Microsoft Teams is introducing a new feature that will let meeting organizers assign specific presenters to Breakout rooms. The feature is currently under development, and it’s expected to roll out to Teams users globally in mid-September.
With this release, the app will add a new toggle button in Breakout Room settings to enable meeting organizers to add presenters as 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,” the company explained in a message on the Microsoft 365 Admin center.
Microsoft says that these managers will be able to perform various tasks, including adding/deleting rooms, assigning users to rooms, setting timers, as well as making announcements. In addition to this, Breakout rooms managers will also get the ability to recreate rooms and tweak other Breakout rooms settings.
It is worth noting that these improvements will only be available in the desktop version of Microsoft Teams, and it will not be supported on mobile. This capability should be useful for business meetings where granular controls are required for managing brainstorming sessions. In related news, Microsoft is also working to improve the manual participant assignment experience for Breakout Rooms in Teams.