breakout rooms with all attendees.
Join a breakout room as a host
As a host, you can join a breakout room automatically (default) or by choosing a room manually.
Automatically join
As a host, you have the option to automatically include hosts in breakout rooms when you set the number of attendees per room:
- Navigate to the Rooms tab in the sidebar.
- Select the Include Hosts option, which is enabled by default.
Note the following:
- When Include hosts is selected, each host (except the creator) is randomly assigned to a room just like regular attendees.
- When this option is not selected, only non-hosts are assigned to breakout rooms.
- The host who creates the breakout rooms is not automatically assigned to any room, but can manually join one. To accomplish this, scroll through the Room List in the sidebar and select Join Room.
- Hosts can manually switch rooms, even after being automatically assigned to a room. Again, scroll through the Room List in the sidebar and select Join Room.
- The Rooms tab is visible only to hosts, so they can move between rooms, but attendees cannot.
Manually join
If you deselect Include hosts when creating breakout rooms, you'll stay in the main session while attendees are allocated.
You can join a room manually by scrolling through the Room List in the sidebar and selecting Join room.
Note that the Rooms tab is visible only to hosts, so they can move between rooms, but attendees cannot.
Record a breakout room
Only hosts can record individual breakout rooms.
To learn more, see recording in Bevy Virtual.
End breakout room
Hosts can close a breakout room at any time, even before the time limit expires:
- In the Rooms tab, scroll to the room you want to close and select Close room. To close all rooms, select Close all rooms above the list of rooms and attendees.
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Bevy notifies attendees with a popup three minutes before a room's time limit ends.
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Once a breakout room is closed, all attendees in that room are returned to the main session.
FAQs
When creating breakout rooms, how are attendees assigned to each room? Randomly, alphabetically, or otherwise?
Users are assigned randomly.
Can I manually assign attendees to certain rooms before the rooms are created?
No, not at this time.
Can I manually move attendees to and from certain rooms after the rooms have been created?
No, not at this time.
If attendees join a virtual event late, can I move them to a breakout room already in progress?
No. To achieve that, you will need to end all breakout rooms and start again.
If my event has three hosts and I create three breakout rooms, how do I ensure that one host will be allocated to each room?
Hosts can manually allocate themselves to rooms.
Can multiple breakout rooms be recorded?
Yes, more than one breakout room may be recorded. Hosts need to enter the breakout room(s) to start the recording for each individual room.
When breakout rooms reach their time limits and close, is there any way to ensure that subsequent breakout rooms will not match attendees with the same group of people? We'd like a round-robin networking format.
The room assignments are "re-randomized." However, there is no way to guarantee that they will be different. If you change the number of people in a room (e.g., from 2-3 to 3-4) for the second round, the assignments should be more randomized and have different people in the room.