About Poll sessions

 

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You can add interactive (Q&A, poll and survey) and non-interactive sessions in any order. By default, sessions are ordered and appear in the Audience Web App by their start and end timings. When two sessions have identical start and end times, the session added first will be displayed first. You can also choose to order the sessions manually. Our recommendation is to set up sessions in the order defined in your event agenda.

Changes made to any session details via your Workspace will apply in the Audience Web App and Panels instantly.

Poll session type is designed for speakers and/or organisers to poll audiences in real-time, automatically showing the results in the form of a bar or pie chart on the Projector via our Projector Panel interface. A Poll consists of a question, as well as several defined text answers.

Adding a Poll is similar to adding other session types. In this article, we will guide you through the individual fields and options when adding a Poll session type.

Add new Poll session

Go to the Agenda page:

Then click on the Add Session button, then select a poll of your choice. If you change to another session type, content entered in the previous session type will be lost when you click the Add button.


Name

This is the name of the poll. If you don't have a name for your poll, you can call it Poll 1, Poll 2 and so on. Across our interfaces (e.g. Projector Panel), we use both the poll name and poll question to help you differentiate between polls.

Required, cannot be blank. Name of poll should have a length of 3 to 100 characters.

Description

Use this to provide additional context to the poll question. It will appear in the Agenda on the Audience Web App as well as within the session's About this Poll section. When the Agenda first loads, only the first two lines of the description will be visible on the Agenda. The full description will only be visible when the attendee taps to expand the description.

Optional, can be blank. You are limited to 500 characters of text. Line breaks are retained. Basic text formatting is supported through Markdown (see Markdown support).

Nesting

If this poll activity takes place during a speaker or panel discussion session, we recommend nesting this poll within that Q&A or Regular session. Select the Q&A or Regular session to nest this poll within. Nested polls will not appear in the Agenda, but rather, only within the Audience Web App Q&A or Regular session page. There will however be a poll icon for this Q&A/Regular session on the Agenda to indicate that there are nested polls. This setup makes it simple for the attendee, who is probably on the Q&A or Regular session page already.

Time

Choose your session start and end date/time according to your event agenda. The start and end dates are constrained by your Pigeonhole Duration.

Important
Once a session starts, you cannot change the session start time or remove the session.

Suggestions on setting the start and end date/time

Scenario Setup recommendation
Nested Poll The start and end time should be similar or within the date/time duration of the Q&A or Regular session.
Collect votes, reveal results later
Audience vote first, then results can be revealed later on screen
Set the start time to when attendees can start voting on the poll. Keep it open as long as you wish, whether before or after poll results are revealed on the projector screen.
Collect votes live
Audience vote and see results appear live on screen
Set the start time to when attendees can start voting on the poll. Keep it open as long as you wish, whether before or after poll results are revealed on the projector screen.

If there are changes to the session start or end timings, you can edit the session to update the timings. Alternatively, on your Agenda page, the session dropdown menu provides several quick functions (dependent on the session state) to change the start/end timings. As usual, changes to timings are applied immediately across all interfaces including the Audience Web App.

See what happens when an interactive session ends?

Moderators and Speakers

See Adding Speakers for more information.

To add speakers or moderators to this Poll session, click on either Add Moderator or Add Speaker. A small dialog will appear to allow you to select any available Speakers. You can also add new Speakers here, but this function currently does not support uploading profile pictures - you'll need to go to the Speakers page to do that.

Roles (moderator/speaker) indicated here are distinct to this session. That means, the same speaker can have a different role in another session.

As you populate the speakers and moderators involved in each session, we automatically compile a list of sessions that each speaker is involved in and display them alongside the speaker's profile page.

Poll type

You can choose between multiple choice, open-text poll, word cloud and quiz. Multiple choice poll type requires you to define the options that attendees will vote on as the answer to your poll question. Open-text poll allows you to collect all types of textual answers to your poll question. Quiz requires you to define both the options that the attendees will vote on as answers as well as the correct answer to each question and allows you to grade your attendees instantly.

Projector chart type

You can choose how the poll results are presented on the Projector Panel. Beyond aesthetics, certain chart types offer better readability of the text on screen depending on the length and number of the poll options.

Poll type Chart type Recommendation
Multiple choice Vertical Bar Chart (default) Shows up to 6 poll options of varying length. Ideal for mid length poll option text. If there are more than 6 poll options, only the top 6 poll options will be shown at any one time.
Horizontal Bar Chart Shows up to 6 poll options of varying length. Ideal for longer poll option text. If there are more than 6 poll options, only the top 6 poll options will be shown at any one time.
Pie Chart Supports more than 6 poll options of varying length. Suitable for poll option text that are short and concise. Not recommended for poll option text that are long.
Open-text Grid (default) Shows the top 9 answers in a grid display. As answers are voted up, each answer box will move up in position until it's the top voted answer positioned at the top left corner. It is possible to scroll down to reveal other answers, but it will require mouse/cursor actions to control. Used together with the Admin Panel, it's possible to expand an answer larger, to focus viewers attention on this single answer.
Word cloud Shows as many poll answers where possible. Top voted answers are sized larger, and more prominent, than answers with lower votes. Answers are also randomly positioned and will gravitate to the centre of the screen. This can be a highly visual representation of short text answers. Because this chart type only works when answers are short, answers may not be more than 4 words and a total of 40 characters in length. You can reduce the number of words or characters, but it cannot exceed 4 words and 40 characters.

Because there is no automatic detection of keywords or similar phrases, it is recommended to enable answer filtering to ensure no similar or duplicated answers are posted.
Quiz  Vertical Bar Chart (default)/Horizontal Bar Chart/ Pie Chart  Shows up to 6 poll options with the correct answer. If there are more than 6 poll options, only the top 6 poll options will be shown at any one time.

Poll question

Enter the question you wish to poll your attendees on.

Required, cannot be blank. Question should have a length of 4 to 200 characters.

Answer options

The answer options and length restrictions depend on the poll type and chart type.

Poll type Chart type Answer options
Multiple choice Vertical bar chart / Horizontal bar chart / Pie chart Enter the answers that attendees can vote on. You need to provide at least two answers. The maximum number of answers allowed is six. If you require more answers, please submit a support request. Each answer should have a length of 1 to 65 characters.
Open-text Grid Attendees can enter as many answers, with each answer up to 200 characters in length.
Word cloud Attendees can enter as many answers, but each answer is restricted to a maximum 4 words and 40 characters in length. The number of words, and characters, can be customised, as long as it is below 4 words and 40 characters.
Quiz Vertical bar chart/Horizontal bar chart / Pie chart Enter the answers that attendees can vote on. You need to provide at least two answers and one correct answer. The maximum number of answers allowed is six. Each answer should have a length of 1 to 65 characters.

Votes per user

(Applies only to multiple choice poll type)

Allow attendees to vote on one or more answers. Setting a value of 2 for example, would allow attendees to vote on up to 2 answers. However, some may also choose to vote on 1 answer only.

Options

Option Explanation
Comments Allow attendees to leave comments on the poll. Comments cannot be filtered. Comments do not appear on the Projector Panel by default unless you intentionally bring it up on screen by clicking on the chart. Comments posted will be tied to answer(s) that attendees vote on. See Comments in Q&A and Poll sessions.
Anonymous responses Allows votes and comments to be submitted anonymously. When disabled, attendees need to create a profile before they can vote or post comments (if enabled). Regardless of this option, all content within this Poll session is still viewable. If anonymity is enabled, attendees can still create profiles but it is optional. If the attendee has created a profile and anonymity is allowed, they will have an option to post comments (if enabled) anonymously. There is currently no option to vote on the poll anonymously if they have signed in. See Preserving Attendee Anonymity.
Answer filtering (Open-text Poll type) Approve or dismiss attendee answers before they are seen on screen. This is done via the Admin Panel interface. Answers not approved will never be visible to anyone else. As part of the approval process, you can also edit the answer text.
Show poll result after voting (Multiple choice Poll type) Once attendees cast their votes, this option will reveal the current results of the poll to them. If they remain on this Poll session page, the results will also update as it changes. Poll results will never be revealed to attendees before they vote.
Attendees can change their vote (Multiple choice Poll type) Allows attendees to change their mind and vote on another answer. This happens even when they have seen the poll results. A minimum of one vote must be cast, so attendees will be unable to remove their only vote.
Poll can be viewed after Poll has ended Allow attendees to enter the Poll even after it has ended. If disabled, attendees will be locked out of the Poll session when it ends.

Next: Add other Session types