Running Breakout Rooms

Breakout rooms let you split a larger meeting into smaller groups for focused discussion, then reconvene everyone in the main room. StretchMeet's breakout rooms are ideal for workshops, training, team exercises, and any session where small-group work beats one big conversation.

How breakouts work

A breakout is a sub-room attached to your main meeting. Each breakout has:

• A name (e.g. "Group A" or "Pricing discussion").
• A status: planned (set up but not open), open (running now), closed (finished), or archived (retired).
• An artifact scope that controls where any recordings, transcripts, or notes from the breakout belong — with the parent meeting, kept to the breakout itself, or private.

Create a breakout room

1. In your live meeting, open Breakouts.
2. Click New breakout and give it a name.
3. Leave the status as planned while you set it up.
4. Set the artifact scope if you want its recordings or notes handled a particular way.
5. Save. Repeat to create as many breakouts as you need.

Assign participants

1. Open the breakout you want to fill.
2. Choose Assign participants.
3. Add people to the breakout — you can assign up to 200 participants across a breakout.
4. Save the assignment. Assigned participants move into the breakout when it opens.

Participant assignment tracks status too — assigned, joined, left, or removed — so you can see who actually made it into each group.

Open, run, and close breakouts

1. When you're ready, set a breakout's status to open to start it.
2. Groups discuss in their own rooms while you monitor from the main meeting.
3. When time's up, set the breakout to closed to end it and return participants to the main room.
4. Reconvene, share findings, and continue the main session.

A realistic example

A facilitator runs a 24-person strategy workshop. She creates four breakouts — "Product," "Marketing," "Ops," and "Finance" — while everyone is still in the main room (all planned). She assigns six people to each, then flips all four to open. Each group brainstorms for 15 minutes. She sets the breakouts to closed, everyone returns to the main room, and each group's designated co-host reports back. The workshop's notes are scoped to the parent meeting so the full record lives in one place.

Tips

• Plan breakouts before you open them. Set them up as planned, assign people, then open everything at once for a smooth transition.
• Put a co-host in each breakout to keep discussions on track and report back.
• Name breakouts by topic, not just number, so participants know where they belong.
• Use artifact scope deliberately. Choose parent to keep a unified record, or private/breakout when group discussions should stay separate.

Troubleshooting

• A participant didn't move into their breakout. Check the assignment status — they may show as assigned but not yet joined. Re-assign or ask them to rejoin.
• Can't create or open a breakout. Breakout management requires a host or co-host role, and the meeting must be live on the native engine.
• Notes ended up in the wrong place. Review the breakout's artifact scope; change it before the next session if it wasn't what you wanted.

FAQ

How many people can be in a breakout?
You can assign up to 200 participants to a breakout.

Can I reopen a closed breakout?
Breakouts move through planned → open → closed. For another round, it's cleanest to open a fresh breakout.

Do recordings from breakouts stay separate?
That depends on the artifact scope you set — parent, breakout, or private. See Transcripts, AI Summaries & Artifacts.