MS Support Pages About Breakout Rooms
Source: Microsoft Education Blog - Breakout Rooms: Now available in Microsoft Teams
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Breakout Room Session Recordings
Stopping the recording first ensures the recording tile appears in the Teams chat history for that Breakout Room, making it easy for participants to access. If the recording is not stopped before the room is closed, it will still be saved to the OneDrive of the person who started the recording and shared with attendees, but it must be accessed through OneDrive rather than directly from the chat.
Anyone who was added to the Breakout Room can view the recording, even if they did not attend.
When a Student Starts the Recording
The recording is automatically shared with the meeting organizer (faculty), but it is not stored in the organizer’s OneDrive. Instead, it remains in the student’s OneDrive → Recordings folder.
Organizers can access the recording by:
- Opening the Breakout Room chat history, or
- Going to OneDrive and selecting Shared
Organizers have edit permissions, which allows them to:
- Copy the video to another OneDrive folder (this creates a new file and requires new sharing permissions)
- Download the recording and upload it to Echo360 for easier distribution or long-term storage
If the organizer moves the file to another OneDrive folder, it is removed from the student’s OneDrive and is no longer shared with meeting participants.
Additional notes:
- The student can share the recording with other SVSU users
- Both the student and organizer can download the recording
- Other students who attended the Breakout Room can access the recording via the Shared section in OneDrive (view-only access)
When the Organizer (Faculty) Starts the Recording
The organizer owns the recording, and it is saved in their OneDrive → Recordings folder.
Students are given view-only access and cannot download the recording.
Late-Joining Participants
- When students join a meeting late, they will appear in the main meeting as participants and show as Not Assigned in the Breakout Room panel.
- If the organizer has already opened Breakout Rooms and is currently inside one, they should periodically check the Breakout Room panel in the main meeting window to ensure late-arriving students are not overlooked.
- Late students can still be assigned to active Breakout Rooms, and participants can be moved between open rooms while sessions are in progress.
Time Remaining Notification
After creating Breakout Rooms, managers can adjust room settings to automatically close sessions after a set amount of time.
To enable this:
- Turn on the Set a Time Limit option
- Select the desired number of hours and or minutes
- Click Save
Once enabled, a countdown timer appears in the top-left corner during the Breakout session. Participants will also see an alert 60 seconds before the session ends. If the auto-move setting is enabled (default), participants will automatically return to the main meeting when time expires.
Keep in mind:
- The system only provides a 60-second warning
- No earlier alerts are generated automatically
Because of this, organizers should monitor the time and use the announcement (megaphone) feature to give earlier reminders, such as 5 or 3 minutes remaining.
Invite Drop/Add Students
When students drop a course after being invited to a Teams meeting, the meeting remains on their Outlook and Teams calendars, allowing them to continue joining unless access is updated.
To keep attendance accurate, IT recommends using the Teams–Canvas integration when scheduling class meetings. This integration includes an Add Entire Class option.
Best practice:
- Use Add Entire Class when first creating the meeting
- Use it again after the drop/add period for each meeting
Reusing this option will:
- Remove meeting access for students who have dropped the course
- Add meeting access for students who enrolled late
This ensures that only currently enrolled students can access the meeting.
Unverified vs External Participants
Unverified Participants
(Unauthenticated users joining via browser without signing in)
In the newer Teams experience, users who join without signing in are labeled as Unverified rather than “Guest.”
Key characteristics:
- Join using a web browser without logging in
- May appear as “Unknown User” in Breakout Rooms
Unverified participants can:
- Be assigned to Breakout Rooms
- Use the meeting chat
- Mute and unmute their microphone and camera
- Share their screen
- Collaborate using Microsoft Whiteboard (if enabled by organizer)
- Participate in PowerPoint Live (may be limited depending on tenant settings)
Limitations:
- Cannot start recordings
- May have limited identity visibility (name may not persist clearly)
External Participants (Personal Microsoft Accounts)
(Users signed in with a personal Microsoft account such as Gmail)
Users who sign in with a personal Microsoft account are labeled as External participants.
Important update:
External users can generally be assigned to Breakout Rooms in current Teams, depending on meeting policies. This is a change from older limitations.
External participants can:
- Be assigned to Breakout Rooms (if allowed by meeting settings)
- Use the meeting chat
- Mute and unmute their microphone and camera
- Share their screen
- Collaborate using Microsoft Whiteboard (if enabled)
- Participate in PowerPoint Live (availability may vary by policy)
Limitations: