Creating a poll in Slack is crucial for arranging meetings and getting feedback on different initiatives. You can also get to know your coworkers better by asking fun questions, like which foods they prefer. I’ve written this guide, based on my own personal experience, to show how to create a poll in Slack.
Content
- Use Slack Apps to Create a Poll in Slack
- Create a Message Poll in Slack
- The Best Survey Apps for Slack
Use Slack Apps to Create a Poll in Slack
Integrating an app is the easiest way to create your Slack poll. I use Simple Poll, as it’s the easiest to set up and a great all-rounder. You can learn how to integrate a Slack app in “How to Use Giphy on Slack.”
After integrating Simple Poll, I recommend using a keyboard shortcut to create yours. Start by typing “/poll” in the text box for the Slack channel in which you want to share the poll.
Select Create poll to start from scratch. If you don’t want to start from scratch, choose one of the templates. Customize the questions and answers in the pop-up.
Select Preview, make sure everything is how you want it to be, and tap Create Poll.
Create a Message Poll in Slack
Message polls are ideal if you have a free Slack plan and have already used your 10 integrations. You can also use them if you don’t want to integrate a third-party app.
Start by entering the question, then create a blockquote for the emojis you plan on using by typing “>” in the text box.
When the blockquote appears, type the emojis you want coworkers to use for voting.
Hit the Enter key when you’re ready to share the poll with others. I recommend giving a deadline to keep everything organized. Below is what my poll looks like after being published, with one person adding their emoji reaction:
The Best Survey Apps for Slack
If Simple Poll doesn’t work for you for some reason, I suggest using one of these other integrations. Each of them works great to create polls in Slack.
1. Polly
In my opinion, Polly‘s interface is easier to navigate than some of the other third-party Slack polling integrations. It also has many poll customization tools that don’t require a paid subscription. Even nicer is that you get a real-time preview while designing your poll.
When using Polly, decide whether users can add their own answers. You can also schedule your poll and choose whether users can vote multiple times.
Other things that make Polly worth using are that you can schedule when you want the poll to go live, enabling maximum engagement, and that you can save templates for frequent polls.
2. Poll Everywhere
Poll Everywhere lets you choose between Q&A and multiple choice within Slack, meaning that you’ll find it easy to customize your poll for its specific purpose.
You can opt to add a maximum number of responses that you’ll allow in Poll Everywhere and quickly add and remove responses. For these reasons, I sometimes prefer using it over Simple Poll.
You don’t need to be in the channel to post the poll, as you’ll see a drop-down menu with location options. To use Poll Everywhere, type /pollev in Slack.
3. Kyber
Kyber is more of a productivity app with polling capabilities, and I like how easy it is to set up, compared to many alternatives. When trying to integrate multiple polling apps, I’ve been sent to complicated signup and trial processes. Kyber is effectively plug-and-go, though.
To create a poll in Kyber, type “/poll,” and select the Kyber option, bringing up a simple pop-up window. Choose the number of options you want to offer, and directly mention other users – the latter is something I haven’t seen replicated with many other Slack poll integrations.
I like how you can choose how long you want the poll to last and whether you want respondents to be anonymous. It’s also quite collaborative, as you can allow team members to add their own answers. You can also schedule the poll when you want it to go live.
Creating polls in Slack is great for gathering opinions, and like status suggestions, you can customize them in multiple ways. I suggest using a polling app integration to simplify the process, but adding a blockquote is also quite straightforward.
Image credit: DALL-E. All screenshots by Danny Maiorca.
Danny Maiorca –
Contributor
Danny has written for online audiences for 10+ years. He specializes in Apple products and loves writing on his MacBook, keeping in touch on his iPhone, and measuring his workouts on his Apple Watch. Danny’s work has featured in multiple places online, including MUO, Lifewire, and Guiding Tech. Away from the keyboard, he’s passionate about photography and leading an active lifestyle outdoors.
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