The Video Rooms feature is a fantastic way to bring your virtual attendees even closer to the in-person experience. Video Rooms are spaces where a maximum of 13 attendees and three moderators can talk with one another via live video, audio, and chat, and send Connection requests in the Web App or Mobile App. Attendees in the Web App can also share their screen.

Video Rooms are great for breakout discussions, sponsor hangouts, live Q&A, staff meetups, icebreaker rooms, and more.

Animated GIF of eight people in a Video Room.

💡 Keep in mind, Video Rooms don't have a recording feature.

Add the feature

In your Event's navigation bar under 'Event App', click Features, then click Add Features.

Screenshot showing the process just described.

In the modal that appears, search for the feature, click Add, then close the modal.

💡 Keep in mind, adding the feature multiple times and associating each instance with a different exclusive or non-exclusive group helps make sure different subsets of attendees end up in the right rooms. Each Video Rooms feature can have as many rooms as you like.

Edit settings

To customize the feature's name and icon or limit its visibility using exclusive or non-exclusive groups, click the feature in the navigation bar, then click the Settings (⚙️) icon next to the feature's name.

Click Save Changes when you finish updating the settings.

Add rooms

💡 Keep in mind, if you have a lot of rooms to add, import those rooms to save time.

On the Video Rooms page, click New Video Room to add your first one. In the modal that appears, customize the following:

Screenshot of the new video room modal. The New video room button is indicated in the background.

Name - This is the name as it appears in the Event App. Rooms are typically topic-based — if you need more than one room per topic, make sure you clearly indicate the difference between each room.
Enable Room - If you don't want attendees to join the room right away, deactivate this toggle. When a room is inactive, a message displays explaining that the room is closed when attendees try to join it.
Icon - Select an icon or add a custom image to the room. Add an image that helps attendees understand the room's purpose. Images should be unique to each room topic.
Description - This is a text description that appears below the room's name. The description should help attendees understand what to expect in as few words as possible.
Moderators - Add up to three people from your attendee list as moderators. Make sure you've added them to the Event! We'll discuss what moderators can do later in this guide.
⚠️ Caution, if you’re concerned that a room topic may be controversial, we highly recommend adding at least one Moderator to that room.

Internal Links - Link the room to other features and items, such as speaker profiles. For example, if you're setting up breakout rooms for Sessions, search for and add the Session's speakers here. Attendees viewing the speaker's profile in the Event App can join the room directly from there. Refer to our article about Internal Links for a full list of items that support Internal Links.
💡 Keep in mind, internally linked items don't appear in the Video Rooms feature — only on the item the room was linked to, like a speaker profile.

Click Save Changes to finalize creating the room. Repeat this process for as many rooms as you need.

Managing rooms

After you've added at least one room, you can manage Video Rooms in the following ways:

Filter and search
Drag and drop to reorder
Edit or delete
Multi-select and edit
o Disable or enable
o Export

Screenshots showing the multiselect menu, item menus, and rearranging items.

Rooms in practice

When an attendee clicks on a Video Rooms feature, they can browse through the list of rooms and join any that are active or haven't reached the participant limit. Attendees can only join one room at a time, even if they open separate browser tabs.

If a room is available and not full, the button below the room title and description says 'Join'.
If a room is inactive, the button says 'Closed'.
If a room is full, the button says 'Room is Full'. After 13 attendees have joined, moderators can still click 'Join'.

💡 Keep in mind, attendees could have issues with their browser, mic, video, and more. Read our guide to general best practices and troubleshooting and consider including this information in attendee help resources for your event.

Screenshot of a set of Video Rooms. One of them shows as

When joining a room for the first time, attendees must agree to any microphone and camera permissions their device or browser requires. Attendees using the web experience must also select the correct video and audio devices and click Apply before they can join.

Screenshot of the pop-up that appears after a user clicks Join on a Video Room.

💡 Keep in mind, attendees on the web version should use the latest version of Google's Chrome for the best experience.

While in the room, attendees can mute their mic or video and type messages. From the messages panel, attendees can send each other connection requests without leaving the room.

Animated GIF showing a video room with eight people in it. The user sends another participant a connection request.

💡 Keep in mind, the number of people that can appear on the screen at one time depends on the screen size and zoom level of the user's device. If there are more participants than can fit on the screen, an arrow appears that lets users scroll through the rest of the participants.

Attendees on the web version can also share their screen with everyone else. If someone is sharing their screen, they have to stop sharing before another person can share their screen.

If an attendee using the web version is in a Webex Events Production Studio or Webex Events RTMP live stream and they click into a Video Room, the live stream will mute and continue to play in a small frame at the lower right corner of their screen. If the live stream uses any other streaming provider, the stream will close.

Moderation

We've made it easy for moderators to understand their role in Video Rooms! Send our Video Room moderator instructions to your moderators so they know what to expect.

When a moderator opens a Video Rooms feature on the Event App, a 'Moderated by you' tag appears each of their assigned rooms.

Screenshot of a video room's card. The Moderated by you tag is visible.

Moderators hover over an attendee video card to reveal the Remove button in the lower right corner. When a moderator clicks the button, a message pops up to ask for confirmation and lets them choose how long to ban the person from the room. There's also a checkbox that lets the moderator delete all of the attendee's text chats from that room.

Screenshot of the Remove button on a video card and the Confirm Remove modal.

Now you know how to set up and use Video Rooms in your Event App!

Metrics

After some of your attendees have used Video Rooms, explore the Feature Comparison chart on the Metrics page to learn how many times attendees have clicked on the feature and how many chats they've exchanged.

Edit a Video Room and click the Download Chat Report and Download Participant List links to browse even more metrics.

The Chat Report contains the following:

First Name
Last Name
Email
Title
Company
Chat Text

The Participant List contains the following:

First Name
Last Name
Email
Title
Company
Joined At

💡 Keep in mind, you may find multiple entries for the same person in the Participant List export if they left and then rejoined the Video Room.

To examine all of the additional data outlined in our metrics exports, read our Event App Metrics article.

Questions? Chat Us or Email support@socio.events