Poll Plus

The Poll Plus app allows you to create advanced polls in Rocket.Chat.

Install the Poll Plus app

Workspace admins must follow these steps to install the app:

1. Go to Marketplace > Explore.

2. Search for the Poll Plus app and select it.

3. Click Install and accept the permissions needed to install it.

If you’ve previously installed the Poll App, you’ll need to uninstall it before setting up Poll Plus.

Configure the Poll Plus app

The Poll Plus app offers some customization settings on the app settings tab.

1. Go to Marketplace > Installed > Poll Plus.

2. Select the Settings tab. You can find the following options:

   1. Use name attribute to display voters, instead of username: Display full names of voters instead of usernames on the poll.

   2. Wordcloud API endpoint to fetch wordclouds from: By default, the free version of Quickchart word cloud API is used. In case you are hosting your Rocket.Chat on-premise or need more customization than Quickchart, we've open-sourced an internally developed word cloud API.

   3. Timezone: Choose the timezone to display at the poll finish time. The default value for this setting is the UTC timezone.

3. Click Save Changes.

If the Wordcloud API endpoint is blank and Word Cloud is enabled on the poll, the poll summary is displayed when the poll is finished.

Create a poll

To create a poll,

• Go to the room you want to create the poll and enter the /poll slash command.

• Then, click Enter to execute. A pop-up form opens to help you create the poll. The form details include the following:

  • Insert your question: Enter the poll question.

  • Insert your options: Enter the options for the poll.

  • Add a choice: Add more options for the poll.

  • Choice type: Select if the poll will be multiple-choice, single-choice, or template-based.

  • Vote visibility: Select if the poll will have an Open, Confidential, or Mixed Visibility vote.

  • User-defined options: Allow/disallow the user from adding their options to the poll.

  • Word Cloud: Enable/disable the word cloud feature.

• After creating the poll, it is available in the room for the users to vote.

Once the votes are collected, you can stop more votes from being added by finishing the poll. To do this, select the kebab menu at the top of the poll. Then, click Finish poll.

Learn about the additional features of the Poll Plus app.

Template-based poll

In addition to single and multiple-choice options, the Poll Plus app provides pre-filled template polls. These are some of the most commonly used polls, and pre-filling them saves you from manually typing all the options.

• Overrated/Underrated poll: This poll provides options including Overrated, Highly Rated, Never Tried, and Underrated. You can use it to get feedback about the publicity of a particular feature or opinion in your company.

• 1-to-5 poll: This poll allows users to rate a particular subject on a scale of 1 to 5.

• 1-to-10 poll: This poll allows users to rate a particular subject on a scale of 1 to 10.

• Agree/Disagree poll: Users can agree or disagree with the poll question.

• Emoji rank poll: Users can choose emojis to vote on the poll question.

User-defined options

When creating a poll, you can select the option to allow or disallow users from adding their own options to the poll question. An Add Choice button is displayed below during the poll if you allow users to add choices.

To add a new choice,

• Click the Add Choice button. A modal form is displayed.

• Enter the new option and click Add. The new option is added to the poll.

Mixed visibility polls

The Poll Plus app allows users to set some reply options as confidential, while others are open. This means that users who select the anonymous option will have their identities hidden.

To enable mixed visibility,

• Set the visibility to Mixed Visibility Vote when creating the poll.

• On clicking Create, the Mixed Visibility modal pops open. Select the options you would like to be anonymous.

• Once the poll is created, options that were selected to be anonymous will conceal the voter identities with the Anonymous label.

Votes casted on the options marked as Anonymous are counted within the total votes.

Live poll

Live polls are an array of regular, multi-question, timed polls. Live polls can be triggered with the /poll live <number of polls> command, where <number of polls> denotes the number of polls to be included within the live poll.

Each poll within a live poll has a time limit to vote upon, after which the current Poll ends, and the next one is posted. Poll creators can also click on the “Next Poll” button to trigger a pre-scheduled finish of the current Poll. The "Time limit to vote" for each poll is the number of seconds it can be active.

Some excellent use cases for the Live poll are stand-up and retro meetings. Another use case is for teachers wanting to conduct timed quizzes on Rocket.Chat. Additionally, if you're outside the UTC time zone, you can configure the Poll Plus app to match your local time zone.

Late retrieval

Live polls include an additional feature called Late Retrieval, which allows them to be posted later. To use the Late Retrieval feature, make use of the save subcommand in the format: /poll live save <number of polls> where <number of polls> denote the number of polls you want included within the Live Poll.

After the Live poll is created, a message along with the poll ID to retrieve it will be visible only to the poll creator. Make use of the /poll live load <id> command to "play" the Live Poll, where <id> is the poll ID visible to the poll creator. In case the user enters a wrong or non-existent Live poll ID a notification message, only visible to the user, is sent within the room.

Speaking of teachers using Rocket.Chat for exams, the Live poll late retrieval features prove an excellent tool for teachers to create quizzes even weeks before and then easily schedule the quiz on D-day. All this while having control over the time limit to answer each question.