Session states are managed automatically, so you don’t need to take any action to control them. However, it’s important to start your session before running any polls—participants won’t see the polls until the session is started.
If you’re using a Free account, you can only have one session in the “Started” state at a time. Starting a new session will automatically switch any previously started session into a “Waiting” state. From there, you can choose to start it again later or stop the session completely when you're finished with it.
When you first create a new session it will always be inactive and must manually be started.
For the majority of our accounts, you may only have one started session at any time. All Enterprise plans for Business as well as Pro & Institution plans for Education however, can run concurrent sessions and have more than one session in starting status at any time.
In this section we cover:
- Where to see your session state & start your Powerpoint session
- How to change your session state
- Simulating polling results
Where to see your session state & start your PowerPoint session
The Meetings Session State will appear as soon as you connect your session to the Office 365 Add-in. From here you can see if the session is in the Waiting state, has been Started, or has been Stopped.
No polls, surveys, quiz questions or Q&A can be asked unless your session is started first.
You will also see a notice indicating that your session has not started once you have opened your PowerPoint slide deck. Press the 'Start session' in the task pane to enable the session.
Alternatively press the 'Start session' option in the black instruction box at the top of your dashboard. You can do it immediately after you created your session. Or use the three dots in the task pane to access the dashboard.
Simulating polling results
Unfortunately, the Office 365 Add-in cannot simulate polling results and thus will not have a disabling polling option either.