Quick Polls are one-question surveys designed for community engagement. They allow members to compare their responses with others in real time and are displayed on activity cards on the community homepage. 

Polls are a great way to engage with members and allow them to see how their response compares to the rest of the community. They're also useful when you have a simple question that does not require a larger survey with multiple questions.

Creating a poll involves selecting a question type (single or multiple choice), adding questions and answers, and saving the poll. Polls can be attached to activities, with options to show or hide results upon submission. Moderators can view results but cannot participate. Poll results can be exported through an activity export, and polls can be archived to prevent further participation.

NOTE: These polls should not be confused with Poll Questions as Profile Points, which are used as member profile points.

View Polls

Navigate to Surveys > Polls. The list of already created polls includes the following information:

• Reference—This is the Question Reference.
• Question—This is the Question Message.
• Created Date
• Category
• Type

The actions menu in the rightmost column contains the following actions you can take on that poll:

• Archive
• Copy—The copied poll will not be created until 'Save' is clicked from the edit page — just clicking Copy does not immediately create a new poll.

Create a Poll

1. First, you'll need to create the poll question. Navigate to Surveys > Polls.
2. Click the "+" button to start a new poll.
3. Only the following question types are permissible as Poll questions:
   • Single Choice
   • Multiple Choice
4. Once you select the question type, add the Question and Answer options.
   
   • When editing an answer, the meaning should be preserved, otherwise it might alter the question-answer logic for users who already answered.
   • Answers cannot be deleted once they've been saved.
   • New answers are always added at the bottom of the list.
   • Question Reference is used for exports and profiling points. It is a shortened version of the question text without spaces or special characters.
   • Question Message is the user-friendly version of the question text that is displayed to members when they take the poll.
   • Answer Reference is used for exports and profiling points. It is a shortened version of the answer text without spaces or special characters.
   • Answer Message is the user-friendly version of the answer text that is displayed to members when they take the poll.
   • The "eye" icon next to each answer option controls if the answer option is displayed to members. You cannot remove or delete an answer option after saving the poll. However, if you no longer want an answer option to display in the poll, you can return to the Edit Poll page and deselect the eye icon, which will hide it from the member view.
   • The "lock" icon locks the position of that question in the poll order.
   • The "letter A" icon enables a text option for single or multiple-choice questions. These text options cannot be blank. Text-answer options have a 50-character limit and allow special characters, but not emojis.
5. Save your poll.

Add Poll to an Activity

You now need to create a new activity to publish this as a Poll. Go to the Activities menu on the left and click the + button to start a new activity.

1. You need to fill out the "Activity Details" step. Most of the details will not apply to the Poll, but you do need to provide all required fields.
   • Tips on required fields:
     • Title—This does not display to members. You can give this activity any name you prefer for moderation purposes.
     • Category—While you do need to select a category, the Poll displays only on the homepage.
     • Activity Card Description—This does not display to members, but you do need to provide text here. You can enter whatever you like in this field.
2. Click Save & Continue to create the activity.
3. Click the Attach Surveys tab to skip ahead (you do not need to fill out Description or Attach Media). Here, you will see new options to turn the activity into a Quick Poll.
   
4. Select the type Quick Poll 
5. Type the question text in the Choose Poll field. As you type, matching polls will display. Select the poll you want to use.
6. Once you select the poll, choose Show poll results after submit or Hide poll results.
   • If you choose to show the results to members, the members will immediately see the results of the poll after submitting their own answers. The results will continue to display to the member until the activity is closed.
   • If you choose to hide results, you will be prompted to enter the Thank You text that will display to the member after they submit the poll. When results are hidden, the poll activity card will no longer display after the member leaves the page.

     Only 1 poll can be attached to a Poll activity.

7. After attaching the poll to the activity, continue to the Invite and Schedule tabs.
   • Invite works the same as any activity. You can choose to publish the poll to all members or a select segment of members.
   • Schedule also works the same as any activity. You can schedule the start and end times for the poll in this section.

When you login to the community with your moderator account, you'll only see the results of the poll because you cannot participate as a moderator. If no responses have been submitted yet, you'll see the question text and the chart will be empty/blank because no responses have been submitted. As soon as the first response is submitted, the chart will update to show real-time results as they are posted.

To view the Poll as a member, log in to the community with a Test Member account.

Quick Poll Member Experience

Polls use the community button color (Settings > General Settings) for the results chart. The chart will be either a pie chart for single-choice or a bar chart for multiple-choice. The colors will be shades of the button color.

If a poll has a lot of answer options, it will initially show as truncated in the card as follows:

When the user clicks anywhere on the card, an overlay will display the full question that the member can answer.

Once the user submits an answer, the overlay closes and the page will refresh to show the poll results in the card or the Thank You message depending on the settings for the Poll.

The truncated poll view will only happen on desktop browsers where the activity cards are a fixed height. On the mobile browser or mobile app, the card will adjust vertically to account for the number of answer options.

Export a Poll

To export the results of a poll, you must perform an Activity Export of the activity that the poll is attached to. The resulting file will contain the overall results in the first sheet, and then a list of members' responses in the second sheet.

Archive a Poll

Archive a poll so that members won't be able to take the poll.

Archived polls cannot be used in activities.

When viewing your poll list, select the Actions menu in the rightmost column on the same row as your poll, then click Archive.