Poll Everywhere

Yes, the TLC has started a website for Poll Everywhere with PDF tutorials. We will continue to build out that website with additional instructions and support resources.

Yes. We recommend having students install the Poll Everywhere mobile app on their device. The app prevents student's from having to constantly log into Poll Everywhere when there is no activity to their device. For more information on the mobile app, please go to  https://www.polleverywhere.com/support/articles/pollev-mobile/install.

Typically there is no need to register or sign up to respond to any poll questions unless polls are being used for attendance or grading purposes. The presenter or lecturer will display some poll questions live in class. These polls will have specific instructions for how to respond. Students will respond by going to pollev.com/PresenterName on their phone/laptop or to send an SMS to a phone number with a keyword.

Only one poll can be active at a time. It's PollEverywhere’s way of identifying which poll is being presented. A poll will automatically become the active poll anytime it’s presented it in Powerpoint, Keynote, or full screen mode from the PollEverywhere website.

A presenter can only have one active poll or survey at a time. This is how the presenter specifies which poll or survey is accepting responses at that moment in time.

You can group polls to create a self-paced survey that participants can complete on their own. This is useful when your participants are not together at the same place at the same time. Surveys are great for self-paced questionnaires, pre or post session assessments, and quizzes.

No. Multiple choice polls can have any number of response options, but be aware text will appear small on the results chart if you add too many.

Yes. You can use images to any polls in place of words.

Customers on certain paid plans can use the profanity filter and moderation feature. You can either set a profanity filter to censor and replace profanity with asterisks, or you can set the filter to reject messages and prevent them from being displayed. Poll Everywhere usually suggest the moderation feature over automatic censoring. This feature allows you to review incoming questions one-by-one and approve only the best.

Polls are unlocked by default when you create them. You can lock a poll if you want to stop allowing responses. Lock the poll by clicking the padlock icon. If 360 days pass without any modification or any responses to the poll with reserved SMS keywords, we will automatically lock the poll. You can see which polls are about to be locked in your My Polls list.

Some plans are based primarily on the maximum number of responses allowed per poll. Most polls allow a person to participate only once, unless you choose to override the default. Generally, you should purchase a plan with an "audience size" greater than the number of people that will respond. The "audience size" is the maximum number of responses that can be received by any given poll (the number of polls you can create is unlimited).

If remote participants will be joining in live, you can ask them to respond via the website. When participants go to the address listed on the poll, they will see the poll that is currently active, and can respond to each poll in your session along with everyone else.

If you want to allow participants to respond on their own time, you can share a permalink to your poll. Click the “Present” panel, and click the tab labeled “Share”. You have the option to get a “Sharable response link”, a “Live results link”, or the option to embed the poll into your website or blog.

You can have your audience or class members pre-register as participants and restrict your poll to only allow registered participants to respond. This feature is available on certain paid plans. This setting can be found under the poll's 'Response settings’ menu. 

Yes! First, make sure to install the PollEv Presenter Add-in. On the Poll Everywhere ribbon in PowerPoint, log in, then click "Insert Poll Slides."

For Windows: To use your activity during your presentation, switch to Slide Show/Presentation mode as usual to begin your presentation. You can do this three different ways:

• Press the F5 key on your keyboard.
• Select the Start From Beginning command on the Quick Access toolbar.

Click the Play Slide Show command at the bottom of the PowerPoint window.

For Macs: To use your activity during your presentation, switch to Slide Show/Presentation mode as usual to begin your presentation.

Keynote: Click the Play button in the toolbar to enter Slide Show/Presentation mode.

PowerPoint: Select the Slide Show tab, then click either Play from Start or Play from Current Slide.

Note: The PollEv Presenter Add-in will be added to all computers in the lecture classrooms.

Yes! All reports will have a 'Download to CSV' option on the bottom right of the report. This file is in Comma-Separated Values format (.CSV) format, which can be opened by any spreadsheet application like Microsoft Excel, Apple Numbers, or Google Spreadsheets.

When students are sent the registration link, instructors must make sure that the registration link is sent to the correct email address. For example, University of TN Health Science Center has two email addresses, uthsc.edu and tennessee.edu. These two email addresses are not connected and must be chosen correctly for the students to register.

If you don't enable "people may vote more than once" and only select "Text messages" under "How People Can Vote" (both are the default), your poll is very secure. If you choose to enable "Smartphones via PollEv.com", or "Web widget" (which includes linking straight to your poll's web response page), there is a chance a reasonably technical person could find a way to submit multiple responses, even if you've disabled that option. This is a tradeoff where we chose simplicity over security. If you need to limit who can respond (and remove this potential for ballot stuffing), you can use our registered participants feature. 

To set the timer, hover over the bottom left corner of a poll, click the timer field, and enter how long you’d like your poll to remain open in minutes and seconds. The timer will begin to count down when you activate the poll. The timer will turn red as the poll nears its close. When the timer hits zero, the poll will automatically lock. When the poll locks, the audience can still see the poll on your PollEv.com presenter page, but no more responses will be accepted for that poll.

Poll Everywhere strongly recommends using the latest version of the internet browsers listed below. Poll Everywhere supports the following internet browsers:

• Chrome (version 68 or later)
• Safari (version 11 or later)
• Internet Explorer 11
• Firefox (version 68 or later)
• Edge (version 17 or later)

If you are using the listed or updated version of a supported browser and Poll Everywhere does not work as expected, try the following:

• Check to see if your internet browser needs updating
• Use a different browser (in its latest version) as a temporary workaround
• Contact customer support and include the version of the internet browser you are using

The mobile edition of PowerPoint makes it convenient to work on your presentation slide deck while on the go. However, it’s not great for presenting. The PowerPoint mobile app doesn’t work with other standalone mobile apps, including Poll Everywhere.

If you will presenting from a computer, we recommend that you use the standalone Poll Everywhere Presenter app. However, if you need to present from PowerPoint on a tablet, here are a couple things to keep in mind.

• The PowerPoint mobile app doesn’t work with the standalone Poll Everywhere mobile app. You will need to use the Poll Everywhere for Office 365 add-in rather than the Poll Everywhere mobile app. You will find this in the Add-ins section of PowerPoint on your tablet.

You will need to add activities to your slide deck using the Poll Everywhere for Office 365 add-in rather than the Poll Everywhere presentation app.

If you’re having trouble getting your activities to appear on the audience display when using PowerPoint Presenter View, please go to https://www.polleverywhere.com/support/articles/troubleshooting-win/display-settings. These steps will help you change your Windows display settings so your activities display on the proper screen.

Helpful tip: If the activities are appearing on the secondary screen, but are oversized or running off the screen, check out the article on adjusting the DPI of your computer.