Breakout Rooms

This article explains how to create and manage breakout rooms in Motion Meetings — small group video rooms that participants can be sent to for focused discussion, separate from the main meeting session.

What Are Breakout Rooms?

Breakout rooms are separate video sessions branched off from the main meeting room. You can create multiple breakout rooms simultaneously, assign participants to specific rooms, and recall all participants back to the main room when discussions are complete.

Creating Breakout Rooms

Breakout rooms can only be created while a meeting is live.

1. In the organizer console, click the Breakout Rooms panel icon.
2. Click Create Rooms.
3. Enter the Number of Rooms you want to create (up to 20).
4. Choose an Assignment Method:
   • Automatically — Participants are divided evenly and randomly across the rooms.
   • Manually — You assign each participant to a room yourself.
   • Let participants choose — Participants self-select their room from a list.
5. Optionally give each room a custom name (e.g., "Group A", "Committee Discussion 1").
6. Click Open Rooms.

Assigning Participants Manually

If you chose manual assignment:

1. After creating the rooms, you see a participant list on the left and the rooms on the right.
2. Drag participants from the list into a room, or use the dropdown next to each participant to select their room.
3. When all participants are assigned, click Open Rooms.

Moving Participants Between Rooms

While rooms are open, you can move participants at any time:

1. In the Breakout Rooms panel, find the participant in their current room.
2. Click the participant's name and select Move to…
3. Select the destination room.

Broadcasting a Message to All Rooms

You can send a text message to all participants in all breakout rooms simultaneously:

1. In the Breakout Rooms panel, click Broadcast Message.
2. Type your message (e.g., "5 minutes remaining — please wrap up!").
3. Click Send. The message appears as a banner in every room.

Ending Breakout Rooms and Recalling Participants

1. In the Breakout Rooms panel, click End All Rooms.
2. A countdown timer appears in all breakout rooms. By default, participants have 60 seconds to return to the main room.
3. Participants are automatically returned to the main room when the timer expires.