Default breakout rooms

[BDiamond]

What I would like to do is have default breakout rooms. I always use the same rooms, and it would be great if I could automatically have them in a new meeting. I can make a template, but can't seem to apply a template to a Zoom meeting created via Google Calendar, even after the fact. Is there a way to do either of these things?

Thanks in advance!

[Ray_Harwood]

Hi, @BDiamond,

I’d recommend reading this Zoom Support article on Breakout Rooms:

https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/206476313-Managing-Breakout-Rooms 

One way is to reuse Breakout Rooms on a recurring Meeting series. 

Another creative way I’ve used is to import the Breakout Room names from a CSV file. While this is intended to import assigned names into a room, if you put bogus (but syntactically legal) email addresses in (I use “***********”), Zoom will still a set up the room names for you. 

Give it a try – it might take a time or two to get used to the process, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll be able to upload the CSV file in a matter of seconds, and be on your way. 

I should make a demo video! 😎

[BDiamond]

Thank you for the suggestions so far, but maybe I wasn't clear. I would like to have the same rooms each time, but the participants will be different each time. So I am not trying to figure out how to make default assignments, just how to create a default number of rooms with default names.

[Ray_Harwood]

@BDiamond, the approach I mention, while you are using the "assign people to a room" mechanism, is only being used to create the room names.  Unfortunately you can't just put in room names - you must include an email address.  Here's an example of the full process... it looks long, but it goes by quickly and saves time in the long run, in my opinion.

To do this, you (or your account admin) will need to enable the "Allow host to assign participants to breakout rooms when scheduling" option one time following the instructions in this Zoom Support article:

https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/206476093 

At a recent event I produced for a client, they had a poster session with 10 posters; I created 10 breakout rooms with the following spreadsheet (the original also had the names of the presenters embedded in the title):

(I included the "Poster Number" at the beginning of the Room Name.)

Once you've created the CSV file, go to the meeting edit view on zoom.us.  Enable the Breakout Room pre-assign option in the Meeting's Options section:

Then click the Import from CSV (you can create the room list on the fly, but I prefer to do it in a CSV file):

Drag and drop (or browse to) the CSV file:

A confirmation window comes up, where you can edit the information (note that the names on the left column are occasionally incomplete; the full name appears at the top on the right):

When I go into my meeting and click the Breakout Rooms icon, this is what I now see:

Set the Options you want, and when you Open All Rooms, all your rooms will be there.

The pre-assigned name I added to each room isn't shown... since nobody with that Zoom account email is present in the meeting.  Doing this for each meeting will save you time... just go through this import process once per meeting.