Product updates

Highlights

• Clearer session results status — Participants now see a live status for their session results: not started, in progress, processing, or ready. Results and metrics appear automatically as soon as processing finishes, with no need to refresh.
• "Dialog" experience type renamed to "Custom" — The experience type formerly called Dialog is now called Custom. Behaviour and existing content are unchanged.

Grading

• Completion lateness is now measured from when a session finishes rather than when it starts, so Breakout matches the submission timestamp in your LMS and respects individual deadline extensions.
• New assignments now store their own copy of score mappings, so later changes to an instructor's defaults no longer affect assignments that already exist.
• Fixed grading defaults, including score mappings and final-score visibility, not carrying over correctly when setting up a draft assignment.
• Fixed customizable grading settings being lost when swapping between decks that share the same rubric.
• Fixed the final-grade tooltip showing incorrect information when Camera On Time was used as a grading criterion.
• Fixed teaching assistants being unable to update grading configuration, score mappings, rubric weights, and completion settings on an instructor's behalf. Saving those as section defaults remains limited to the instructor.

Improvements and fixes

• Scheduling reminder emails are now sent only for assignments where participants can actually set or change their meeting time.
• Improved the reliability of live transcription, including automatic recovery and transcript repair if the speech service is interrupted mid-session.
• Improved audio and video resilience: participants can continue with working audio when a camera fails to start, and a microphone no longer appears muted after a solo quiz while speech is still being captured.
• Fixed participants waiting to reconvene being sent back to the processing screen when someone else refreshed or rejoined.
• Fixed long participant names overflowing the mute confirmation dialog in the session room.
• Fixed an insights search that could stay stuck on "Preparing assignment for search".
• Fixed a page-loading loop on the assignment page that could slow the browser down.

Accessibility

• Documented our conformance for the WCAG criteria we currently partially support, as a companion to our accessibility conformance report.

Security

• Strengthened our Content Security Policy by removing inline JavaScript and general eval permissions.

Highlights

• Camera-on time as a completion metric — Instructors can now grade the Completion criterion on camera-on time instead of time in session. Camera-on share is calculated against the full session length, so brief appearances don't earn full credit. A camera icon and tooltip in the gradebook and participant views explain the calculation, and changing the setting on a finished assignment re-grades and re-syncs to the connected LMS automatically.
• Exhibit previews inside the slide — Exhibits attached to the current slide now appear as draggable thumbnail previews, up to three at a time, so participants no longer have to leave the discussion to look at them. The panel collapses to a counter and hides itself on slides without exhibits and during screen sharing.
• Chat and speech together in transcripts — In-session chat messages now appear in chronological order alongside spoken dialogue in the instructor transcript view, marked with a "Chat" label.
• Streamlined individual assignments — Assignments designed for one participant no longer show group and scheduling steps. The participant journey now runs straight from pre-work to session entry.
• Instructions on course materials — Instructional designers can add their own instruction text to course materials, such as "Complete both before the session," shown to participants on the pre-work screen.
• Assignment upgrades on a new experience version — Publishing a new version of an experience now detects assignments that haven't started yet and offers to upgrade the ones you choose, keeping their dates and configuration.
• Email reminders restored for LMS-connected sections — Participants in LMS-connected sections receive standard assignment reminder and update emails again.
• Suggested timers removed from quiz slides — Solo and group quiz slides no longer show a suggested timer, to avoid unnecessary time pressure on self-paced questions. Timers remain available on poll slides.

Improvements and fixes

• Fixed participants who never turned their camera on being recorded as 100% camera-on time; they now correctly score zero.
• Removed chat and scheduling panels from individual assignment pages, where they don't apply, and corrected scheduling status labels on those assignments.
• Fixed the AI participant not joining individual session rooms.
• Fixed the "Next" button staying disabled after an embedded YouTube video finished playing.
• Fixed date pickers being clipped and unscrollable when Breakout is embedded in an LMS.
• Made the "View pre-work" button match the styling of the primary action next to it.
• Corrected wording in the update assignment dialog about grading configuration changes.

Highlights

• Group composition in exports — The gradebook and participants CSV exports now include scheduled and completed group member counts, so you can see group composition and participation at a glance.
• Clearer transaction history for section passes — The participant transactions tab now itemises each purchase and distinguishes a section pass from individual assignment purchases, replacing the previous token-based summary.
• Scheduling reminder email — Participants who haven't scheduled their session yet now receive a reminder five days before the due date.
• Free access period visibility — Assignment pages show a colour-coded badge with the number of days remaining in a class's free access period, for both instructors and participants. The badge disappears once the period ends.
• Brightspace (D2L) new content experience — Added support for the updated D2L content experience, improving compatibility with its editing workflow.

Improvements and fixes

• Added a full-screen view for rubric rows in the evaluation dialog, including a clear empty state when there are no supporting arguments to show.

Highlights

• Screen sharing on the session results slide — Instructors and teaching assistants can now share their screen on the session results slide, making it possible to walk a class through results live. Participants remain unable to share on this slide, and the end-of-session slide stays locked for everyone.
• Active participation before advancing — In individual sessions with the AI participant enabled, the next-slide button stays disabled until the participant has spoken or sent a chat message on the current slide.
• Support chat in the platform — A support chat launcher is now available in the bottom-right corner throughout Breakout for both instructors and participants. It is excluded from the session room and the pre-session quiz.
• LMS shown on class lists — Class lists and breadcrumbs now show a small Canvas or D2L logo, so instructors can see at a glance which classes are LMS-synced.

Accessibility

• Addressed findings from an independent accessibility audit, covering media playback controls, focus management, and keyboard navigation in chat.
• Replaced the legacy slide caption system with standard WebVTT captions for session room videos, improving caption delivery and compatibility with assistive technology.

Improvements and fixes

• Made rubric sorting consistent across the product.

Highlights

• Individual deadlines — Instructors can set a custom deadline for an individual participant from the edit assignment dates dialog, and the change syncs to the connected LMS.
• Finish the end-of-session quiz after leaving early — Participants who leave a session before the end now have up to 30 minutes to complete the end-of-session quiz, from a new action on the assignment overview and details pages.
• Rejoin the group when results are shown — Participants are now isolated only during the quiz or peer review, then automatically rejoin with full audio, video, and chat once results are displayed.
• Free access window for a section — Sections where participants pay can now offer a configurable free access period, letting participants start coursework before payment is required.
• Peer review reminder email — Participants with an outstanding peer review now receive a reminder 24 hours after the session, provided the deadline hasn't passed.
• Starter catalog for new instructors — Newly created instructor accounts now have the Breakout Originals catalog assigned automatically, instead of starting empty.

Accessibility

• Addressed accessibility findings from a university review, including keyboard navigation, ARIA labelling, and screen reader support across the gradebook, quizzes, and peer review.

Improvements and fixes

• Updated the AI contribution grading tooltip for participants and instructors, and added an "This experience is powered by AI" notice to the session waiting room.
• Improved CSV group uploads by matching on LMS ID and full name when a login ID or email isn't available.
• Fixed attendance and completion columns showing dashes on the participants tab because of stale data, along with a header alignment issue on the same table.
• Fixed answer options becoming unresponsive, or the final question disappearing, when refreshing during the end-of-session quiz in Safari.

This release completed customizable grading controls, which are now fully available across standard and LMS assignment workflows.

Highlights

• Customizable grading controls — Instructors can configure custom score mappings and rubric weights, including when creating or editing assignments in Canvas and Brightspace (D2L), and can save their preferences to reuse on future assignments.
• LTI 1.3 Advantage certification — Our LTI integration now supports generic LTI 1.3, in addition to Canvas and D2L, and has been certified by 1EdTech.
• Separate permissions for joining and leaving groups — Instructors now control independently whether participants may join a group and whether they may leave one.

Improvements and fixes

• Fixed being unable to save an assignment as a draft before reaching the grading configuration step.
• Fixed an assignment's late submission date recalculating on its own when the due date changed.
• Added a check that prevents publishing a slide deck when a required media asset has been deleted.
• Publish validation now names the tab and field that need attention, including learning objectives, author, trailer, thumbnail, and slide order.
• Replaced "AI Assessment" labelling in the final score breakdown and grading configuration with neutral "automated grade" wording.

Highlights

• Transcripts for instructors — Instructors with the appropriate permission can now open and read transcripts of completed sessions.
• Email control per organization — Organizations now have a single setting that controls whether Breakout sends outgoing emails to their users.
• Light and dark theme for written content — Markdown content now renders correctly in both light and dark themes.

Accessibility

• Addressed accessibility findings from a university platform review.

Improvements and fixes

• Fixed the bottom of the experience detail page being cut off in the catalog, which hid the preview section.
• Fixed the participant view flickering into a loading state when an instructor updated the section.
• Fixed invalid group assignments when assigning participants to random groups with "fill existing groups" enabled.
• Fixed being unable to edit the available-from time when an assignment's start date was set to today.
• Added a validation message when saving a slide with the video removed while a duration is still required.

Highlights

• Brightspace is now called D2L — All references to Brightspace in the product have been updated to D2L, matching the terminology instructors use.
• Intro videos that adapt to the session — A new intro video slide type plays the appropriate introduction automatically depending on whether a session starts as an individual or a group session.
• Captions on Breakout Originals — Reviewed every Breakout Originals experience in production and attached caption files where they were missing.

Accessibility

• Addressed accessibility findings from a university audit, including keyboard navigation, screen reader support, and colour contrast across key areas of the product.
• Moved the mute control for auto-playing audio to the top of the view experience dialog so keyboard-only users can reach it quickly (WCAG 1.4.2).

Improvements and fixes

• Fixed participants being able to start a session from the homepage when the minimum group size hadn't been met.
• Fixed instructors receiving duplicate assignment results emails, including one for a cancelled assignment.
• Fixed the demo waiting room skipping the device check shown in standard rooms, which allowed joining with a misconfigured device.
• Fixed sessions being schedulable before an experience's start date.
• Fixed the browser back button not keeping the assignment management view in step with the URL, which required pressing back repeatedly.
• Fixed an expanded slide description overflowing onto the slides list on the agenda tab, with no way to collapse it.
• Fixed the catalog breadcrumb on an experience page returning to the library instead of the catalog you came from.
• Fixed rescheduling an incomplete session pre-filling the old date and immediately showing a validation error.
• Fixed dynamic exhibits displaying at a different size from image and markdown exhibits.
• Fixed participant search returning nothing when started from any page other than the first.
• Fixed absent participants not being removed from their group after a session.
• Fixed the talk track field showing a validation error before anything had been typed into it.

Highlights

• Sort participants by first or last name — Instructors can choose how participant names are sorted and displayed, from a menu on the participant name column. The choice applies across the gradebook, results, and section views.
• YouTube videos on video slides — Video slides now accept a YouTube URL as a third video source, with duration detected automatically and support for a start time.
• Ready-made slide variants — Two preset slides are now available: a pre-filled waiting room slide and an agenda slide.
• Formatted slide deck descriptions — Slide deck previews now render the description with its formatting, so headings, links, and lists display properly.

Accessibility

• Fixed the class invitation login page so its items are structured as a list, addressing an accessibility audit finding.
• Fixed keyboard users on the insights tab being able to focus only the first chat.

Improvements and fixes

• Fixed an AI-graded contribution score changing after a session had already been graded.
• Fixed group talk time being calculated incorrectly in CSV exports for participants who stayed muted and took part only through chat.
• Clarified the tooltip for "show final score to participants" to explain that hiding scores in Breakout does not stop grades passing back to the Canvas or D2L gradebook.

Highlights

• Faster live captions — Live captions now appear while someone is still speaking, rather than waiting until they finish, which makes transcription feel much closer to real-time closed captioning.

Accessibility

• Improved contrast on the conversation map chart: each bubble now has a darker border in its own colour.
• Improved keyboard and screen reader handling of pre-work PDF scrolling, the next-slide button, and scrolling on the grading criteria page.

Improvements and fixes

• Chat messages sent during a session now count toward attendance, and participants can send chat messages to the AI participant.
• Fixed incorrect role assignment when teaching assistants used an access link in LMS-connected sections.
• Fixed a permissions error that prevented some participants from viewing their session results.
• Fixed a visual issue when speaking while sharing your screen in the session room.
• Fixed a duplicated tooltip when hovering over a participant avatar.
• Fixed participants on invoiced sections seeing the wrong call to action before starting a session.