How do I pre-assign breakout rooms in Online Meetings?
For meetings scheduled within the Online Meetings tool, instructors can pre-assign participants in their Canvas course site to breakout rooms.
Meeting attendees who logged into their UVA Zoom accounts before joining the meeting will be automatically moved to their assigned breakout rooms when the instructor opens the rooms.
Note: If you are pre-assigning breakout rooms in a recurring meeting, the breakout rooms will be the same for all occurrences of the meeting. You cannot assign specific breakout rooms for individual occurrences.
Tip: Ask students to follow the steps in Tips for Attending Class in Zoom (opens new window) to install the Zoom client or app on their computer or mobile device and log into Zoom before they try to join the meeting.
Schedule a new meeting or edit a meeting.
You can pre-assign breakout rooms while scheduling a new meeting or editing an existing meeting.
Edit an existing meeting.
To edit an existing meeting, first select the Topic of the meeting, for example, Week 1 Lecture.
Select Edit this Meeting.
- Scroll down near the bottom of the page.
- Select Edit this Meeting.
Restrict meeting access to attendees signed into Zoom.
To ensure that students will be added to their assigned breakout rooms automatically, restrict access to the meeting to attendees signed into Zoom.
- In the meeting's Security settings, select the checkbox Only authenticated users can join meetings.
- By default, when this setting is enabled, All virginia.edu Domains is selected. This means that attendees must be signed into Zoom using their UVA Zoom accounts. You can select the menu (not pictured) and change the setting to Sign in to Zoom to allow non-UVA participants using Zoom to join.
- The Authentication Exception option can be used if have a guest who is not from UVA. Select Add to enter the name and email address of the person you would like to invite who does not need to log into Zoom.
Select Breakout room pre-assign.
In the Meeting Options, select the checkbox Breakout Room pre-assign.
Once selected, options for creating breakout rooms will appear.
Note: If the Breakout Room pre-assign checkbox is not available, the feature may need to be enabled in your Zoom account. To enable it:
- Go to the UVA Zoom Login page (opens new window) and log in to Zoom.
- Follow the steps to enable breakout rooms (opens new window) in your Zoom account and select the checkbox to Assign participants to breakout rooms when scheduling.
Create breakout rooms and add participants.
The following options are available for breakout room creation:
- Create rooms individually: Add a room, then select course participants from a drop-down menu to add to the room. This option is recommended if you are not using Canvas groups.
- Import rooms from a CSV file: Create and upload a CSV file with the names of the rooms and participants' email addresses.
- Import Canvas groups to create rooms: If you have created groups in your Canvas course (opens new window), you can import them to automatically create a breakout room for each group.
Select one of these options below to display the steps to use it.
Select Create Rooms.
Add a room.
The Breakout Room Assignment dialog will pop up. To the right of Rooms, select the + (Add rooms) button.
Select participants.
A new breakout room will appear.
- Select the name of the breakout room, for example Breakout Room 1.
- An Add Participant menu will display under the name of the breakout room at the right. From this menu, select a participant from the course to add to the room. Once a participant is selected, you may add another participant using the same drop-down menu.
Add additional rooms and participants as needed.
To add another room, select the + (Add rooms) button again, then repeat the step above to add participants to the room.
Select Save.
Once participants have been added to the rooms that will be created, select Save.
Select Import from CSV.
Download the CSV template.
The Import from CSV file dialog will pop up. Select the download link to download the CSV template that you will use to create the file.
Edit the CSV template.
Following the instructions in the Zoom help article How to pre-assign participants to breakouts rooms using a CSV file (opens new window), edit the CSV file, adding the names of the desired breakout rooms and the full UVA email address ([email protected]) of each participant to be added to each room.
Tip: You can get a spreadsheet with the email addresses of participants in your Canvas course site using Photo Roster's Export feature (opens new window).
Upload the CSV file.
Drag and drop your CSV file to upload it, or select browse to browse for and choose the file.
Select Save.
You will be taken to a Breakout Room Assignment page displaying the rooms that will be created. Select Save.
To use the Import Course Groups feature, you must have groups in your Canvas course (opens new window). For steps to create groups, see How do I add a group set in a course? (opens new window).
Note: If students are added to or removed from Canvas groups after importing the groups to create breakout rooms, the meeting will need to be edited and the groups re-imported to reflect the membership changes.
Select Import Course Groups.
Delete extraneous breakout rooms.
You will be taken to a Breakout Room Assignment page displaying the rooms that will be created for the groups. By default, one breakout room will be created for each Canvas group.
If you use different groups for different assignments in your course, the same student may be included in more than one group. If this is the case, the student will be automatically placed in the first breakout room that appears in the list when you open the rooms in the meeting.
To ensure that each student will be placed in the desired breakout room, remove any extraneous rooms using the trash can (delete) button for each room. If you are using a mouse, hover over the name of the breakout room to find the button.
Select Save.
Select Save.
Save your meeting.
Don't forget to save the changes to your meeting.