When it comes to organizing a work team, no matter how big or small, Slack is an excellent choice. With Slack, online collaboration flows efficiently with the help of channels, bots, and other tools.
When you want to improve your team’s communication, a poll or survey can be a great idea. That’s where the Polly app for Slack comes in.
You can use Polly to safely gather information and make decisions faster. But where can you find Polly in Slack? And what’s the best way to make the most of the app in your workplace?
How to Find Polly in Slack?
You can download and install Polly in two different ways. You can either go directly to the Slack App Directory page and install it from there. Or you can get it from the Polly home page.
Before you commit to an annual fee, you can request a demo to see how Polly works. If you choose to go with one of the plans for Teams or Enterprise, you can start creating polls and surveys.
How to Create a Poll in Slack Using Polly
To create a poll in Slack using the Polly app, you need to remember the /polly command. After you type in that command, you can proceed with the question. You separate the options in your poll with quotations. And then just hit the enter button.
You’ll receive the link you need to use in the Polly web app to create the poll. Also, you can access more poll options from the web app. But another way to author a poll from scratch is to start from the web app. You can use your Dashboard and make the most of the “Create Poll” button.
When you want to create a survey, which is a bit more complicated, it’s highly recommended to use the web app directly. Keep in mind that you can make your polls and surveys anonymous if you want to. And you can even hide the voting results from the rest of the team.
Polly Question Types
Unlike surveys that contain more than one question, polls are all about one question and several answer options. But not all polls are the same. There are several different types of poll questions you can use in Slack.
When you first create a poll, Polly will automatically start with the multiple-choice answer type. You can have up to 10 different answers. If you want more, you’ll need a Polly plan upgrade. Here are some other types of poll questions you can have with Polly.
Open-Ended Questions
Polls can be so much more than multiple choice answers. You can use Polly to get more constructive feedback from your Slack team. Instead of listing options, you can just ask for their ideas directly.
It’s a less quantitative form of polling, and it’s a fantastic way to gather ideas. You can ask everyone how they feel about a certain project or what they think should be the next one.
Your team members can then answer and submit a response. Just like with other polls and surveys, you can choose to make it anonymous.
Ranking Questions
When you know that your teammates will have a hard time choosing just one option from the multiple-choice poll, you can use a ranking poll instead.
You can add up to 10 options but can only rank up to five per poll. This is a great way to learn about your employees’ top priorities. Just because someone cares more about vacation time, doesn’t mean they don’t care about getting new office chairs.
Image Polls
Instead of going from one member of your team to another to ask which image they prefer, you can just use the Image Poll option. That way, you get the feedback much faster and move on.
At the moment, you can’t upload an image via the Polly web app, but you can add an image URL. You can use the GIF, PNG, and JPG file formats, but Polly promises that they will expand the list soon.
Polly Helps Your Slack Team in Many Ways
Once you start using Polly in Slack, you’re likely never going to stop. There are so many useful ways to put Polly to work. If your Slack workspace consists of people who need to work together closely, Polly will be a life-saver.
When you can’t agree on something, just do a quick survey or ask a yes or no question. It’s democracy in the workplace in action. You can think of Polly as Slack’s faithful sidekick. Together, they’ll make your workdays run more smoothly.
Have you ever used Polly in Slack? Let us know in the comments section below.
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