Opening and closing of polls can be done either in Present view (preferred method) or from the dashboard. To open & close a poll in present view mode read this article.
If you want to run a poll from the dashboard instead, see the steps below.
From the dashboard you can easily:
- Start your poll
- Stop your poll
- Hide/display your voting results
- Continue to next poll
- Displaying non-polling content
- Skip a few polls
- Show correct answer
- Reopen a poll
- Cancel a poll
- Add countdown timer
- Show the leaderboard
- Go fullscreen
- See how many participants are connected to the session
- Share read-only Presentview
- Default to Q&A board
1. Start your poll
Once you've created your polls in the dashboard, you can look at the process of asking these questions to your participants.
Go to the Polls section on the navigation menu on the left.
Identify the poll you wish to open and press the 'Open poll' button on the bottom of the question.
The poll is now open on your participants devices, and you can view the votes live as they come in.
Remember: The default setting is that you would see the poll results come as they are submitted in the dashboard, but your participants will only see the results once the poll has been closed.
To the right of your poll, a copy/ thumbnail of Present view will indicate exactly what your participants are seeing on the big screen, be it at a venue or on a laptop screen in a virtual meeting. The same poll will also appear on participant devices where they can make their relevant choices. Underneath Present view, the leaderboard will be displayed.
2. Stop your poll
You can close a poll by clicking the ‘Stop poll’ button. No votes will be received once the poll is stopped. Keep an eye out for the counter on the top right corner and wait till the majority of your results are in. Here 12 participants have already cast their votes. The present view will show the results for all to see.
3. Hide/display your voting results
Within the dashboard, you can decide to show or hide the results, even if your session settings are set to automatically display the result on poll close (default setting).
Results can be shared with the participants whilst the vote is open or after the poll has been closed by selecting the ‘Show results’ option.
If you would like to hide the results of the specific poll, press the ‘Hide results’ button. All voting results will be hidden, and the Present view display will revert to the Q&A board.
4. Continue to the next poll
Continue to the next poll by scrolling down the dashboard. Once you've run your first poll of the session, your subsequent polls will appear ready for you to hit ‘Open poll’ again. You can control the speed at which the polls are asked and guide the conversation as the session progress.
5. Displaying non-polling content
Any non-polling content you've added to your presentation will appear in the polling section, marked by a ‘Show content’ button. You can insert these content slides at any point between your polls.
To view the content, click ‘Show content’. When you're ready to move on, click ‘Dismiss’ before continuing to the next piece of content or poll.
6. Skip a few polls
You can also decide to jump a poll(s) by moving down the polls in the dashboard and selecting the poll you would like to ask next.
If the previous poll has not yet been stopped, a warning message will appear telling you that you can move on to the next poll and that no results will be lost without closing the initial poll first. Select ‘Yes’ and then open the new poll.
7. Show correct answer
When your participants have finished voting, it is possible to first share the voting results and then also share the correct answer (if your polls had correct answers allocated to them).
To do this first stop the polling. If your settings was to automatically share results when poll is closed the participants will be able to see the votes. Select the ‘Show the correct answer’ button to also share the right vote.
Present view showing the voting results and correct answer on the big screen as well as on participant devices.
Closed the poll to quickly, or would you like to explain the question again before asking? For this handy option click on the 'Reopen' button underneath the question. Select it and your poll will automatically open up again. Participants who have already answered the poll, will see their previous selection on the participant device. They can keep it the same or clear and change their vote. Participants who had not yet voted will also be able to cast their vote.
Use the interactive display in Present view to toggle between a pie chart and a bar chart by selecting the result display type icon on the far right. (Note: Pie charts are only available with Presenter plans and above.) The same method can be used to switch between demographic polls.
9. Cancel a poll
It might happen that you decide not to ask a question after you opened the poll. To cancel the poll, select the ‘Cancel Poll’ button to skip the question. The present view will revert to the Q&A board, and you can move on to the next poll. No results will be saved.
10. Add a countdown timer
When using a countdown timer, you can either:
- Start a 10 second countdown timer
- Start a longer countdown timer
- Add more time to your running countdown timer
- Pause the countdown timer
- Cancel the countdown timer
Start a 10 second countdown timer
To use a default 10 second countdown timer, press the 'start timer' button. The poll will close automatically when the timer reaches zero.
- Participants can start voting as soon as the poll is open.
- They do not need to wait for the timer to start.
- The timer's default setting will always be 10 seconds. The poll will close automatically when the timer reaches zero.
Start a longer countdown timer
If you know you want the timer to be longer, first select the 30 sec or 1 min in the 'Time adjustment' option next to the 'start timer' button. Then press 'Start timer' to start the countdown. All consecutive countdown timers that are activated will remember the new time setting.
Add more time to your running countdown timer
If you have started your timer but decide to add more time, use the 'Time adjustment' option. When you click on the 10 sec, 30 sec or 1 min – it will automatically be added to the timer already running.
Should you wish to explain the question while the countdown timer is running, pause the timer and press resume when you are ready to continue with the timer again. (Participants can still vote when the timer is in pause or cancel mode).
The countdown timer can also be canceled. However, it will not close the poll.
11. Show the leaderboard
You can show a leaderboard anytime during your session when you have set up correct answers in your polls. Simply press the 'Display leaderboard' button on the right. A summary leaderboard will appear on the Present view while an individual leaderboard will appear on participant devices. You can close the leaderboard from within the dashboard again by selecting the 'Close leaderboard' button.
If you have not set up any correct answers in your session, no leaderboard icon will show.
The leaderboard will update as polling continue.
Present view showing the summary leaderboard.
In this example, one participant is in 1st place, having answered 3/3 questions correctly. Six participants share 3rd place, having 1/3 answers correctly. The average score per participant is 0.8 out of 3 (three questions were asked so far). 13 participants took part in the quiz, and the most difficult question is also displayed on the leaderboard.
View of participant devices when leaderboard is showing.
12. Go fullscreen
This shortcut allows the presenter to enter and exit full screen in Present view. Press 'Esc' again to exit the full screen.
13. See how many participants are connected to the session
To confirm how many participants are currently connected to your session look in your dashboard top right. In this example 14 participants are connected, but as this is an Enterprise plan, you can have up to 5000 participants in one session.
In the Present view, when the poll is still open, you can see that 26 participants have already cast their votes and that a total of 31 participants are connected to your session.
14. Share read-only Present view
If you want to share the Present view with a colleague or share the screen with a Present view that is read-only (it has no visible control bar), then select the 'Sharing' option from the thumbnail, copy the link and share it or open it in a new tab.
15.Default to Q&A board
Running polls will always default back to the Q&A message board in between polling (unless the Q&A function is de-activated).