How to Use Microsoft Teams Whiteboard in Breakout Rooms

Each breakout room in a Microsoft Teams meeting behaves like a small meeting of its own, so participants can open a shared Microsoft Whiteboard inside their room and work on it together. This guide covers starting a board in a room, checking that it works for everyone, and bringing the results back to the main session.

Before you start

Whiteboard is a cloud service, not a local drawing tool. The board is created and synced through your organization's Microsoft 365 environment, so every participant needs a working connection and an account that the tenant allows to use Whiteboard.

• The meeting organizer, or an assigned breakout room manager, must create and open the breakout rooms. Creating rooms is done from the Teams desktop or web app, not from every client.
• Microsoft Whiteboard must be enabled for your organization. If an admin has turned it off, the option will not appear in the share menu.
• Guests and people from other organizations may get view-only access or no access, depending on admin settings. Confirm this before the session if external people will join rooms.
• Use an up-to-date Teams client. The location and naming of sharing options differ between classic Teams, new Teams, the web app and mobile apps.
• Storage location and retention of meeting whiteboards depend on your Teams version and tenant configuration. Treat where the file is saved and who can open it later as something to verify, not something to assume.

Step-by-step instructions

• Organizer: start the meeting, open Breakout rooms from the meeting controls, set up the rooms and assign participants.
• Organizer: open the rooms so participants are moved into them, or so they receive a prompt to join.
• Participant: once inside your room, select Share in the meeting controls.
• In the sharing options, choose Microsoft Whiteboard. Depending on your version, this either opens a new blank board or lets you pick a board.
• Wait for the board to load for everyone in the room. Participants can then draw, add sticky notes, text and other content at the same time.
• Organizer: to check progress, join a room from the Breakout rooms panel. You will see whatever that room is sharing, including its whiteboard.
• When the group is done, the person sharing selects Stop sharing. This ends the live share but does not delete the board.

Only one item can be shared in a room at a time. If someone starts sharing their screen or a file, the whiteboard share stops for the room. The board itself is kept, and it can be shared again from the same menu.

Breakout room work does not automatically appear in the main meeting. When the organizer closes the rooms and everyone returns, a member of each group needs to share their board again in the main session, or export it and post the image in the meeting chat. Agree in advance who in each room will do this.

If you want every room to start from the same template, prepare a board ahead of time and confirm that your Teams version lets participants open an existing board during a meeting. If it does not, give each room a short written prompt in its chat so they can recreate the starting layout on a new board.

Check the output

• Ask a second person in the room to add a sticky note or a stroke. If it appears on your screen, live collaboration is working.
• Check whether external or guest participants can edit or only view. This depends on organization settings, not on the person sharing.
• After the rooms close, look for the board in the breakout room chat, in the main meeting chat or in the Whiteboard app's list of recent boards. Note where your tenant actually places it.
• If you need a record, use the board's export option and confirm the exported image is readable before the meeting ends. Export formats and quality depend on the Whiteboard version you are using.
• Open the board from a different account in your organization, if appropriate, to confirm who can access it after the meeting.

Common problems and next steps

Whiteboard is missing from the share menu: update Teams or try the web app, then confirm with your admin that Whiteboard is enabled for your account. Guest accounts and some mobile clients may not show the option at all.

Some people can see the board but cannot edit it: check the board's sharing or meeting settings, which may limit editing to certain participants, and check whether those people are external users restricted by tenant policy.

The board froze or stopped syncing: have the affected person leave and rejoin the room, or reload the board. Content already synced to the service should still be there.

The group lost its board after returning to the main meeting: search the breakout room chat and the Whiteboard app for recent boards before starting over. If it cannot be found, ask your admin where meeting whiteboards are stored in your organization.

Working on a physical whiteboard instead: some Teams versions can share content from a camera aimed at a wall board. Make sure Teams has camera permission, choose the correct selected camera for that view, and use even lighting without glare so writing stays legible. Higher resolution helps text readability more than frame rate does for a mostly static board.