Conduct a poll

Polling is a great way to quickly gather information or compile the preferences of meeting participants.

What do you want to do?

Create a poll

A poll in Microsoft Lync 2010 communications software consists of one question and up to seven possible choices. A meeting can contain many polls, but only one poll at a time can appear on the sharing stage, visible to all meeting participants.

 Note    Only meeting presenters can create and manage polls. If you are not already a presenter, the meeting organizer or another presenter can make you one.

  1. In the meeting window, click the Share menu, and then click New Poll.
    The Create a Poll dialog box opens.
  2. Type a name for your poll, your question, and two or more possible answers.
  3. Click OK.
    If no one else in the meeting is sharing, your poll appears immediately to everyone in the meeting with the words Polls are open at the bottom of the stage.
    If other sharing is taking place, you have the option to share your poll immediately, which would end the current sharing session, or save your poll in the content bin for later.

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Show or hide a poll

As people respond to the poll, you and the other meeting presenters will see the results in real time.

  • To allow everyone in the meeting to watch the results, click the Show results to everyone button Show results to everyone button at the bottom of the stage.

You or another presenter can switch back to hiding the results from meeting attendees.

  • To allow only presenters to watch the results, click the Hide results from attendees button Hide results from attendees icon.

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Close a poll

When polling is complete, close the poll.

  • To stop the voting, click the Close the poll button Close the poll button.
    The words Polls are closed appear at the bottom of the stage. The poll results remain on the screen.

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Remove a poll from the sharing stage

When meeting participants have finished working with the poll results, you can remove the poll from the sharing stage.

  • To remove the completed poll from the sharing stage, click Stop Sharing in the upper-right corner of the stage.

The poll remains in the content bin to be used or saved later.

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Edit the contents of a poll

Presenters can change a poll’s question or choices, either while polling is open (this restarts the poll) or privately, away from the general view. In either case, editing a poll erases any previous votes.

Edit a poll that’s currently being shared

  1. At the bottom of the sharing stage, click the Edit poll question and choices button Edit poll question and choices button.
  2. Make your changes, and then click OK to make the changes public.
    Meeting members can now begin voting on the edited poll.

Edit a poll that’s hidden

  1. If the sharing stage isn’t open, click the Share menu, and then click Show Stage.
  2. Click Content List at the top of the stage, click the arrow next to the poll you want to edit, and then click View Privately.
  3. Click the Edit poll question and choices button Edit poll question and choices button.
  4. Make your changes, and then click OK.
  5. Do one of the following:
  • To start the edited poll, click the Open poll for everyone to vote button Open poll for everyone to vote button.
  • To close the poll until later, click Close My View.

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Save poll results

You can save a Lync 2010 poll as a CSV file. CSV files can be opened in Microsoft Excel spreadsheet software, which offers many types of charts for presenting the polling results.

If you save the poll while it is visible in the sharing stage, you also have the option of saving it as a PNG image.

Save the results of a poll that’s currently visible in the sharing stage

  1. At the bottom of the sharing stage, click the Save poll button Save poll button
  2. Type a file name, select the file type that you want, and then click Save.

Save the results of a poll when the sharing stage is open, but the poll isn’t visible

  1. In the sharing stage, click Content List, click the arrow next to the poll that you want to save, and then click Save as.
  2. Type a file name and then click Save.

Save the results of a poll when the sharing stage is hidden

  1. In the meeting window, click the Share menu, and then click Show Stage.
  2. Click Content List, click the arrow next to the poll that you want to save, and then click Save as.
  3. Type a file name, and then click Save.

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Delete a poll

To delete a poll that you no longer need, do the following:

  1. If the sharing stage is hidden, click the Share menu, and then click Show Stage.
  2. In the sharing stage, click Content List, click the arrow next to the poll you want to delete, and then click Remove from Meeting.

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