Geekbot is an asynchronous meeting tool that integrates with your organization’s Slack account. Many teams use Geekbot to run standups and retrospectives, but our features aren’t limited to that.
- Polly is free to use for teams of any size, forever. Premium plans are available for upgrade! Polly for Slack.
- Polly’s new “games” for Slack include quirky employee recognition activities. While the company is calling the new features “games,” they are more about team-building and lighthearted interactions.
- The simplest way to run a poll in Slack is to use Emoji reactions for voting, but you can do more robust polls, or export results, with apps like Polly or SimplePoll. Add a polling app to Slack to get started. How to run a poll to collect ideas Write up a message that asks for input and offers options.
Polly works where you work. The typical forms and survey tools are not purpose-built for Slack. Polly is built to work in a world where users are used to staying connected, responding quickly, and seeing results in. Use the Polly app for Slack to: Gauge everyone’s morale with a quick survey Make your surveys optionally anonymous, and choose to show or hide results Run scheduled and recurring polls/surveys, with automated reminders for unanswered surveys.
Geekbot is also an easy to use polling software that integrates with Slack, letting you easily run polls to gain insights from your team.
This post shows you how to use Geekbot to do a poll in Slack in 6 steps.
Note: Are you ready to start running polls in Slack? Geekbot is free for smaller teams with less than 10 users. We also offer a paid option for larger teams which you can try out free for 30 days.
1. Create a New Slack Poll
As you can see below, we have ready-made templates for daily standups, quick check-ins, retrospectives, team feedback, and more.
Because we’re creating a poll, we’ll need a specific type of customization, so instead of selecting a specific template, click on “Build your own” in the upper right-hand corner.
That will take you to a Custom Report screen.
Custom Reports are broken down into four key areas, where you can specify poll options, including:
- “Basic”: For the name of the poll, where it’s going to be broadcasted, and whether it’s anonymous or not.
- “Questions”: What question(s) do you want answered, and how do you want your responses (numeric, dropdown list, free response, etc.)?
- “Participants”: Who gets the poll? Is it everyone in a certain Slack channel or only specific people?
- “Schedule”: When does the poll get sent out? On a recurring schedule? Or only once?
In the three steps below, we will take a closer look at the key areas of creating a Slack poll with Geekbot.
2. Name Your Poll
You can name your poll and select where you want it broadcasted.
For example, do you want your Slack poll posted in your team’s #general channel, or is this poll for a different channel, such as your developer or user research channel?
At this stage, you can also select whether or not this is an anonymous poll.
Sometimes anonymous polls are chosen when you want your team to speak or vote without fear of repercussions.
3. Write Your Questions
Next, you’re going to write the question(s) you want your team to answer.
Note: There is no limit to how many questions you can add to your Slack poll.
If you click the gear icon on the questions bar, you can select “Pick type” or “Pick Color”.
Polly Slack Integration
When you click “Pick Type”, you’re taken to a screen where you can select between several different types of responses.
- Plain text: Users can freely type any kind of answer.
- Numeric: Users can only respond using numbers. This is great if you’re looking for percentages or easily quantifiable data.
- Pre-defined: Users can select from predefined responses or responses you’re providing.
- Random: Users receive a question at random from a list.
The image above is an example of what it looks like when you select “Pre-defined” as your response type.
With Geekbot, you can also write an intro message. Netmo. This is the first Slack message your team sees, and it can be as simple as, “It’s time for our weekly poll!”
You can also type an outro message. An outro message is usually something simple such as, “Thank you for completing today’s poll.”
Bonus: With Geekbot, you can use emojis in your Intro and Outro message to make your Slack poll more engaging, emotive, and friendly. 🙂
4. Select Your Participants
With Geekbot, you can either manually add participants to your poll or sync your poll to a specific Slack channel.
If you wanted only the responses of a few team members who aren’t grouped neatly into one channel, then just add their names to the list manually. Geekbot pulls all available names from your organization’s Slack workspace.
Note: With Geekbot, there’s no maximum or minimum number of participants required to run a Slack poll.
5. Schedule Your Slack Poll
Next, it’s time to schedule your Slack poll.
You can pick the frequency of when your Slack poll is sent out, selecting from a dropdown list of options, including:
- One time only
- Weekly
- 2 Week Period
- 3 Week Period
- 4 Week Period
- First week of each month
- Last week of each month
You can also select what day(s) to send out the poll, along with what time.
When scheduling a time: it’s convenient to select the time you want (such as 9:00 in the morning) and then to have Geekbot automatically factor in each participant’s respective time zone. This way everyone gets the poll when it’s convenient for them, minimizing the interruption to their workflow.
Polly For Slacker
6. Send Out Your Slack Poll
Once you’ve filled out all of the appropriate fields, you can now schedule your Slack poll to get sent out. Participants will get a DM in Slack, asking them to complete the poll. For example:
When you get your poll results, you can view them in two different ways.
First, you can view them directly in Slack. For example:
But you can also view responses as a whole from your Geekbot dashboard.
In the above image, you can see that 73% of your team filled out the poll (with five missing participants) and most team members agree that they’d appreciate freshly squeezed juices over fresh veggies and yogurt dips.
Final Thoughts: The Many Benefits of Using Geekbot
We use Geekbot to run Slack polls whenever we need them. It’s a quick and easy way to get information from your team.
Plus, there are dozens of ways teams can use Geekbot to improve their company culture.
For example, GitLab uses Geekbot to do remote work check-ins and build camaraderie. Other customers use a feature called Geekbot Sentiment (where Geekbot measures team happiness).
Also, as we’ve mentioned, many teams use Geekbot to run asynchronous remote work meetings, such as standups, retrospectives, and more.
If you’re ready to start using Geekbot, click here to start your free trial.
Frequently asked questions
Polly For Slack
Can You Make Polls in Slack?
Yes, you can easily make polls in Slack using various polling apps, such as Geekbot, Polly, and Simple Poll.
To get started, navigate to the Slack app directory and type in the polling software you want to use.
For example, if you wanted to install our tool — Geekbot — then type it in the search bar.
When Geekbot pops up, just click on “Sign In to install” (if you’re not already logged in).
From there, you can create an account and start running polls in Slack.
Polly For Slacks
We’re Polly, one of the largest, longest running, and fastest growing applications on Slack and Microsoft Teams. We make it easy for millions of users across thousands of teams to measure and manage their work.
Every moment at an early-stage startup counts. At Polly, we seek-out team members who are ambitious and curious, who operate with intention and passion. As a Full Stack Engineer II, you’ll work to build the systems behind Polly’s polls, surveys, and feedback workflows that run directly in Slack and MS Teams. You work closely with multiple stakeholders and make a big impact on our users. We’re primarily working with Node on the backend and React on the front-end, in a modern development environment that features single click deployments on a daily basis. We're seeking engineers who have an interest in working in a highly collaborative environment. This is an exciting opportunity to join an early team and gain exposure to everything it takes to rapidly scale a well-funded software startup.
As a Full Stack Software Engineer II at Polly, you will:
- Build, evolve, and support one of the most popular apps on the Slack and MS Teams platforms
- Ship high-quality software with a tight-knit engineering team
- Get involved in every aspect of Polly’s products, from design to iteration and deployment
- Develop, automate, and maintain our cloud and containerization infrastructure
- Take part in DevOps rotations to support our production environment
Skills and past achievements:
Polly App For Slack
- Experience with multiple product lifecycles of commercial software development in B2B, SaaS, and/or Cloud focus
- You've successfully built out solutions end-to-end and are comfortable operating in any layer of the architecture. Our tech stack is built on Node and React, but any past web development experience is suitable
- Experience running and maintaining production infrastructures
- User-centered design experience: Ability to understand what the user wants and what you can deliver within the constraints
- Strong communication skills and great problem-solving ability
- Bonus Points: Love for Slack and/or parrots
About Polly:
How To Make A Poll In Slack
Polly is the leading solution to measure critical workflows in Slack and MS Teams. Already loved by thousands of companies (including many Fortune 100), Polly empowers every employee to gather real-time insights in a way that’s quick, easy to use, and maximizes participation. Join us to help define how work is measured and managed in the era of enterprise messaging.