Poll Manager

How to

1. Access Poll Manager
2. Create a Poll
3. Edit a Poll
4. Understand Voting and Results
   

Accessing the Poll Manager

To access the Poll Manager you must be logged in with the administrator visible at the top of your screen. Select the button from the administrator toolbar. This will load the Content Menu.

From the content menu select 'Polls'.

The Poll Manager will load. Any Polls currently in your system will be shown in the table on the right. The Manager Options menu is on the left.

In the manager table on the right, four properties are displayed for each poll:

• ID: The ID number given to each object when it is created or added to the system.
• Title: A name given to the object when it is created or added to the system. The title is displayed in the manager to help identify each object and also with the poll when it is displayed within your system.
• Active: The values in this column can be either T (true) or F (false). True signifies that the poll is active, and users may vote. False signifies that only results will be shown when the poll is displayed on a page within your website. This status is set when the poll is created. It may be edited by users with administration access.
• Question: Each poll has a question displayed to the user. This question is specified when the poll is created.

Up to ten polls will appear listed on each page. When more than ten polls exist in a folder the top of the Manager will change. Forward and back arrows allow movement through the pages. The drop down list on the right shows the ID numbers for the objects on each page.

Creating a Poll

To create a poll you must be logged in with the administration toolbar visible at the top of your screen.

• Enter the Poll Manager and select 'Add Poll'

The following attributes are assigned to a poll object:

1. Title - The Metadata Title. Set this field to something short, yet informative. This title will help to identify your poll in the Poll Manager and also appear in your poll above the poll question when it is displayed on a page in your site.
   
2. Question - The question is text-only and can have as much or as little information in it as desired, however, keeping it brief is often a good idea. Example: 'What is your favourite fruit?'

   • The poll question may be edited, but it is not advised that you edit it whilst the poll is still active. Instead, once the poll is complete the question field may be changed to a statement. Example: 'Favourite Fruits:'

3. Active - If the poll is not to be made available immediately then set it to be 'Not-Active'. You can still attach it to a page but visitors to your site may only view the poll results and not modify them. Alternatively, the poll may be set to 'Active' allowing users to vote and changed to 'Not-Active' to signify when voting has been closed.
   
4. Display 'Show Results' - Selecting 'Yes' for this option will enable a new button next to the 'Submit' button. The new button is called 'Show Results'. Clicking on this button allows the user to view results without submitting a vote.
5. Time Out - If you set this to 'One vote per person' then the user is not allowed to vote on this particular poll again. You may change this at any time during the poll's lifetime and the user will be able to vote / view results accordingly on their next visit to the page.
6. Poll Style - Select the 'Pick' button to choose a style from the Style Manager. This may govern the background colours/image, borders around the poll, text alignment and more. See Styles for more information.
7. Display Type - There are quite a few display types available for the presentation of results. Combinations of bar graphs, percentage values and the number of votes recorded against an option. Please note however that a bar graph has a width of 100 pixels and will require more space to fit on the screen than the other types.
8. Possible Answers - You can add more answers by selecting 'Click for More'. It is impossible to remove answers from a poll (as it will corrupt the results) and hence the default minimum is two options. You can also set the colour of the text and background colour of the bar graph for each answer.

When you have finished assigning answers to the poll you should click the 'Save' button. The poll will appear below all existing polls in the Poll Manager.

Editing a Poll

To edit a poll you must be logged in with the administrator tool bar visible at the top of your screen. Enter the Poll Manager. Select the radio button next to the ID number of the poll you wish to alter and click 'Edit' in the Manager Options menu. The Poll Editor will load showing the current attributes assigned to that poll.

As mentioned above, you cannot reduce the number of possible answers in an active poll. All other attributes may be changed as required.

When you are satisfied with the changes select the 'Save'.

Voting and Results

Each answer is displayed in the poll with a radio button next to it. Users are able to select only one radio button per vote.

Selecting 'Submit' will cause the page where the poll appears to be refreshed. The results will be compiled by the Aplinx server and displayed to the user.

When a user views a poll that has been set to 'not-active' they will immediately be shown the results of the poll. This might be handy if you want previous poll results made available without deleting them from the system. The poll will consist of its title, the question, and each result with the corresponding amount or percentages of votes shown. When the user is able to vote again, ie. it has been 30 minutes since their last vote as defined by the Time Out, the poll will instead allow them to make a vote on their next visit.

Results display in order of Most to Least votes. If an option has not recieved any votes, no results bar will be visible next to that option.