Breakout rooms

This article describes how to implement Microsoft Teams breakout rooms with Azure Communication Services. This capability enables Azure Communication Services users in Teams meetings to participate in breakout rooms. Teams administrators control the availability of breakout rooms in Teams meeting with Teams meeting policy. You can find additional information about breakout rooms in Teams documentation.

Prerequisites

• An Azure account with an active subscription. See Create an account for free.
• A deployed Communication Services resource. See Create a Communication Services resource.
• A user access token to enable the calling client. For more information, see Create and manage access tokens.
• Teams meeting organizer needs to assign Teams meeting policy that enables breakout rooms. See Teams meeting policy.
• Optional: Complete the quickstart to add voice calling to your application.

Only Microsoft 365 Users with Organizer, Co-Organizer, or Breakout Room manager roles can manage the breakout rooms.

Support

The following tables define support of breakout rooms in Azure Communication Services.

Identities and call types

The following table shows support in breakout rooms for specific call type and identity.

Operations

The following table show support for individual APIs in the calling SDK related to individual identity types.

[1] Only Microsoft 365 user with role organizer, co-organizer, or breakout room manager.

[2] Microsoft 365 users can use Graph API to participate in breakout room chat. The thread ID of the chat is provided in the assigned breakout room object.

SDKs

The following tables show support for the breakout rooms feature in individual Azure Communication Services SDKs.

Install the SDK

Use the npm install command to install the Azure Communication Services Common and Calling SDK for JavaScript:

npm install @azure/communication-common --save
npm install @azure/communication-calling --save

Initialize required objects

A CallClient instance is required for most call operations. When you create a new CallClient instance, you can configure it with custom options like a Logger instance.

With the CallClient instance, you can create a CallAgent instance by calling the createCallAgent. This method asynchronously returns a CallAgent instance object.

The createCallAgent method uses CommunicationTokenCredential as an argument. It accepts a user access token.

You can use the getDeviceManager method on the CallClient instance to access deviceManager.

const { CallClient } = require('@azure/communication-calling');
const { AzureCommunicationTokenCredential} = require('@azure/communication-common');
const { AzureLogger, setLogLevel } = require("@azure/logger");

// Set the logger's log level
setLogLevel('verbose');

// Redirect log output to console, file, buffer, REST API, or whatever location you want
AzureLogger.log = (...args) => {
    console.log(...args); // Redirect log output to console
};

const userToken = '<USER_TOKEN>';
callClient = new CallClient(options);
const tokenCredential = new AzureCommunicationTokenCredential(userToken);
const callAgent = await callClient.createCallAgent(tokenCredential, {displayName: 'optional Azure Communication Services user name'});
const deviceManager = await callClient.getDeviceManager()

How to best manage SDK connectivity to Microsoft infrastructure

The Call Agent instance helps you manage calls (to join or start calls). In order to work your calling SDK needs to connect to Microsoft infrastructure to get notifications of incoming calls and coordinate other call details. Your Call Agent has two possible states:

Connected - A Call Agent connectionStatue value of Connected means the client SDK is connected and capable of receiving notifications from Microsoft infrastructure.

Disconnected - A Call Agent connectionStatue value of Disconnected states there's an issue that is preventing the SDK it from properly connecting. Call Agent should be re-created.

• invalidToken: If a token is expired or is invalid Call Agent instance disconnects with this error.
• connectionIssue: If there's an issue with the client connecting to Microsoft infrascture, after many retries Call Agent exposes the connectionIssue error.

You can check if your local Call Agent is connected to Microsoft infrastructure by inspecting the current value of connectionState property. During an active call you can listen to the connectionStateChanged event to determine if Call Agent changes from Connected to Disconnected state.

const connectionState = callAgentInstance.connectionState;
console.log(connectionState); // it may return either of 'Connected' | 'Disconnected'

const connectionStateCallback = (args) => {
    console.log(args); // it will return an object with oldState and newState, each of having a value of either of 'Connected' | 'Disconnected'
    // it will also return reason, either of 'invalidToken' | 'connectionIssue'
}
callAgentInstance.on('connectionStateChanged', connectionStateCallback);

Implement breakout rooms

BreakoutRooms is a feature of the class Call. First you need to import package Features from the Calling SDK:

import { Features} from "@azure/communication-calling";

Create breakoutRoom feature

Then get the feature API object from the call instance:

const breakoutRoomsFeature = mainMeetingCall.feature(Features.BreakoutRooms);

Subscribe to breakoutRoom events

The BreakoutRooms API enables you to subscribe to BreakoutRooms events. A breakoutRoomsUpdated event comes from a BreakoutRoomsCallFeature instance and contains information about the created, updated, and assigned breakout rooms.

To receive breakout room details, subscribe to the breakoutRoomsUpdated event.

breakoutRoomsFeature.on('breakoutRoomsUpdated', breakoutRoomsUpdatedListener);

Handle breakoutRoom events

Event breakoutRoomsUpdated provides an instance of one of the following classes as an input parameter. You can use property type to distinguish between individual event types.

• Class BreakoutRoomsEvent: This event is triggered when a user with the role organizer, co-organizer, or breakout room manager creates or updates the breakout rooms. Microsoft 365 users with role organizer, co-organizer, or breakout room manager can receive this type of event. Developers can use the breakout rooms in property data to render details about all breakout rooms. This class has property type equal to "breakoutRooms".

    export interface BreakoutRoomsEvent {
      /**
       * Breakout room event type
      */
      type: "breakoutRooms",
      /**
       * list of Breakout rooms
      */
      data: BreakoutRoom[] | undefined;
    }
  

• Class BreakoutRoomsSettingsEvent: When a user with a role organizer, co-organizer, or breakout room manager updates the breakout room's settings, it triggers this event. Developers can use this information to render the time when breakout room ends or decide whether to render a button to join main room. This class has property type equal to "breakoutRoomSettings".

    export interface BreakoutRoomSettingsEvent {
      /**
      * Breakout room event type
      */
      type: "breakoutRoomSettings",
      /**
      * Breakout Room setting details
      */
      data: BreakoutRoomSettings | undefined;
    }
  

• Class AssignedBreakoutRoomsEvent: This event is triggered when user is assigned to a breakout room, or assigned breakout room is updated. Users can join the breakout room when property state is set to open, leave the breakout room when property state is set to closed, or render details of the breakout room. This class has property type equal to "assignedBreakoutRoom".

    export interface AssignedBreakoutRoomEvent {
      /**
       * Breakout room event type
       */
      type: "assignedBreakoutRoom";
      /**
       * Assigned breakout room details
       */
      data: BreakoutRoom | undefined;
    }
  

• Class JoinBreakoutRoomsEvent: This event is triggered when the participant is joining a breakout room call. This event can happen when a user is automatically moved to breakout room (that is, if assignedBreakoutRoom has property state set to open and autoMoveParticipantToBreakoutRoom is set to true) or when a user explicitly joins a breakout room (that is, calls method join on the instance assignedBreakoutRoom when autoMoveParticipantToBreakoutRoom is set to false). Property data contains the breakout room call instance, that developers can use to control breakout room call. This class has property type equal to "join".

    export interface JoinBreakoutRoomEvent {
      /**
       * Breakout room event type
       */
      type: "join";
      /**
       * Breakoutroom call object
       */
      data: Call | TeamsCall;
    }
  

The following code shows the useful information received in the breakout room events:

    const breakoutRoomsUpdatedListener = (event) => {
    switch(event.type) {
        case "breakoutRooms":
          const breakoutRooms = event.data;
          console.log(`Breakout rooms are created or updated. There are ${breakoutRooms.length} breakout rooms in total.`);
          breakoutRooms.forEach((room)=>{
          console.log(`- ${room.displayName}`);
          });    
          break;
        case "assignedBreakoutRooms":
          const assignedRoom = event.data;
          console.log(`You are assigned to breakout room named: ${assignedRoom.displayName}`);      
          console.log(`Assigned breakout room thread Id: ${assignedRoom.threadId}`);
          console.log(`Automatically move participants to breakout room: ${assignedRoom.autoMoveParticipantToBreakoutRoom}`);
          console.log(`Assigned breakout room state : ${assignedRoom.state }`);      
          break;
        case "breakoutRoomsSettings":
          const breakoutRoomSettings = event.data;
          console.log(`Breakout room ends at: ${breakoutRoomSettings.roomEndTime}`);
          console.log(`Disable the user to return to main meeting from breakout room call : ${breakoutRoomSettings.disableReturnToMainMeeting}`);         
          break;
        case "join":
          const breakoutRoomCall = event.data;
          console.log(`You have joined breakout room with call ID: ${breakoutRoomCall.id}`);      
          break;
      }
    }
breakoutRoomsFeature.on('breakoutRoomsUpdated', breakoutRoomsUpdatedListener);

List available breakout rooms

Microsoft 365 users with role organizer, co-organizer, or breakout room manager can access all breakout rooms.

const breakoutRooms = breakoutRoomsFeature.breakoutRooms;
breakoutRooms.forEach((room)=>{
      console.log(`- ${room.displayName}`);
       }); 

List invitees

Microsoft 365 user with role organizer, co-organizer, or breakout room manager can access participants assigned to individual breakout rooms.

breakoutRooms.forEach((room)=>{
      console.log(`${room.displayName}`);
      room.invitees.forEach((invitee) => {
          console.log(`- ${invitee.id}`);         
          })
      })

Join breakout room

If the assignedBreakoutRoom has property autoMoveParticipantToBreakoutRoom set to true, then the user is automatically moved to the breakout room when the property state is set to open. If autoMoveParticipantToBreakoutRoom is set to false, then use the following code to join breakout room.

This triggers breakoutRoomsUpdated event with class JoinBreakoutRoomsEvent that has property type set as join. You can use the instance of a class call in property data to manage breakout room call.

const breakoutRoom = breakoutRoomsFeature.assignedBreakoutRoom;
if(breakoutRoom.state == 'open' && !breakoutRoom.autoMoveParticipantToBreakoutRoom) {
  const breakoutRoomCall = await breakoutRoom.join();
}

Leave breakout room

When the breakout room state is closed, then the user is automatically moved to the main meeting. User is informed about the end of breakout room by receiving event breakoutRoomsUpdated with class AssignedBreakoutRoomsEvent and property type equal to assignedBreakoutRooms that indicates that assignedBreakoutRoom has property state set to closed.

If the user wants to leave the breakout room even before the room is closed and the breakout room settings breakoutRoomsFeature.breakoutRoomsSettings have property disableReturnToMainMeeting set to false then user can join the main meeting call with the following code:

const breakoutRoomsSettings = breakoutRoomsFeature.breakoutRoomsSettings;
 if(breakoutRoomCall != null && !breakoutRoomsSettings.disableReturnToMainMeeting){
    breakoutRoomCall.hangUp();   
    mainMeetingCall.resume();
 }

Get participants of the breakout room

When you join the breakout room, you can use the following code to get the list of remote participants of the breakout room:

const breakoutRoomParticipants = [breakoutRoomCall.remoteParticipants.values()].map((p: SDK.RemoteParticipant) => { p.displayName || p.identifier });
console.log(`Participants of the breakoutRoom : <br/>" + breakoutRoomParticipants.join("<br/>")`);

Stop receiving breakout rooms events

Use the following code to stop receiving breakoutRooms events.

breakoutRoomsFeature.off('breakoutRoomsUpdated', breakoutRoomsUpdatedListener);

Breakout room properties

Breakout rooms have the following properties:

const displayName : string = breakoutRoom.displayName;
const threadId : string = breakoutRoom.threadId;
const state : BreakoutRoomState = breakoutRoom.state;
const autoMoveParticipantToBreakoutRoom : boolean = breakoutRoom.autoMoveParticipantToBreakoutRoom;
const call : Call | TeamsCall = breakoutRoom.call;
const invitees : Invitee[] = breakoutRoom.invitees;

Breakout room settings

Breakout rooms share setting that has the following properties:

const disableReturnToMainMeeting : boolean = breakoutRoomsSettings.disableReturnToMainMeeting;
const roomEndTime : TimestampInfo = breakoutRoomsSettings.roomEndTime;

Troubleshooting

Next steps

• Learn how to manage calls
• Learn how to manage video
• Learn how to record calls
• Learn how to transcribe calls