Zoom Set Up and Work with Pre-assigned Breakout Rooms

Considerations While Scheduling Meetings

Turning on the Breakout Rooms option

Before scheduling a meeting in which you want to pre-assign attendees to breakout rooms, enable breakout rooms. To do this, go to your account settings, in your account settings, and in the section In Meeting (Advanced), activate the Breakout room feature and check the box for Allow host to assign participants to breakout rooms when scheduling.

Set Up Breakout Rooms Through the ZOOM

For meetings you have created through Canvas, to set up breakout rooms and pre-assignments, edit it using cornell.zoom.us.

Turning on Breakout Room Pre-assignment When Scheduling a Meeting

With the Breakout room option enabled, hosts can pre-assign breakout rooms when scheduling a meeting. To do this, under Meeting options, check the box Breakout room pre-assign, then use either the Create Rooms link to manually assign invited participants, or use Import from CSV file to upload breakout room assignments in CSV format.

Use a CSV File to Pre-Assign Your Attendees to Breakout Rooms

It's recommended that hosts of meetings with large numbers of attendees use a CSV file to assign breakout rooms. Use Zoom's sample CSV file as a guide.

Pre-Assigned Breakout Rooms Have a Participant Limit

Be aware that pre-assigned breakout rooms are limited to 200 participants. (But this limit does not apply to non-pre-assigned breakout rooms.)

Only Allow Authenticated Users into Your Meeting

In the Meeting Options for the meeting, be sure to enable Only authenticated users can join and select Cornell Users from the dropdown. This will require session attendees to be authenticated with a cornell.edu address to join the meeting.

For Recurring Meetings, Trying to Edit a Single Occurrence to Add Pre-Assignments Will Not Work

When editing a recurring meeting to add breakout room pre-assignments, you must make the change to all recurrences of the meeting, or the change will not be saved. (In the Edit Meeting dialog, after clicking Edit This Meeting, click All to add pre-assignments.)

Working with Breakout Rooms During Meetings

Starting Breakout Rooms During a Meeting

To launch breakout rooms during a meeting, click Breakout Rooms in the host control bar. If not all attendees are successfullt pre-assigned, the host can click Recreate, then Recover to Pre-Assigned Rooms. Doing this works like the Refresh button in a browser.

Assigning Late Students to Breakout Rooms

When students / participants join a meeting after breakout rooms have been opened, late participants will need to be manually assigned to breakout rooms.

Changing Breakout Room Assignments During a Meeting

Once a meeting has begun, the breakout room pre-assignments cannot be changed through the web portal. To do this, the meeting can be ended, pre-assignments updated through the web portal, and then the meeting can be restarted. Alternatively, instructors can click Breakout Rooms, click the Recreate button, and use Recreate All Rooms. Note that when recreating breakout rooms automatically, students will be randomly assigned to breakout rooms.

Considerations for attendees (students)

Have Students Join Using Canvas

For meetings initiated in Canvas, instructors should tell students to access the Zoom meetings through Canvas.

Student Attendee Sign-in

When accessing a Zoom meeting through Canvas, after clicking Join, students will be prompted to sign in. Students should sign in with their Cornell NetID and password via either the cornell.zoom.us website or the Zoom desktop client's Sign In with SSO option.

When signing into Zoom using the client's Single Sign On button, they should type cornell in the Company Domain field (if it is not already filled in correctly) to be properly authenticated and allocated to the correct pre-assigned room.