PollUnit Help
What can i do with PollUnit
With PollUnit you can create online polls and tables, as well as distribute tasks. Participation is also possible without registration.
Create voting
PollUnit was designed to easily make decisions in groups. We offer different methods for decision making. You can combine these methods and functions freely and create polls, todo lists, prioritizations and much more and adapt them to your needs.
PollUnit works like this:
- Create a PollUnit and choose what to vote on
- Send the link to your PollUnit to all participants
- Give your attendees time to vote
- Send the result of your PollUnit to all participants
Create table
With an online table of PollUnit, you can collect information per table column from your participants. Each participant appears in a row of your table.
Collect ideas
With PollUnit you can also collect and rate ideas. Participants can add their ideas with a title and a description. Then all participants can rate and comment on these ideas. This method is ideal for brainstorming. From the best ideas you can also create a vote to find out the best idea.
Create a survey with several questions
Soon you will be able to create questionnaires.
Organize a photo contest
A PollUnit photo contest is an online gallery with large thumbnails and the possibility to vote - on demand also with photo uploader to collect the work of others.
YouTube contest
Voting on videos published on YouTube.
YouTube ID
The YouTube ID is a string that uniquely identifies the video on YouTube. You can find this number on YouTube in the »Share« dialog at the end of the URL. Alternatively, you can insert the YouTube link and we will extract the YouTube ID for you.
Vimeo ID
The Vimeo ID is a string that uniquely identifies the video on Vimeo. You can find this number on Vimeo in the »Share« dialog at the end of the URL. Alternatively, you can insert the Vimeo link and we will extract the Vimeo ID for you.
Audio contest
A PollUnit music contest is an online playlist with the possibility to vote and a uploader for Participants.
Create a PollUnit
With the PollUnit wizard you can easily create in 5 simple steps polls, photo and video contest, surveys, staff lists, or prioritizations.
Choose a poll type
To enter the wizard for creating your poll, click on »Create PollUnit« and select the target of your poll. First you have to decide whether you want the best option (the option with the most votes) or whether you want to distribute the options or tasks automatically among your participants. Then start the poll wizard by clicking on the option type (e.g. date).
Wizard 1 - Basic settings
In the basic settings you determine the title of your PollUnit, the target and voting type of the poll. You can also add a description and location to your poll.
Wizard 2 - Options
Here you can add your options to your poll. Depending on your poll type setting in Wizard Step 1, you can enter dates, time periods, pictures or free text.
In Wizard Step 4 (Advanced) you can enable your participants to add theire own options.
Wizard 3 - Design
In the design step you can customize your PollUnit. You can choose from several ready-made themes. In addition, you have various effects available such as snow or fireflies.
As a premium user, you can also create your own design and as a business user you can upload your own logos and use them in your poll.
Wizard 4 - Advanced
In the advanced settings you can activate various functions. Please refer to the section "Advanced settings".
Invitations
You can invite people directly in you PollUnit. You can inform your users in 4 different ways.
Invite groups and teams und Teams
You can invite whole groups to your poll. You can manage these groups on the »My groups« page. To add a group to your PollUnit you have to check the corresponding group. You can find more information here in the section »My Account«.
Invite users via email
You can automatically invite your user via PollUnit by entering their e-mail addresses. You can give PollUnit access to your Google Contacts; this simplifies the input of the e-mail addresses.
Share participant link
The participant link is an encrypted link. This link gives your users access to your PollUnit. You can share this link by e-mail and messenger of choice or post it on your homepage.
Share admin link
The admin link works like the participant link with one important difference. With the admin link the user gets basic permission to edit your PollUnit. To use all functions of a PollUnit together, you can also create an organization.
Share a PollUnit via WhatsApp, Facebook...
With a click on the appropriate provider such as WhatsApp, Facebook or Twitter, you can share the participant link.
Poll types
The poll type describes the type of your options. You can change the poll type in the poll wizard step 1 (PollUnit),
Freetext
Voting on freely selectable texts. Ideal for staff lists, brainstorming and anything that can be expressed in words.
Images / Files
Voting on pictures incl. Gallery or files. This type of survey allows you and your participants to upload and rate images or files.
Date
Vote for a date. Ideal for finding appointments for a full day.
Date with time
Vote on a date. Ideal for appointments.
Date range
Voting on date periods. Ideal for appointments over several days.
Time range
Voting on time periods.
Poll target
You can choose between 3 different poll targets. The setting can be found in the wizard step 1 (PollUnit) in the schema settings for advanced users.
Find best option
The option with the most votes is the best option. Choose this, if for instance you want to find a common appointment.
Best distribution of options
This Method tries to distribute options among participants, so that everyone gets the option he/she likes.
Choose this method, when You for example want to create a service schedule: A set of dates has to be distributed among the participants.
Lowest resistance
This method is looking for the option with the highest acceptance in a group. Your participants can cast resistance votes. The options with the least rejection wins.
Vote types
You can choose between 5 different types of votes. The setting can be found in the wizard step 1 (PollUnit) in the schema settings for advanced users.
If the PollUnit target is »Lowest resistance«, negative votes are collected instead of positive.
Yes / No
Voting with Yes, No and abstain. Negative votes are subtracted from positive votes.
Yes
Simple upvoting. Only positive votes are counted.
Upvote with like button
Simple voting by liking with thumb up symbol. With the target »Lowest resistance« the thumb up becomes a thumb down symbol.
Upvote with hearts
Simple voting with heart symbol. With the target »Lowest resistance« the heart becomes a broken heart.
Range voting
Participants can rate options with points from a given interval.
Minimum
Defines the minimum number of points that a participant must award.
Maximum
Defines the maximum number of points a participant may award.
Star rating
Users can rate options with 0-5 stars.
Stars per option / image
Defines the maximum stars a user can assign to one option / image.
Dot-Voting
Dot Voting is a method to evaluate ideas and to prioritize selections and decisions in a group. And this is how it works:
- Each participant receives a fixed number of points
- Each participant distributes his points to the options
- The option with the most points wins
With the poll target 'least resistance' you can flip the rating and the option wins with the least negative votes.
Dots per option / image
Defines the maximum points a user can assign to one option / image.
Dots per voter
Defines the amount of points a user can distribute among the options.
Average calculation
Voted participants
Only participants who have voted for an option / image will be considered: For example, if there are 5 participants and 3 of them have rated an option / picture with 5 stars, the average is 5.
All participants
All participants are considered: For example, if there are 5 participants and 3 of them have rated an option / picture with 5 stars, the average is 3.
Advanced settings
The advanced settings can be found in the wizard Step 4 (Advanced)
Allow voting
If this option is deselected, voting in your PollUnit is not possible. Voting can be activated at any time. In combination with »Allow new options«, you can use PollUnit to collect options and photos before opening the poll for voting.
Allow table entry
If this option is deselected, no entry can be inserted in the PollUnit. This option is only available in the PollUnit tables.
Anonymize voters
All names of the voters will be made anonymous. Instead of a name, everyone gets a random anonymous name, e.g. Anonymous-12345678. Even admins cannot see the real names anymore. Once this setting is activated and participants have already voted, you cannot undo this setting.
Voting start and deadline
Set a start time and/or deadline if you want to allow voting only in a certain period of time. The time you choose is your local time.
Request additional participant information
Request any information such as email address, companions, birthday, etc.. Only after entering the information users may vote.
You do not need to create an additional email field here if you choose »Users must confirm their information«.
The information is only visible to the admins of your PollUnit.
Comments
Your PollUnit's participants are allowed to write comments.
Allow new options / images / columns
Allows participants depending on your poll type to add new options / images / columns to your PollUnit.
Approval required
Optionally, participants' options must be approved by an admin before they are published. The options will only become visible to the participants after the admin has given his consent.
As admin you get access to a submission approval dashboard.
Creators / submitters must specify names
Creators / submitters must give their name. When this option is unchecked, the names for all are hidden.
Limit number of voting options / images / columns per participant
Allow only a certain number of voting options / pictures / columns per participant. For example, in a photo contest you can make sure that a participant can only submit one picture. Under »Limit access« you can control that multiple entries are prevented.
Submission start and deadline
Set a start time and/or deadline if you want to allow submission only in a certain period of time. The time you choose is your local time.
Request confirmation email (double opt-in)
In order to confirm the information entered, the email address of the user is also requested. An email is sent to the user with the request to confirm the entered information.
This can be used, for example, to get permission from the user to send marketing emails. By confirming this information by email, this step is also privacy compliant.
Request additional option / idea / image / column creator information
Request any information such as email address, copyright information, photographer name, etc.. Only after entering the information users may add options.
You do not need to create an additional email field here if you choose »Users must confirm their information«.
The information is only visible to the admins of your PollUnit.
Mandatory field (*)
If a field has been marked as mandatory, the participant must fill in this field.
Change fields during runtime
Existing participants do not have to fill in new mandatory fields. Deleted fields are no longer included in the evaluation.
Custom PollUnit URL
For example: pollunit.com/polls/CUSTOM.
Allowed characters
A-Z, a-z, 0-9, - and _
Limit participations
Secure your votings against multiple participations by various security measures.
Allow multiple participations with one device
Shows a button in your poll, which can be used to start a new participation under a different name.
Allow only one participation
By setting a Cookie when voted, no other participant can vote from the same browser. Caution! Cookies can easily be deleted by participants. Therefore, this option offers very little security.
IP Security Check
After voting the IP address of the participant will be blocked for further votes. Attention! In many companies and universities, employees have the same IP address, so only one of them could vote. The IP address can also be manipulated. Therefore this option offers only a low security.
PollUnit account required
When »PollUnit account required« is selected, only users, who are registered at PollUnit, are allow to participate in this PollUnit.
Invitation required
When »Invitation required« is selected, only users who have received an invitation can participate in this PollUnit. In this case users do not need a PollUnit account. The invitation links can be automatically sent to provided email addresses by PollUnit. You can also send these manually so that you can e.g. can share them via WhatsApp or other messengers.
Invitation and PollUnit account required
When »Invitation and PollUnit account required« is selected, only users who have received an invitation can participate in this PollUnit (Users must have a PollUnit account or have to register when they receive the invitation).
Participation only via Slack
With »Participation only via Slack« the participants can only vote via Slack app. This way you make sure that only people who have an account in your Slack workspace can vote.
Allow access only with invitation
With »Allow access only with invitation« users can only access the PollUnit with an invitation. So only invited users are allowed to view the PollUnit.
Private »Hide Votes«
In a private PollUnit with hidden votes, participants cannot see other participants' votes. However the creator can view the result at any time.
Hide award of the best choice
Usually the best choice is highlighted during the voting. You can disable this so that participants are not influenced by it.
Private »Hide voters«
In a private PollUnit with hidden voters, participants cannot see voters. Even after the PollUnit is closed, the voters remain hidden. However the creator can view the result at any time
Limited evaluation
The hidden voters of a PollUnit can be seen in the evaluation only by the creator.
Limited Activity Log
If the voters are hidden, their votes will not appear in the activity log.
Hide file / image title
Hides the title or file name in the participant link. The name is visible in the admin link and the evaluation.
Settings only accessible for file and image votings
You can activate this setting in wizard step 2.
Hide name of photographer
Hides the name of the photographer in the participant link. The name is visible in the admin link and the evaluation.
Settings only accessible for photo contests
You can activate this setting in wizard step »Advanced«.
Hide name of idea creator
Hides the name of the idea creator in the participant link. The name is visible in the admin link and the evaluation.
Settings only accessible for idea collections
You can activate this setting in wizard step »Advanced«.
Minimum resolution
If the pixel requirement is not met, participation will not be permitted. The following table shows the printability using a 3:2 aspect ratio.
| Resolution | 15 x 10 cm | 30 x 20 cm | 60 x 40 cm | 80 x 60 cm |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Mpx 1732 x 1155 | ||||
| 4 Mpx 2449 x 1633 | ||||
| 6 Mpx 3000 x 2000 | ||||
| 8 Mpx 3464 x 2309 | ||||
| 12 Mpx 4242 x 2828 | ||||
| 16 Mpx 4898 x 3265 | ||||
| 24 Mpx 6000 x 4000 |
Publish camera settings
If a photo or image is uploaded to your PollUnit, we read the exif metadata (Exchangeable Image File Format) and make it available to the administrators. If you publish the meta data, your participants will have access to the following camera settings:
Camera, focal length, ISO, flash, aperture and shutter speed.
The data shows how the camera has exposed an image. The data can be used to determine whether these settings are appropriate.
The specification of exif data in files is optional and can only be displayed if it exists.
Publisher and imprint
If not specified, the name of the creator will be used. The publisher is displayed in your PollUnit header as well as in the description. If you add a imprint or terms, a link at the end of your PollUnit is shown.
Add terms and conditions
If you enter terms and conditions, a link at the end of your PollUnit is shown. If the opt-in function is activated, the user has to confirm the terms and conditions by checking the checkbox before he can participate. The terms and conditions can be viewed via the checkbox.
Add privacy notice
If you enter a privacy notice, a link at the end of your PollUnit is shown. If the opt-in function is activated, the user has to confirm the privacy notice by checking the checkbox before he can participate. The privacy notice can be viewed via the checkbox.
Social Media Tags
With the help of Social Meta Tags you can define how your shared PollUnit is displayed in the news feed of Facebook, Twitter, Slack and other social networking sites. You can define a title and a description for each PollUnit. You can also upload a title image.
Recommended size for the title image is 1200 px x 630 px. The title should not exceed 40 characters and the description 300 characters.
Randomize options / images / columns order
To avoid order bias, you can shuffle the options / images / columns for each user.
Single select
Participants have to decide for one option. If they assign another vote, the previous one is removed.
Thank You Page for voters
Define a final page with headline, content and link to your own website.
Thank you page for submitters
After a participant submits options, pictures, files or ideas, a thank you page with your texts and links will be displayed.
Limit per option
Control how many participants can vote for the same option. You can only change the limit type if no votes have been cast yet.
No limits
Any number of participants can vote on any option.
Global Limit
Your selected limit describes the number of times each option can be selected. Each option has the same limit.
Individual limits
A unique limit can be defined for each option.
Password protection
Secure your PollUnit! Users can only participate and view the PollUnit's result if they know the password.
White Label
Remove PollUnit Branding
The following will be removed
When visiting the participant link the »powered by« message in the embedded PollUnits and the menu items like prices, help, the »Create PollUnit« button and the footer will be removed. The PollUnit logo can be replaced in the step »Design«.
Hide PollUnit sign up from participants
If the PollUnit registration is hidden for participants, the visitors of your PollUnit can only participate as guest. The functions for which a PollUnit account is necessary can no longer be used.
Addons
Addons allow you to add more fields to your options. In order to activate addons, you have to check the desired addon in the Scheme settings in the Wizard Step 1 (PollUnit).
Subtitle
If enabled, a free text can be added to the options in your poll.
Link
If enabled, a link can be added to the options in your poll. Links consist of a URL and a title.
File types
For polls with images or other files the following file formats are supported: All common image formats, pdf, zip, docx, xlsx, pptx, txt and mp3
Encryption
If encryption is enabled contents like title, description, location, and the text of options will be encrypted in your browser before it is sent to our PollUnit servers. Therefore nobody can access the real data without knowing the encryption key. Images and files are always stored encrypted in PollUnit, even if no end-to-end encryption is selected.
Peer to peer encryption
Peer to peer encryption works in such a way that the data is encrypted at the device of one user, and can be decrypted at the device of another user. Before the data is sent to our servers, it will be encrypted on your device. So no one in between can record the data and even if someone had access to our databases, he/she can't read anything from the encrypted data.
AES encryption
We use the secure AES encryption method with a key length of 256 Bit.
Share encryption key
To share the encryption key to your encrypted PollUnit, you should use a safe channel like SMS or encrypted messaging services.
Encrypted data
We encrypt the title, location, description and comments of a PollUnit. Free text options are completely encrypted and for images the title. In addition, for all option types the subtitle and link is encrypted. We are not able to encrypt date fields and images yet, because we have to process them on our servers.
Admin
Besides editing a PollUnit, you can use as admin further functions to manage your online group decision.
Close PollUnit
When you close your PollUnit, your invited users will automatically be notified about the result off your poll.
Once you have closed your PollUnit, it will not be possible to vote. In order to close your PollUnit you have to visit your PollUnit via admin link.
Delete options
To delete an option, visit the Adminlink of your PollUnit and click the delete icon under the corresponding option.
Delete comments
As admin, you can also delete comments from other participants. To delete a comment, visit the Adminlink of your PollUnit and click on the delete icon on the corresponding comment.
We have implemented this feature to allow the owners of PollUnits to delete inappropriate or abusive comments. For the most transparent group decision, the deletion of a comment is saved in the Activity Log of your PollUnit.
Deleting comments from others is a premium feature.
Delete votes
As admin, you can delete participants from your PollUnit. To remove a participant from your group decision, visit the Adminlink of your PollUnit and click the delete icon next to the user's name.
We have implemented this feature to allow the owners of PollUnits to delete duplicate and unauthorized votes. To make group decisions as transparent as possible, deleting voices is stored in the Activity Log of your PollUnit.
Deleting participants and theire votes is a premium feature.
Evaluation
Evaluate PollUnit directly
To get to the evaluation, open your PollUnit and click on evaluation. You will get an overview of the options as well as your participants. If you have used the invite function, you will also see which users have not yet voted.
Evaluation of a single option
To get an overview of a single option, click on the corresponding option under Options in the evaluation. A list with the participants is displayed. You get an overview of who votes for this option and who does not.
Export PollUnit as CSV and Excel
As an admin of a poll, you can export the participants and their votes as CSV and Excel. You can open and evaluate this file in the office program of your choice (such as Open Office, Excel, ...).
Batch Download all Submission files
Via the export function in the context menu as well as in the evaluation of your PollUnit you will find the bulk download. With this function you can download all submitted or uploaded files and pictures as zip.
Administation, Account
As a registered user, you have some advantages with PollUnit that we can not make accessible to anonymous users. When logged in, you will see your name in the main menu. Under this menu item you will find the links to your PollUnits, Themes, Logos and your Account Settings.
My PollUnits
Here is a list of PolUnits you can access. These are PollUnits you have created, but also polls where you have participated.
For additional options open the context menu by clicking the three dots. You find following functions:
Participant Link
This is the link to your PollUnit.
Admin Link
This is the link to your PollUnit with administration rights. Do not share this link with others who do not shall edit or delete your PollUnit! To use all functions of a PollUnit together, you can also create an organization.
Edit PollUnit
By clicking edit you can get to the Wizard of your PollUnit.
Clone PollUnit
This means that your poll with all its options will be cloned to a new PollUnit. You can then customize and re-vote for it.
Share
Here you can share your PollUnit via different social media such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter etc.
Embed PollUnit
You can embed a PollUnit in your website. To do this, you have to approve the host of your website here. We also provide you with a small piece of code to quickly add the poll to your website.
Excel and CSV Export
By exporting your PollUnit as XLSX or CSV you can save the data on your computer and e.g. edit it with Excel.
Close PollUnit
This closes your PollUnit. Participation is then no longer possible. The votes of the participants of a private PollUnit become visible.
Delete all participations
This removes all votes of all participants. You can clear your PollUnit. Deleting entries is shown in the activity log.
Delete PollUnit
This will delete your PollUnit and all data belonging to this poll.
My Groups
Here you can create groups and teams. A group consists of a list of e-mail addresses. You can select these groups in the »Invitations« step and automatically send invitations to your PollUnit. Ideal for recurring surveys for your friends, family or colleagues.
To manage groups you need a premium account.
Create new groups
By clicking "Create new group" you can create a new group. You can manage an unlimitted amount of groups.
Edit group
Open the context menu and click edit to add or remove group members.
Delete group
Open the context menu and click delete to delete your group.
My Themes
Here you can manage your own themes. A theme consists of a background graphic and a color scheme. You can choose this when creating your PollUnit in the Wizard Step 3 (Design).
Create new theme
By clicking "Create new theme" you can create your own theme.
Edit theme
Open the context menu and click edit to change your theme.
Define master theme
In the context menu you can make one of your themes the master theme. All your newly created PollUnits will be initialized with this theme.
Delete theme
Open the context menu and click delete to delete your PollUnit and all participations.
My Logos
Here you can create your own logos. You can choose this when creating your PollUnit in the Wizard Step 3 (Design).
Create new logo
By clicking "Create new logo" you can upload your own logo.
Edit logo
Open the context menu and click edit to reupload your logo or to change the link to your landing page.
Define master logo
In the context menu you can make one of your logos the master logo. All your newly created PollUnits will be initialized with this logo.
Delete logo
Open the context menu and click delete to delete your logo.
My Account
Here you can edit your personal data such as name, email, password and language.
You can also delete your account here. By deleting your account, all your PollUnits, votes, themes, logos and premium purchases will be deleted. You can not undo this!
My Organizations
With organizations you can define employees an coworkers Members of your organization can manage PollUnits of the organization. So you can automatically pass on the administration and access rights to your polls and create, monitor and evaluate polls in the team.
The number of allowed organizations and coworkers depends on your PollUnit package.
Organizations belong to the business functions of PollUnit.
Calendar synchronization
You can synchronize your polls with your calendar using ICS feeds. Synchronization can be set either for individual polls, for all polls of a user or for all polls of an organization.
In all three cases an ICS feed URL will be created. You can use this URL to either download a file that contains the corresponding dates. Or you can use this URL to permanently synchronize the events in a calendar application.
Attention: with most applications changes in your appointment poll are synchronized with a delay.
Single appointments
To synchronize only a single poll with your calendar, click »Calendar Sync« at the top of your poll's information bar. The popup that opens will give you a URL to the ICS feed, or you can download an ics file.
Own date polls
If you want to synchronize all polls of your account with your calendar, you can do this under »My Account«.
Under the item »My calendar« you can create a feed for your account. Do not share this URL with anyone, because the calendar file contains all links to your event polls.
Via the context menu you can reset an existing ICS feed to generate a new URL or you can remove the feed.
Organization's date polls
You can also provide the dates of all organization's date polls via an ICS feed. You create these feed in the context menu of each organization at »My Organizations«.
In the ICS feed's context menu you can remove or reset existing feeds to generate a new URL.
Single-Sign-On
PollUnit offers Single-Sign-On (SSO) with SAML to help companies to re-use their existing authentication solution for authenticating users in PollUnit.
Organization SSO slug
An »Organization SSO slug« uniquely identifies your organization. If you don't know the slug of your organization, please ask the PollUnit admin within your company.
Configure Single-Sign-On in PollUnit
Each organization in PollUnit can configure its own SSO. For this an organization has to pick a unique organization identifier the so called »Organization SSO slug«. The rest of the configuration should be retrieved from your SSO provider.
Configure Single-Sign-On in your SSO provider
In your SSO provider you have to configure the allowed callback URLs for authentication and logout. For authentication you have to add:
https://pollunit.com/users/saml/auth?sso=your-organization-sso-slug
and for log out:
https://pollunit.com/users/saml/idp_sign_out
Attribute Mapping
To create a user in PollUnit with the information provided from an SSO provider, this information has to be mapped to the fields of a user in PollUnit.
Share SSO Login link
You can facilitate the log in of your users by sending them a direct link to your SSO login, which looks like the following:
https://pollunit.com/users/sso?slug=your-organization-sso-slug
Missing a feature?
You need more help or you have a feature that could help you and other users make more effective decisions? Feel free to contact us at support@pollunit.com.