How To Run a Poll in Slack

Are you having a hard time engaging your team on Slack?

Polls are a good way to learn their thoughts on past or future projects. If you’re scheduling a meeting and you want their input, setting up a poll is a simple way to get the answers you need.

However, Slack doesn’t have a built-in polling feature. This means that you have to resort to third-party apps to get the job done. Find out which apps are the most popular and which ones are the easiest to use. Also, learn how to improvise in Slack and run an informal poll by using other built-in features.

Using Emoji Reactions

If you want to keep things simple when polling coworkers or teammates, you can use emoji reactions to reach a decision.

Assign an emoji to a specific voting option, and then simply let people cast their vote by reacting with the corresponding emoji. You can use “@channel” to send out a message or notification about the poll to all the people on that channel.

This is as close to a built-in polling feature as you can get on Slack.

Polling Apps

If you want more feedback or you simply want a professional looking poll, the Slack App Directory is the place to visit.

Simple Poll

 
This app allows you to start a poll on the desired channel by simply typing in the question and the answer options. Any team member can do this.

Use “/poll” to start your message. Add the question in quotation marks. After the question, use quotation marks again for each answer separately. If you would like your coworkers to have some privacy and a strong incentive to vote truthfully, you can type “anonymous” after the last option in order to hide the names associated with votes.

Here is an example of initiating an anonymous poll on Slack using Simple Poll: /poll “Do polls help increase your productivity?” “Yes” “No” “Sometimes” anonymous

Although this app seems rather basic, you can customize the polls just enough that you always get the feedback you need.

For instance, you can also limit the number of options each person can choose. Type the word “limit” followed by a number in order to do this. Use it at the end of the poll line, after the answer options.

Example: /poll “Which time works best for you? Pick two:” “8:00” “9:00” “10:00” “11:00” limit 2

However, it is worth noting that Simple Poll comes with a basic and a business version. The basic version or Hobby version allows you to create basic and anonymous polls, set up to 10 options for each poll, but it limits you to 100 votes per month.

The business plan removes the limit on monthly votes an also allows you to add up to 100 options for each poll. This is also the only way you can limit the number of options chosen per user. Depending on how large your company is or how active the workspace is, the Hobby version of Simple Poll may not be enough.
 

Polly

 
This is one of the most popular polling and survey apps on Slack. You can use it to set up multi-vote polls, anonymous polls, scheduled polls, or event-based surveys. It’s a complex app that’s surprisingly easy to use and it has its use in both small and large workspaces.

Survey Monkey

Another interesting app is Survey Monkey. With this app, you can post short one-question polls as well as start surveys based on a few given templates. You can receive Slack notifications when someone responds to the survey. Unfortunately, the templates don’t have much variety unless you upgrade to the premium version.

How to Add Polling Apps

Most polling apps and survey apps can be found on the Slack App Directory. Each of these apps also has its own official website. An app that is compatible with Slack will likely have an Add to Slack button on its website.

A Final Question

You might be wondering how important polls and surveys really are. Do they improve team productivity or are they just a distraction?

Running polls can give you important feedback on certain projects or on the status of your employees or coworkers. It also allows you to get real-time answers from many people at the same time.

Polls are designed to provide quick feedback, and they’re much easier than sending out private messages. The fact that they’re convenient to use and easy to understand is a big plus for everyone on the team.