Moderating Breakouts
Explains the features and controls available to breakout moderators
Beyond being a powerful networking tool, breakouts are also a fantastic place to host round table discussions. Whether this is curated by speakers selected by the organiser or if you want to bring attendees into the conversation.
This guide will focus on features available to you once the breakout room has been created and moderators assigned.
When can I access the breakout room?
If you're a moderator or event admin you can access the breakout room at any time. This will allow you to run rehearsals, set up polls and generally get comfortable with the environment. We recommend making all speakers in a room moderators so that they have early access and full control of the room.
When is the breakout room live?
The breakout room goes live on it's scheduled start time. A handy tool to run alongside your breakout room as a moderator is https://time.is/. This will let you know your computers time is correct and give you a high visibility clock to use should you wish.
At the end of the breakout you'll receive a 5 minute countdown to the right of the top bar.
Joining the breakout room when live
As a moderator you'll want to pay special attention when joining a live breakout room. If you do not want to appear as a participant hit the Viewing Only button rather than Join Conversation.
What controls over participants do I have?
Once a participant has requested to join the conversation you have the ability to spotlight, mute, push back to viewing only and removing them from the breakout completely. You can access these options directly on their viewport or on the people tab in the People & Messages section of the interact pane. In both areas you'll find a blue square with 3 dots to click and access the menu.
As a moderator all viewers will sync to your view. So if you spotlight one or multiple participants they will be spotlit for all viewers of the stream.
Mute All Participants
You can mute all participants in the room by navigating to: People & Messages>People and clicking the button at the top of the pane.
Moderating Questions & Polls
To access the moderation panel click the toggle button in the top left of the window. From here you can approve questions and set up polls as per the main stage. For more information on moderating questions and polls please view this article.
Messaging Other Speakers or Participants
You can message other speakers or indeed any participant in the breakout room by navigating to the People section in the People & Messages tab. Click their name and scroll to the bottom of their profile modal to find the direct message button.
As a moderator it can be helpful to Direct Message all speakers ahead of time so that you have quick access to them in the directory of the Direct Messages tab in the interact pane.