Mark locations, areas, and routes directly in surveys

With our latest update, we are expanding the PollUnit survey type with an especially versatile feature:

From now on, you can add a new map step to your multi-step surveys. Participants can mark a location, draw an area, or sketch a route directly on an interactive map.

This extension makes PollUnit even more flexible and is ideal for anyone who wants to collect geographic information or make joint decisions with a spatial reference.

Why a map step?

Many votes and surveys have a clear spatial context: Where should an event take place? Which districts need special attention? How do favorite routes, commuting paths, or danger spots run?

With the new map step, there is no need for laborious descriptions of locations. Instead, participants visually, intuitively, and precisely mark what they mean.

What can the new survey step do?

1. Mark locations

Let your participants set a point, for example for:

potential meeting points
desired locations
danger spots in road traffic
favorite places

2. Draw areas

Ideal for all scenarios where an area is relevant:

district boundaries
potential construction areas
garden or property areas
zoning

3. Mark routes

Perfect for:

commuting routes
running and cycling routes
route guidance for events
problem points on daily routes

Participants can freely draw very easily using click or drag-and-drop.

Evaluation made easy

All markings appear in your results overview, aggregated on a shared map, clearly distinguishable by color and viewable individually.

For further analysis, you can export the points, areas, and routes. For each point you receive a latitude and longitude, enabling you to use the data in other applications as well.

Published at: 2026-02-05 12:00 AM

Mark locations, areas, and ...

Update: Descriptions in polls and surveys

Polls are most effective when all participants clearly understand what they are voting on. Unclear questions or ambiguous answer options can quickly lead to distorted results. For this reason, PollUnit has long offered the ability to add descriptions to individual poll options. These descriptions help provide additional context without unnecessarily cluttering the poll itself.

When creating a survey with PollUnit, you also have the option to add a rating step. A rating step essentially works like an independent poll within a survey, allowing multiple separate polls to be chained together in a meaningful way. Here too, it is possible to add descriptions to each option. These descriptions can be displayed in a separate overlay, providing additional details when needed without interrupting the voting flow.

When running image-based polls, whether as a standalone poll or as part of a survey, option descriptions add even more value. In PollUnit, these descriptions are also displayed directly within the image swipebox, allowing participants to view additional information while browsing through the images. This ensures that visual polls remain intuitive while still providing enough context to make well-informed decisions.

Published at: 2026-01-23 12:04 PM

Update: Descriptions in pol...

Add favicons to your PollUnits

We're excited to announce a small but meaningful enhancement at PollUnit: From now on, you can not only set your custom logo, but also define a favicon for your polls and surveys!

What is a Favicon?

A favicon (short for »Favorite Icon«) is the small symbol that appears in the browser tab next to the page title. You may have noticed it on other websites – it's usually a miniature version of the brand logo. Favicons help users quickly identify tabs and give your PollUnit page a more professional appearance.

Why use a Favicon?

A favicon offers you:

Recognition: Users can immediately identify your poll in the browser tab – even with many tabs open.
Brand consistency: Your corporate design remains visible throughout the experience.
Professionalism: Your polls immediately appear more polished and trustworthy.

It’s that simple

Favicons are part of the »My Logos« section. When you create a new logo or edit an existing one, you can now upload a favicon in addition to the logo that appears in the header. When creating a PollUnit, you can select the logo during the »Design« step. The favicon will then automatically be displayed in browser tabs – whether you're creating a poll, idea collection, or date finder.

With this small addition, we want to give you even more ways to adapt PollUnit to your brand and style. Try it out now and give your polls that final touch!

Published at: 2025-08-07 10:28 AM

Add favicons to your PollUnits

Vote once a day

We’re excited to introduce a new feature in PollUnit that opens up many creative and continuous use cases: From now on, you can allow each participant to vote once per day in polls, photo, music, and video contests – regardless of their previous votes.

What’s new?

Until now, participants could cast a certain number of votes, but once they used them up, they couldn’t vote again. The new setting now allows one vote every day. That means: If someone voted yesterday, they can come back and vote again today – even for the same option!

More engagement – users return daily

Instead of voting once and being done, this feature encourages participants to come back regularly. It promotes daily interaction and can help grow your reach if voters encourage others to join the daily vote.

A little competition emerges: Who stays committed? Who votes every day? That’s motivating!

How it works

Click on »Create PollUnit«
Select a PollUnit type, e.g., »Photo Contest«
Enter a title and choose a voting type
Follow the steps until you reach the »Advanced« section and enable voting
Optionally define a voting period
Check »Vote once a day« and save your PollUnit

»Vote once a day« is more than just a limit – it’s a tool to extend interaction, make voting more exciting, and keep people engaged. It turns a simple vote into a small daily decision.

Published at: 2025-07-17 11:22 AM

Vote once a day

Prefilled fields for organizations

Working together just got even easier! With our latest update for Organizations, you can now define central fields that will be automatically applied to every newly created PollUnit. This saves time, ensures consistency, and makes management easier.

What’s new?

Organizations in PollUnit already allow you to share your account with colleagues and create and manage polls together. From now on, you can also define default values for specific fields within your organization – these will be automatically pre-filled in every newly created PollUnit.

The fields that can be pre-filled include:

Publisher (responsible party / issuer)
Publisher email
Legal notice
Terms of participation
Privacy policy

Why is this important?

Especially for organizations that regularly create polls on legal or business-related topics, it’s crucial that this information remains consistent. Instead of entering the same data manually each time, you can now ensure everything is automatically and correctly filled in – and for all members of your organization.

This means:

Fewer errors
Greater efficiency
More professional appearance

Who benefits from this?

This feature is ideal for:

Companies with multiple poll creators
Agencies working on behalf of clients
Educational institutions with standardized legal requirements
NGOs or associations that want to standardize their communication

How does it work?

Create or open your organization in PollUnit
Navigate to »My Organizations«
Create a new organization or edit an existing one
Enter the default values into the new fields
From now on, these values will automatically appear in new PollUnits created within the organization

If you’re already part of an organization, you can start using the new features right away. And if not – now is the perfect time to create an organization and invite your team!

Published at: 2025-07-03 11:41 AM

Prefilled fields for organi...

Migration of server infrastructure

We have successfully migrated our entire server infrastructure from DigitalOcean to Hetzner. The transition is complete, and all services are now running stably on the new platform.

Why the Change?

Improved Performance and Lower Costs

Hetzner offers high-performance servers at a significantly better price-performance ratio. This allows us to operate our systems more efficiently and make better use of our resources.

Sustainable Data Centers

One key reason for the move was Hetzner’s focus on sustainability. Their data centers run on 100% renewable energy and are optimized for energy efficiency.

Data Privacy and Location Advantage

Hetzner’s servers are located in Germany and are fully compliant with GDPR. This provides a clear legal framework for data protection and increases overall data security.

What This Means for Our Users

The migration is complete and was carried out without major interruptions. Services remain fully available—now running on a more stable and sustainable infrastructure. Our server location was also previously in Germany, Frankfurt, so we only moved within Germany.

Published at: 2025-05-22 06:46 AM

Migration of server infrast...

Bulk Actions for Faster Management

Bulk actions allow you to select multiple items such as images, music files, videos, comments, or participants and apply an action to all selected elements at once. This means you can for example delete entries and moderate comments with just a few clicks.

How Bulk Actions Improve Multi-Round Photo Contests

Let’s say you're organizing a photo contest with several voting rounds. After each round, only the top-rated images should move on to the next stage.

With bulk actions, you can:

Clone the images into a new PollUnit
Select and delete all losing entries in one go
Start voting in the new cloned PollUnit

No need to handle each image one by one – just lasso-select or hold Shift/Ctrl to mark images for deletion, and get started on the next round in seconds.

Published at: 2025-04-24 12:51 PM

Bulk Actions for Faster Man...

Submit Photos with Precision: Categories for Your Photo Contest!

We are excited to introduce an exciting new feature: Submission Categories! From now on, you can make your photo contests even more structured with PollUnit by defining different categories for your submissions.

What are Submission Categories?

With submission categories, you can divide your photo contests into different themes or genres. Participants select an appropriate category when uploading their photos, ensuring that all images are sorted into the correct group. This makes it easier for juries and voters to evaluate photos and determine winners.

Individual Voting per Category

Each category gets its own voting! This way, you can determine a separate winner for each category. This is ideal for contests with diverse themes – for example, »Landscape Photography«, »Portraits«, or »Macro Photography«.

Advantages of Submission Categories

Better Overview:
All submissions are thematically organized and easier to find.
Fairer Evaluation:
Comparable images compete directly against each other.
Fairer Competition:
Comparable participants, e.g., based on age or experience, compete against each other.
Multiple Winners:
Each category can have its own ranking list.
Flexibility:
You can define and adjust the categories yourself.

Combining Submission and Voting Categories

PollUnit also offers the possibility to create voting categories. These allow images within a submission category to be evaluated based on criteria such as shooting technique, composition, message, and subject. This means a photo contest could have winners in different voting categories within each submission category.

Published at: 2025-04-04 10:33 AM

Submit Photos with Precisio...

International Day of Forests – Our Commitment to a Greener Future

Today is the International »Day of Forests« – a time to highlight the importance of our forests for the climate, biodiversity, and our shared future. Forests are not only the lungs of our planet but also home to millions of species and an essential part of our ecosystem.

As a company, we take our responsibility seriously. That’s why we invest 8% of our revenue in planting trees. Through this commitment, we have already planted over 215,000 trees!

With climate change and an increasingly careless attitude toward scientific facts, it is more important than ever to actively contribute to the preservation and reforestation of our forests. While many people and organizations worldwide are fighting for a sustainable future, setbacks continue to challenge our collective efforts. Extreme weather events, droughts, and wildfires destroy vast areas every year, while global CO2 emissions keep rising. Every tree we plant helps capture CO2, purify the air, and preserve habitats for animals and plants.

Our mission is clear: We want to create a more sustainable future. And every tree we plant brings us one step closer to that goal.

Let’s use the "Day of Forests" as a reminder of how valuable and worthy of protection our forests are. Thank you for joining us on this journey!

Would you like to contribute and make a difference? Every donated tree counts! Visit our Plant for the Planet Page to learn more and help plant trees yourself.

Published at: 2025-03-21 07:05 AM

International Day of Forest...

Enhance photo and video uploads with URL parameters

With our latest improvement to the PollUnit feature »URL Parameters«, we offer even more possibilities for customization and automation. This feature allows you to append key-value pairs to the URL of a poll or a photo contest to transfer custom data.

Original Feature: Forward Custom Participant Data to Surveys

Originally, this feature was developed to enrich participants in surveys with additional data. By appending parameters to the URL, internal user IDs or segmentation information could be transferred and used in the analysis.

You can find the original feature announcement at Save URL Parameters in Surveys.

New: Parameters for Voters and Submitters

With the latest update, we are expanding this feature: URL parameters can now be linked not only to survey participants but also to voters and submitters in contests. This opens up entirely new possibilities for using the PollUnit platform:

Custom Identification: For example, using a user ID from your own system, each submission in a photo contest can be assigned to a specific user.
Improved Evaluation: The stored parameters are visible in the analysis and export, allowing for detailed analysis.
Automated Integration: Companies and organizations can integrate PollUnit even more seamlessly into their existing systems by transferring relevant data directly.

Example: User ID in a Photo Contest

Suppose you run a platform with registered users and are hosting a photo contest via PollUnit. You can now automatically assign the user ID from your system to each submitted photo by appending the following parameter to the contest URL:

https://pollunit.com/polls/examplecontest?user_id=12345

This user ID will then be stored with the uploaded photo or votes and will be available in the analysis and export.

Published at: 2025-01-29 11:45 PM

Enhance photo and video upl...