Google Meet now allows you to set up Breakout rooms ahead of your meetings using Google Calendar.
Instead of wasting valuable meeting time or making critical mistakes, you can now schedule everything in advance for smooth and efficient meetings.
Learn how to set up your Breakout rooms ahead of time using Google Calendar in this article.
What Are Breakout Rooms?
Breakout rooms is a feature inside of Google Meet. It allows hosts to separate individuals on the call into smaller groups. All separate rooms have their own audio and visual, so you won’t be able to hear or see anyone else in a different room.
You might need a breakout room for groups of employees or students working on separate projects.
As soon as the host is ready, they can end the breakout room, and everyone will rejoin the main call. If you’re familiar with how Google Meet works, then you know it’s a free platform. However, Breakout rooms will only be available to those with a premium plan.
Breakout rooms are available if you have G Suite Business, Workspace Essentials, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus editions.
You can set up your Breakout room at any time during your meeting, but scheduling it beforehand avoids technical difficulties and saves time.
How to Use Breakout Rooms in Google Calendar
You can schedule your Breakout rooms through Google Calendar using events. You already have options for Google Meet calls, but you need to add more customization to include a Breakout room.
Add Breakout Room to a New Google Event
- Open your Google Calendar.
- Create a new event.
- Click Add Google Meet video conferencing.
- Add your guests.
- Click on Change conference settings icon.
- Click Breakout room icon.
- Choose the number of Breakout rooms you want.
- Click and drag your guests into their Breakout room, enter their names into a room, or select shuffle.
- Click Save.
Google Meeting will automatically separate all guests into their own breakout rooms when it reaches the scheduled Breakout room time without requiring additional assistance.
Compared to scheduling Breakout rooms while in a call, this option will save you valuable time. Not only that, but you’ll be able to focus more on your actual presentation and delivery of the content.
Add Breakout Room to an Existing Google Event
Even if you already have an event set up for the meeting, you can still edit it to include breakout rooms.
All guests will receive an updated calendar notification mentioning the changes shortly after you have added their rooms. Here’s how you can set it up:
- Open your Google Calendar.
- Click on the event you want to edit.
- Click Edit event icon.
- Click Change conference settings icon.
- Click Breakout rooms icon.
- Choose the number of breakout rooms.
- Click and drag guests into breakout rooms, enter their names, or select shuffle.
- Click Save.
What Can You Do With Breakout Rooms?
You can host up to 100 different breakout rooms during one meeting with Google Meet. The other online meeting competitor, Zoom, can only offer half as many breakout rooms during a meeting call.
As a host, you’ll be able to log into each room, one-by-one, to check on progress. Teachers using Breakout rooms for online education can check on their students to follow the curriculum.
When you log into a Breakout room as the host, you will turn off your microphone and camera. However, you can still hear everything that’s happening inside the Breakout room. You can always turn on your mic or camera at any time.
If you don’t like what you see in the room, you can end it at any time, which sends the participants back into the main call.
From there, you can set up new Breakout rooms just as you regularly would during Google Meeting calls.
Set Up Breakout Rooms Using Google Calendar
Make the most of your time by scheduling Breakout rooms in advance before your next Google Meeting. You’ll avoid setting them up manually during a call and make better use of everyone’s time.