Presenters will soon be able to control Microsoft Teams breakout rooms

Microsoft is adding the ability for organizers to extend the management of Breakout Rooms to specific presenters. This feature will enable meeting organizers to add and remove presenters as Breakout Room managers.

By taking control from Breakout rooms management panel, appointed presenters will be allowed to perform Breakout room operations as manager or meeting organizer, as well as joining Rooms as Breakout Room manager.

Currently, only users who are named presenters from the same tenant are supported to become Breakout rooms managers.

When Breakout rooms managers join the meeting, they will see the Breakout rooms icon in toolbar.

Breakout rooms managers will have to take control to manage rooms. (Only one manager can manage rooms at the same time).

Once in control, Breakout rooms managers can perform operations to manage Breakout rooms, such as:

• assign users to rooms
• add/delete rooms
• open/close rooms
• re-assign users to rooms
• send announcements
• recreate rooms
• set timer
• adjust other Breakout rooms settings

When rooms are started, all Breakout room managers (also those not in control) can join opened Breakout Rooms by clicking on the menu next to each room and selecting Join room.

Rollout will begin mid-September and should be complete by late September. The feature is rolling out on the Microsoft Teams desktop app only.