Polling Station

Owned by Emily Latham
Last updated: Feb 01, 2023 by Emily Carlson
5 min read

Overview

The polling plugin may be used for a one question survey in order to gauge and record the opinion of the club. The Polling Plugin can be placed on any page to be easily accessible to logged in members.

Required Permissions

  • Admin

Initial Setup

After choosing which webpage you would like the poll placed on, the first step will be to contact your dedicated support team who will place the plugin in a specified location. Once placed, the Polling Plugin will be untitled and hidden from members.

Accessing the Tool

  1. Once your Polling Plugin has been inserted into the page, now it is time to access the Polling Manager to complete the setup.

  2. Access the Polling Manager by hovering over Admin then click Polling. You will be taken to a screen that contains two options. These options are: 

    1. Manage Polling Stations

    2. Manage Questions

Managing Polling Stations

  1. Click Manage Polling Stations to choose questions and to enable the polling station. After accessing the Polling Station interface all available polling stations will be listed.

  2. Click on the title to edit the settings of that specific plugin.

  3. Underneath the title, it will either say “enabled” in green or “disabled” in red.  

    1. Enabled: plugin will appear to members on the page

    2. Disabled: plugin is not active and currently hidden from members. 

  4. Location displays the page title that the plugin is on.

  5. To the right will be the question associated with that specific polling station and information about the total amount of responses and the option to view the results.

NOTE: The first time you access your polling station in the manager, it will be titled “untitled” and have “-no question selected” to the right. Ideally, the station will be the only one with the settings (“untitled” and “-no question selected”) assuming all other polls have been set up or discarded if not in use. Keeping organized will help in the long run when implementing new stations or editing existing polls.

Setting the Options & Save

  1. Once you have clicked on the title of the poll, you will see the options for that specific plugin.

    1. Station Title: The name of the poll. This will be displayed on the poll itself as well as the polling manager page.

    2. Location: The title of the page which the plugin is located. This is not displayed to members.

    3. Display Question: The question that is shown to the member. The question can be added or changed here. Editing the question can be done here or within the question manager.

  2. Polling Options

    1. Enable users to change their answer: Allows users to re-submit their entry as a different choice, as long as the poll has not expired.

    2. Poll expires on: sets the auto-expiration date to make the poll no longer active. This can be left empty.

  3. Display Options

    1. Enable this station to be viewed by users: Allows this poll to be seen by any member status. If unchecked, only admins will see the station on the page.

    2. Show users answer: Displays the input submitted after they have made their choice.

    3. Show border around poll: Displays a border around the plugin once it is displayed.

    4. Show total vote count to user: Displays the total number of submissions a specific poll has received.

    5. Hide overall voting results from user: If checked, the users submission and the total number of submissions will be hidden from users. If this is checked then you can edit the message that will be displayed once a choice has been submitted.

  4. Once you have set the desired settings, you will want to press save station. After you have saved the settings, you will receive a message that says “The polling station has been updated”. From here you can click here to continue and you will be taken back to the station manager screen.

Manage Questions

  1. The Manage Questions page can be accessed in two ways: From the main Polling Manager page or from the Display Question option while editing a specific polling question

  2. This will launch the Manage Questions Page which will list any questions that have already been created. You will also see the amount of submissions for each question on the right hand side. You can either click on a pre-existing question to edit it, or click on the link that will say Click here to add a new question.

Create a New Question

  1. Clicking on the link that says Click here to add a new question will open the Polling Question Edit Screen. Type the question for the poll in the Question box.

  2. Underneath are sections for up to 15 answers. The Show? check box needs to be checked for each answer that you wish to be displayed.

  3. Once you have a question and answers you will want to select Save Question.

Active Plugin View

Once you have the polling station set up and your question selected, visit the page where the plugin was placed to view the active poll. Once members vote, they will then be shown the information based on the settings set earlier. This information may be the current results, the total number of submissions and their own submission as well.

Polling Results

  1. While viewing the polling stations, on the right hand side where the questions are listed, there will be a link that says view results.

  2.  Clicking view results will take you to a page with poll results. This page displays the answers to the question, the number of responses, and the percentage of the total. You have several options on this page:

    1. Export Poll Results: This will download the results in an excel file that displays the answer data.

    2.  Show Graph: This will take you to a page that will visualize the answers in a bar graph.

    3.  Rest all votes to zero: This will reset all previous answers of the poll to zero.

Best Practices

  1. Placing a poll on your homepage will guarantee that it will have the maximum amount of exposure.

  2.  It is important to maintain your polls and disable or delete any that do not need to be used any longer.

  3.  Polls are perfect for one off questions. If there are multiple questions that need answered, ask your dedicated support team about forms and surveys.

  4.  Bring attention to any poll you may have with an email and link to the corresponding page.

FAQs

  1. Once a poll is disabled can I reuse it? A: You can enable a disabled poll, by going to the Polling Manager, and click the Poll Title. On the Edit Polling Station Interface, use the Polling Options section to update the Poll Expires On section to a later date by using the Date Picker. Save, and the disabled poll will now be enabled.

  2. Can I export poll results? A: Export poll results, by accessing the Polling Manager. On the right hand side of the listed polls, under the Question, click View Results. Once in the Polling Results, click the button Export Poll Results to export to a CSV.