Slack is one of the most widely used tool in any modern workspace. From quick chats to video calls, thread messages to emojis and GIFs, managing tasks to having fun activities - Slack is a robust collaboration tool that keeps a business team connected on-the-go. While sharing files, managing tasks, and sending chat messages is at the core of Slack, you can also get your team's opinion instantly through polls in Slack. Whether you want opinion of your teams on the new design element or want to decide what to do next Friday, Slack has it all to help you make instant decisions. Use Polls in Slack to create interactive polls and get live results from your team members in a snap.
In this article, we will learn how to create polls in Slack using Slack emojis and third-party polling app(s). Let's get started.
How to set up a Poll in Slack using Emojis?
Polling in Slack is made easy using emojis as they give you a way to capture reactions. Team members can use Slack’s Add Reaction feature to add responses with emojis. For instance, recently I created a poll on Slack for the marketing team to decide our next meet up.
Note: When you are creating a poll with emoji responses, make sure you pick the right kind of emoji.
How to do this?
Type in your question, add the emoji you want against each option and add options. Send it to your channel and wait for your team to add their responses.
If you don't find an appropriate emoji to go with your poll, you can add your own emoji to Slack to use it.
How to add a new emoji to Slack?
1. Click on Add Reaction button and go to Add Emoji
2. Upload your emoji and give it a name
3. Alternatively, you can pick an emoji from the available emoji packs.
Emojis are a great option when you need instant feedback on minute things like what color to use in next design or when to schedule the next meet-up. Queries like these have single answers and it is more about getting the majority votes on one particular option. However, when you want to give your teams multiple options to choose from or ask more elaborate questions that cannot be grouped into 'yes' and 'no' category, emojis may not be sufficient. You will need to create polls that are more interactive in nature.
To create polls with multiple options, multiple questions, anonymous voting, decision capturing, and more, you will need a polling app. Slack's app directory has a host of apps using which you can create polls instantly inside Slack. To create a poll, you need to first head to the Slack app directory.
Try using ‘Polls’ to search for all the relevant apps [unless you are decided which app to use].
Once you've found a polling app that you want to use, add that app to your workspace. Follow these steps to install the app into your workspace. While there are numerous apps to choose from, in this article we will see how to create polls in Slack using Simple Poll app.
How to Make a Poll in Slack using Simple Poll
To add Simple Poll in your Slack workspace, go to App Directory and search for Simple Poll.
Add Simple Poll to your workspace and follow installation steps to get it configured. Once you install it, you can now start creating simple polls in your Slack workspace. There are different ways of creating polls in Slack using Simple Poll. Let's get started.
(1) Turning Slack messages into poll
With Simple Poll you can instantly turn your question into a poll. For instance, you want to know what eateries to arrange in the next team meet. You can type in the question and send to your team channel but that will lead to random answers. You can instead convert this question into a poll with a handful of options. Here's how you can do this:
(1) Click on the More Actions [...] option against your Slack message that you typed in for your team.
(2) Select Turn Question Into Poll option.
(3) Once you select this, the poll builder will open up for you to add options to your question.
(4) If you want to make your poll anonymous, you can check the Make poll anonymous checkbox. Doing this will not show who voted for which option.
(5) Click on continue to proceed and preview your poll.
Check all details. If you want to edit an option or add more options, click on Back to go back to the editing mode. Otherwise, click on Create Poll to post the poll to your channel.
Since I have not created an anonymous poll, I can see who voted for which option. Here’s how the poll will look in your Slack channel.
(2) Using "/poll" to create polls in Slack
Another simple way of creating a poll in Slack using Simple Poll is to use /poll function, and then type your poll question. Below are a few instances of using /poll.
- To create a native poll, type /poll Are you interested in going to SaaS meet tomorrow? “Yes” “No”
Review your question and answer options, and hit Send. Your poll will look like this:
- To create an anonymous poll, type /poll “Are you willing to pay more than $50 for the next team outing?” “Yes” “No” “Not Sure” anonymous
Since you have mentioned ‘anonymous’ all voting results will be anonymous. You will only be able to see how many votes are being cast for each option.
- With Simple Poll, you can also create recurring polls that will recur every month or week or as set by you.
Note: Recurring Polls cannot be created in direct messages. It can only be done in Channels.
To set up a recurring poll, Click on More [...] option against your poll and Click on View Info.
In the next dialog box, click on Set up Recurring Poll option to start editing the poll.
The next screen will show you options to recur the poll either daily, weekly, or monthly. Here, I will set it up to recur weekly every Tuesday and Thursday. You can edit:
- The Start date: From when the poll will start to recur
- Time: At what time it will recur
- Time zone: Pick the time zone convenient for your team to respond to the poll
Once you are done setting up all the information, proceed to Review your poll before scheduling.
Everything looks good? Great. Hit Confirm & Schedule to create a recurring poll.
(3) Create surveys with multiple questions and options
Until now we have created polls with a single question and multiple options to vote for. With Simple Poll, you can also create a detailed survey that can include more than one question and more options to answer.
To create a survey, start by typing /poll in your channel. The moment you type this, options will open up to create polls and surveys. Select Create Survey to get started.
Is this your first survey? Then, you will see this next on your screen:
Click on Create your first survey to proceed. Next, you have to select the type of question you will be asking. It can be:
- Short answer text: Respondents can add free-form texts as responses.
- Single choice: Respondents can choose only one option as response.
- Checkboxes: Respondents can choose more than one choice as a response.
- Template questions: Set of pre-set questions.
In this use case, I will select Checkboxes. Select your choice and proceed. Fill in your first question and options to respond, and click on Add.
This dialog box closes and you return to your survey page. Here you will see your first question created. Below that you will see an option to add another question.
Repeat the same steps of selecting the type of question and adding all the details. Here I have again selected Checkboxes and added options for how many tickets my team members would require.
You can keep adding as many questions as you want.
Note: In free plan you can add up to 5 surveys with 5 questions for a maximum of 5 respondents. To do more, you will need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Once you have done creating questions, the next step is to select an audience for your survey. Since we have done this demo on a free plan, we will select only 5 users to respond. If your Slack channel has only 5 members you can select a Channel. Else, you will need to manually select 5 users [unless you have upgraded to a paid plan already]. For demonstration purposes, I will select 5 users manually.
Once you have everything set-up, click on Preview to re-check everything.
Here’s how your survey in the preview mode should look:
Since I have selected users manually, this survey will go to each one in their personal messages. Once you get responses, it will automatically show up under your surveys:
If you want, you can export this survey result in the form of a CSV using the Export CSV option. Once your survey is complete, you can Close the survey or if you are still waiting for responses, you can add a reminder so that your team members answer on time.
(4) Capture a Survey/Poll Decision
Once you have created a poll or a survey, you get responses to make an informed decision. You can automatically capture the decision from a survey or a poll and post it to your channel for your team members to know what’s the final outcome.
From any poll or survey, click on the More [...] option and select Capture Decision from Poll.
In the next page, enter the final decision from the poll or survey.
You can now add a context to your poll. It can be a link to some menu of a restaurant to choose types of pizza or a textual context or poll link for reference. Once you are done, click on Capture Decision to capture this decision and post it to your channel instantly.
In Conclusion
These were some of the ways in which you can create a poll in Slack using Simple Poll. If you are using any other polling app, the processes will be almost same. So, you can easily pick a polling app of your choice and get started with creating interactive polls in Slack. Till then, happy polling.
