Archive Instead of Delete: A Better Way to Manage Options

We're excited to introduce a new feature in PollUnit: Option Archiving.

Until now, organizers had to decide whether to keep an option active or delete it entirely. With archiving, there is now a third option.

Archived options remain part of the PollUnit, but they are excluded from rankings and evaluations. Their votes are ignored, while all data remains available and can be restored at any time.

Why Archive Options?

Deleting an option permanently removes it from your workflow. Archiving allows you to hide options from the current ranking without losing submissions, files, comments, or voting history.

This makes it easier to manage large polls, contests, and long-running voting processes.

Ideal for Photo Contests

A common use case is a photo contest with many submissions.

Imagine a contest with 500 photos. After reviewing the results, you decide that only the best 200 photos should continue to the next phase.

Instead of deleting the remaining photos, simply archive them. The contest becomes much easier to manage, while all submissions remain available for later review.

Because archived options no longer influence rankings, organizers can gradually reduce the number of active entries and focus attention on the strongest candidates.

More Flexible Than Starting Over

Some organizers want to conduct voting in multiple rounds. Until now, this often required creating a new PollUnit or resetting votes, which means losing the previous voting results.

Archiving offers a practical alternative. Instead of starting over, you can simply archive the options that should no longer participate and continue working with the remaining entries.

This preserves all submissions and allows you to narrow down the field without deleting data.

Additional Use Cases

• Feature request and product roadmap voting
• Employee idea management
• Award competitions and jury selections
• Logo, design, and naming contests
• Event and meeting planning
• Community suggestion platforms
• Project prioritization and decision making
• Candidate shortlisting and application reviews
• Bulk Archive and Restore

Managing large numbers of options is easy.

Options can be archived directly from their context menu or from the evaluation area.

The evaluation area now includes multi-select functionality with bulk actions, allowing you to archive or restore multiple options at once.

Keep Your Data, Reduce Complexity

Archiving is a simple but powerful addition to PollUnit. It helps organizers focus on relevant options while keeping all submissions available for future reference.

No data loss. No unnecessary duplicates. Just a cleaner and more flexible workflow.