Schedule video breakouts

Video breakouts are scheduled video chats that you can plan in your event.

Up to 50 participants can join a breakout simultaneously using their webcam, with up to 12 participants displayed at a time to the attendee on the first page of the breakout. Users can then scroll to the next pages to see more participants.

When added to sessions, video breakouts can be used for workshops, where participants can get together in smaller groups and brainstorm on a topic, or just for a casual break during the session.

Breakouts can also be added to sponsor profiles or booths, to create a dedicated space where you can bring your partners and participants together.

You can easily add collaborative tools to your breakouts such as Miro whiteboards or Google docs, for participants to interact with. Networking is also now an integral part of a breakouts, thanks to the full list of participants and the "Add to contacts" or "Message" actions that are available to participants.

For a higher degree of control during video breakouts, you can assign moderators who can mute/request to unmute, pin/unpin, or even kick-out other video breakout participants. Find out more.

For video breakouts that are associated with sessions or sponsor profiles, you can choose whether the breakout should launch/open automatically, or not, using the auto-join setting. The order of appearance of participants in the video breakout is determined on a first-come-first-serve basis.

Video breakouts are a no-download video conferencing solution that is built into Backstage and SpotMe's web app (via desktop) and mobile apps. Simply update your the Agenda and Sponsor modules on your workspace to enable the new video breakouts.

The maximum duration of a single video breakout is 4 hours.
The total maximum duration across all video breakouts in a single workspace is 500 hours.

Scheduling a video breakout in a session

Go to the Sessions module in your workplace, and select the session where you wish to add a video breakout. Now, click on the Schedule video call button (to the right) and then Save your changes.

Note: You can only add video calls to sessions that are already created. The option is not displayed at the time of creating a new session.

Once the video call is scheduled in a session, participants can simply join the call by navigating to the session in the event.

You can choose whether the video breakout should open automatically when the participant joins the session, by using the the Auto-join video breakout setting that is available in Sessions > Preferences > Video breakouts.

As a Backstage user you can also join the call by clicking on Join call in the session page in the workspace.

You can also make any attendee a moderator in the video breakout, using the Video call moderators field, located at the bottom right the session page (below the schedule/join video call buttons):

Scheduling/removing breakouts from multiple sessions

If need to schedule (enable) or cancel (disable) video breakouts for a large number of sessions, you can do this via the import/export of sessions:

1. Go to Content > Sessions, and export the session list as an XLS file.
2. In the XLS file, locate the "video_call_enabled" column.
3. Change the data for each session in this column:
   Set the data to False if you wish to cancel/disable the video breakout.
   Set the data to True if you wish to schedule/enable the video breakout.
4. Once you've made the changes to the export XLS file, save the changes and then go back to Backstage, in Content > Sessions, and re-upload/import the XLS file to implement the changes to the sessions.

To add users as breakout moderators while performing this upload, use the video_call_moderators.0 / video_call_moderators.1 etc. columns, where you can add the User fp_ext_id (available in the User export for your attendees).

Video breakouts and session registration

When you set-up registration on a session for participants, you will also determine whether or not participants can join the video breakout associated to that session.

If session registration is enabled on the session, and the participant has registered for the session, the video breakout is automatically launched when the participant navigates to the session.

If the participant has not registered to the session, they will not see the video breakout in the session, and will not be able to join the video breakout.

Video breakout in a sponsor profile/booth

The same as for a session, go to the Sponsors module in your workplace, select the sponsor profile where you wish to add a video breakout, and click on the Schedule video call button. Don't forget to save your changes.

Once the video call is scheduled in a sponsor profile, participants and sponsors can simply join the call by navigating to the sponsor profile in the event. 

You can choose whether the video breakout should open automatically when the participant opens the sponsor booth, by using the Auto-join video breakout setting that is available in Sponsors > Preferences > Video breakouts.

If need to schedule (enable) or cancel (disable) video calls for a large number of sponsors, you can do so via the import/export of sponsors:

1. Go to Content > Sponsors, and export the sponsors list as an XLS file.
2. Open the XLS file, and locate the "video_call_enabled" column.
3. Change the data in this column for each sponsor:
   Set the data to False if you wish to cancel/disable the video call.
   Set the data to True if you wish to schedule/enable the video call.
4. Once you've made the changes to the export XLS file, save the changes and then go back to Backstage, in Content > Sponsors, and re-upload/import the XLS file to implement the changes to the sponsors.

How can participants share videos with sound?

When in a breakout, sharing audio from your computer is supported only when you are using Google Chrome and you share a Chrome tab.

To share a video in Video breakouts participants can:

• Drag and drop a video file into Google Chrome to open it as a new tab.
• Click Share > Share screen in Video breakouts.
• Select Chrome Tab at the top of the Share your screen popup.
• Select the tab with the video.
• Check Share audio in the bottom corner of the popup.
• Click Share.

Technical notes and requirements

Supported systems and browsers

• Operating systems:
  
  • Windows 7 or later.
  • macOS 10.10 or later.
  • Any Linux-based system with x64 architecture.
• Browsers with full support:
  
  • Google Chrome.
  • Firefox.
• Browsers with partial support (some features like screen sharing may not be available):
  
  • Safari 11 or later (ideally use the latest build).
  • Microsoft Edge 80 or later (Chromium based version only).

Bandwidth requirements

One on One Meetings	At least 2.0 Mbps outbound and 2.5 Mbps inbound or higher.
Four or more participants	At least 3.2 Mbps outbound and 3.2 Mbps inbound are required.	Due to the way peer to peer connections are designed, the more participants you add to the call the higher bandwidth you will need.

Network requirements

For participants on corporate networks, all domains and IP ranges listed listed the SpotMe platform corporate firewall & network requirements article have to be allowed.

Peer-to-peer networking needs to be permitted on the network. You can use https://tokbox.com/developer/tools/precall/ to verify your network is permits this type of connections.

VPN

We do not recommend using Video breakouts with a VPN. Our recommendation is to turn off your VPN when having joining a Video breakout, and then turn it back on after finishing the meeting.

Limitations

• Up to 50 users can join a video call. You can use session targeting to limit who can access a specific video breakout.
• Video calls are not recorded, and no analytics data is collected with regards to attendee participations in video breakouts.
• There are no host controls.
• Screen sharing does not share audio from the computer. Audio can be shared only when sharing Google Chrome tabs.
• If a whiteboard or any collaborative tool is embedded in the breakout, participants will not be able to screen share during the breakout.