Frequently Asked Questions

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What is Poll Everywhere?

On the surface, Poll Everywhere is a simple text message voting application that works well for live audiences. People vote by sending text messages to options displayed on-screen. The poll that is embedded within the presentation or web page will update in real time. Advanced uses include txt2screen, texting questions to a presenter, web voting, and SMS interactivity in print, radio, and TV.

How do I vote?

You can vote by following the instructions shown on the poll when it is displayed. The poll does not need to be displayed to actively receive votes, but it does need to be "opened" by the presenter on the edit poll page. In general, you send a text message to the number 41411 that looks like this: cast 1234

Can I use my own custom keywords for a poll?

Yes, they are available, but not with our default text message voting service. Call us for details on pricing at +1 (773) 382-0377.

What are the numbers by each option on a poll?

The numbers are pre-assigned to each option so that votes get routed to the correct option. This allows us to host multiple polls on one short code.

How much does it cost?

Our basic plan is free. It allows up to 30 votes per poll. The free plan includes all our best features: PowerPoint polls, web voting, downloadable results, and more. Check out our paid plans if you need more votes per poll or advanced features. K-12 Teachers: We tried to make our free plan useful for you. If you teach the same subject multiple times per day, remember that you can download the results and also clear the results for any poll to reuse it with a different class.

Can users vote over the web?

Absolutely! When you're viewing your Poll, click on the "Web Voting" link on the right. If you send this URL to your voters they will be able to click on the option they wish to vote for and see the results.

If you want to link to a web poll from your website, you can redirect the user back to your website after voting by appending "?redirect=http://www.yourwebsite.com/" to the end of your Poll Everywhere URL as such:

After the user votes for an option, they will be shown a confirmation message and redirected back to your website. For more extensive web integration with our Polls, check out our Poll Everywhere Voting API.

Can I embed a poll in my PowerPoint presentation?

Yes, when viewing your poll, click the PowerPoint link for instructions. If you use PowerPoint 2007, you can download a small .pptx file containing your poll. The poll inside this slide can be copied into other presentations, used multiple times in a presentation, and resized like other PowerPoint objects.

How fast do votes show up?

Typically a vote will be displayed in the results within 2-5 seconds. The delay depends on the voter's cellular carrier and how long it takes to route an SMS message to our SMS gateway, web servers, and finally on to live polls wherever they are being viewed. If the delay is causing a problem for large polls, call us at +1 (773) 382-0377 to discuss building you a high performance system.

How does it work?

As a poll is displayed to an audience, they cast votes by sending text messages to our short code number (41411) indicating the option they wish to select. Their mobile carrier (e.g., Sprint, AT&T) routes their text message to our web servers where the vote is counted. Once counted, the vote is displayed in real time on-screen. The entire process usually takes less than 5 seconds to complete.

If someone votes on a poll, are they charged in any way by you or the mobile phone carrier?

Poll Everywhere does not charge anyone for voting on a poll. However, individual wireless carriers may charge for text messages, which vary depending on the wireless carrier and any messaging package selected.

I am going to be asking a lot of questions to people over time. Will it be costly for them to participate?

Short answer: No. Certainly, there is standard cellular text messaging costs involved for participants to send text messages but this cost is nominal even if they lack a text messaging plan. For cases where a participant may be voting heavily over a long period of time, we recommend participants add an unlimited text messaging plan through the cellular providers which is a small additional cost to their monthly usage. For example, students in a lecture hall who will be voting many times over the school year would benefit from an unlimited text messaging plan through their cellular carrier. We've also found that many cellular plans already include basic text messaging for free and, in some cases, unlimited, at no additional cost.

Why do the voters have to send their votes to that weird phone number ("41411")?

That number is not a normal telephone number. It is called a "short code" in the telecommunications world and it is basically a special number used specifically for text messaging. That number is set by the company that provides our text messaging gateway, which is how we receive votes into Poll Everywhere. If your audience is curious, just tell them not to worry. It is not a toll number and it will not magically bill anything to anyone's mobile phone bill. However, individual wireless carriers may charge for text messages.

How do I share my account with friends or other people in my organization?

Through our multi-user plans, it is possible to add other people to your account. This allows you to share the resources of a single account with many people. For example, if you have an entire school and want to share Poll Everywhere with all faculty or staff, you can add them as users. Each plan we offer provides a maximum number of users that you may add to a single account. See our plans for the details on maximum users per plan and price information.

What is the difference between a multiple choice poll and a free text poll?

A multiple choice poll pre-defines fixed choices on which participants can vote on. You supply the various choices when you create the poll. A free text poll allows free-form text responses by participants instead of fixed choices. An example of when you would want a multiple choice poll might be, "Which candidate will be President in 2009?" with options like, "McCain," "Obama," and "Clinton." A free-text response might be like, "What is the meaning of life?" in which participants can send in short answers that they choose. Their answers might be just one word, a short phrase, or perhaps an entire sentence! You can control who sees the results.

How many votes (which plan) do I need?

Most polls are setup to allow a person to vote only once. If that's the case, then generally you should purchase a plan with an "audience size" greater than or equal to the number of people that will vote. The "audience size" is the maximum number of votes that can be received by any given poll.

Can I use my own short code?

Yes, if you have your own short code and want to use it, please call us at +1 (773) 382-0377.

How can I get more votes or host larger polls?

On our website, click the Our Plans link from the top navigation. Select one of our voting package plans. From there you will be taken to a secure, encrypted site to complete the credit card checkout process.

Will Poll Everywhere work without an Internet connection?

Your poll can receive votes even when you do not have a live internet connection but to display the poll or view results in real time, the presenting computer must have an internet connection. Your voting audience will need to have a mobile phone signal to vote.

What are some good questions to ask?

That will depend on the event you are running and who is in your audience. As with any great speech or presentation, "know your audience" applies. For sales and marketing events with partners and clients, questions about their buying experience, concerns about purchasing, and their upcoming plans are often good topics for questions. If you are a university professor, ask a question about yesterday's lecture or assess the class's comprehension of the reading. If you are a religious group hosting a retreat or service event, the polls can serve as an anonymous response medium for the group which could be beneficial for sensitive questions that might be difficult to answer aloud or by a show of hands.

How will my audience know how to vote?

The simple instructions are displayed on every Poll! It helps if you provide verbal cues to your audience during the first few votes. After the first poll, usually everybody gets the hang of it and you can present many more polls at a faster pace.

If you want to improve poll participation, it is helpful to project your presentation on one screen, and your poll on another (that's two projectors and two separate screens). This gives the audience the convenience of responding whenever they choose.

Take a few minutes for each poll, guide the audience, and then continue your presentation. You can also show the audience the poll on one slide and then continue the presentation and come back when more results have been tallied.

How can I share my poll?

Email or instant message the link to the poll. You can also use Poll Everywhere widgets available for each poll which you can use to embed live polls into your blog or website.

How do I share the results of the poll when I'm done with it?

Download the spreadsheet of the poll results. You can share the file through email or print them out. Alternatively, you can send the link to the poll on our website and people can view the aggregate results simply by viewing the poll. The list of individual results will NOT be available to them, however. Additionally, you can use a Poll Everywhere widget available for any of your polls which you can embed in your blog or website.

Is my poll publicly viewable?

It is up to you to share the poll URL with others. The list of individual vote results are not publicly available. The creator of the poll must be logged in to view the detailed results.

How do I change the look and feel of my poll?

On the lower left side of the poll, click "Options." A panel will appear with several options to change the colors, font sizes, and more.

Can I make the poll full screen?

Definitely. Just select the "Fullscreen" link in the lower left. A temporary message will appear reminding you to hit the Escape button to return to normal size. If you view the poll in PowerPoint, however, you may not need to take advantage of the full screen option since the poll will probably occupy most of the space on the current slide, depending on how you've sized the poll object.

How can I identify voters by name, phone number, or other ID?

Customers on any paid plan can use the Reports tab. The Reports tab lets you match up a participant's answers across multiple polls. For example, make a free text poll that asks participants to submit their name, a student ID, a pseudonym, their cell phone number, or any other identifying information. Then ask other multiple choice or free text questions as usual. By adding the identifying free text poll and any other polls to a report, you will see how each person answered each question.
Two polls are compared. Multiple answers from one person appear on the same line.

How can I build voting applications with the Poll Everywhere Voting API?

Check out our Poll Everywhere API if you want to build new poll visualizations or integrate real-time voting into your applications. With the Poll Everywhere RESTful API, it is very easy to start taking advantage of our powerful voting platform.

If I vote, will I receive spam texts later?

No, anyone who votes will not receive any kind of spam. They may receive a text message confirmation of the option they chose, which is configurable by the poller when creating a poll (there is a checkbox to turn confirmation messages on/off in the poll editor). Although results are stored by Poll Everywhere to tally up the number of votes, no one is ever spammed with text messages at any point in the future.

My poll is not responding to text messages

First, make sure your poll is opened and the options and instructions to vote are being displayed. You also need to have votes in your account in order to receive votes. If you have reached the maximum number of votes allowed per poll, you will need to either clear the results of your poll or purchase a higher vote plan.

I can't see the graphical poll

Make sure Adobe Flash 9 is installed. Additionally, you must ensure that Adobe Flash Player v9.0.45.0 or higher is installed. Adobe Flash Player versions before v9.0.45.0 may not work. For example, there is a known issue with Internet Explorer 6 and v9.0.16.0 of the Adobe Flash Player.

Does Poll Everywhere work in countries outside of the United States?

Yes but it depends on what type of voting you want to do. SMS voting through Poll Everywhere is only supported in the United States. Web-based and mobile web-based voting is available globally. For smartphone web voting, participants need only a phone with a data plan and can vote with their phone's built in web browser by casting their when visiting Poll4.com

Can I get the results of my poll in a spreadsheet?

Yes! When viewing the results, there is a link on the right to download a spreadsheet version. They are in a Comma-Separated Values format (.CSV) and this is viewable in any spreadsheet application.

PowerPoint: The poll does not load after following the instructions

Please see our blog post for the solution

Is there support for PowerPoint (or Keynote) on Mac OS X?

Although there is no direct support today for embedding polls from Poll Everywhere into Office for mac 2004 or 2008 or Apple's Keynote, you can still display your poll from the web on a projector in a browser or switch into fullscreen mode to occupy the entire screen. Direct support for these applications may emerge in future updates to Poll Everywhere.

Is there support for OpenOffice presentations on any operating system?

Although there is no direct support for the presentation software that comes with OpenOffice, you can still display your poll from a web browser on a projector or switch your poll into fullscreen mode to occupy the entire screen. Also, although OpenOffice can read and write Microsoft PowerPoint files, it cannot currently display our polls even when they are present inside of a Microsoft PowerPoint file. Support for OpenOffice may emerge in future updates to Poll Everywhere.

How do I add a user to my account if they are already in Poll Everywhere's system?

This occurs when you attempt to invite someone with an email that is already registered in our system. When this occurs, you will not be able to create an invitation for that person to join your account. If you and the invitee know that adding them as a user of your account is desired arrangement, please email us for help and we can manually make the switch for you. We are working on automating this in the future.