Hello! Today I’m going to show you how you can pre-assign participants to breakout rooms in Zoom.
Before you choose this option, there are some considerations to take into account.
First, you’ll want to make sure that your Zoom meeting has the “Only authenticated users can join” setting turned on.
This will require users to sign-in to Zoom using their CWRU Network ID.
This step is important because the CWRU Network ID is the identifying factor
we’re going to use to pre-assign our breakout rooms.
To check this setting, navigate to case.edu/zoom and select the Sign In option.
From there, select the Meeting option from the menu bar,
then either locate an existing meeting or create a new one using
the Schedule a New Meeting button.
If creating a new meeting, enter your meeting information.
If using an existing meeting, edit the meeting.
Either way, you want to ensure that the “Join before host”
and “Only authenticated users can join” settings are selected.
Next, we’re going to select the “Breakout Room pre-assign” checkbox.
This is where we’re going to get things set up!
Once Breakout Room Pre-assign is enabled, you’ll have the options to either Create Rooms
or Import Using a CSV file.
If you select Create Rooms, you’ll manually be able add people individually.
You can use the plus button in the Rooms section to create new breakout rooms.
To rename a room, hover over its name and select the pencil icon.
To remove a room, hover over it on the left pane and select the trash can button.
To add participants to a room, select the room and start typing in a name in the Add Participants field.
If you prefer, you can also enter in CWRU-only email addresses,
using the abc123@case.edu format.
After adding your participants, you can move them to a new room
or remove them completely by hovering your cursor over their name and selecting the appropriate button.
Finally, click Save to save your breakout room assignments for your meeting,
then Save back on the main meeting page to save your meeting.
If you’d prefer to upload participants using a CSV document instead,
you can do that using the Import from CSV option.
Selecting Import from CSV will bring up a window where you can upload your formatted CSV file.
To download a template file, select the download link.
This will open the CSV in your preferred editing program.
For Mac users, you should avoid the default Numbers program
and instead use something like Microsoft Excel.
You will need to format your data to match the template’s data for a successful upload back into Zoom.
In this case, make sure that you enter in the names of your breakout rooms,
then supply the CWRU-only email addresses,
using the abc123@case.edu format.
Make sure you save your file as a CSV, then upload it back into Zoom.
After the CSV file has been successfully uploaded
you’ll see the information populated in the Breakout Rooms Assignments window.
If you see an error message when trying to upload,
check the file format of your file to ensure it’s a CSV file.
Make sure you select Save on your meeting details to save the entire meeting.
If needed, you can edit the breakout rooms after they’ve been created by going back to the meeting details page
and selecting the View Detail link in the Breakout Room section.
Once it’s time for your Zoom meeting, you can open the breakout rooms from the Breakout Rooms button.
If the groups were setup properly, or the CSV was uploaded correctly,
you will see a list of breakout rooms with people already assigned to them.
Click “Open All Rooms” to open the rooms and send participants to their pre-assigned breakout rooms.
Note that if a participant joins your meeting after breakout rooms have been opened,
they will not automatically go to their breakout room.
The host will have to manually add them to their breakout room.
Similarly, if a participant leaves the meeting and then rejoins while breakout rooms are already open,
the host will have to add the participant back to their assigned breakout room.
In the event that many pre-assigned participants join the session after the breakout rooms have already begun,
and you don’t want to manually add them to their breakout rooms,
you can choose to revert to pre-assigned breakout rooms.
To do this, you’ll have to close the breakout rooms for the current participant.
From the breakout rooms panel, select “Close All Rooms.”
After that, select “Recreate” then select “Recover to Pre-Assigned Rooms.”
This will send all participants back to their original pre-assigned rooms,
at which point you can reopen the rooms and resume your breakout rooms.
And that’s it! All the info you need to pre-assign participants into Zoom breakout rooms!
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the [U]Tech Help Desk at (216) 368-HELP,
help.case.edu, or help@case.edu.
Thanks for watching!