67 Working with the Polls Service

This chapter discusses the Polls service and provides information about its task flows. The Polls service lets you create, edit, take, and analyze online polls. With polls, you can survey your audience (such as their opinions and their experience level), check whether they can recall important information, and gather feedback on the efficacy of presentations.

This chapter includes the following sections:

Audience

This chapter is intended for users who want to create and manage polls, as well as administrators in Spaces with the Application-Manage Configuration permission and individual space moderators who want to configure polls within their spaces. For more information, see Section 52.2.1.2, "Understanding Permissions and Permission Models in a Space."

67.1 What You Should Know About the Polls Service

With the Polls service, in addition to taking available polls, you can do the following:

  • Create a poll. You can create quick polls with only a name, description, and question, or you can create detailed polls.

  • Create a template for polls. Templates contain the same questions, sections, and welcome and closing content.

  • Edit an existing poll; for example, add questions to the poll, change existing questions, or publish (open) and close the poll.

  • Take a specific or the most recently-published poll.

  • View poll results.

  • See the status of all polls and available actions for each poll, such as edit, delete, publish, analyze, and clear results.

The Polls service is integrated with the Instant Messaging and Presence service in the Polls Manager.

Figure 67-1 shows a sample quick poll.

More detailed poll functionality is available through the Polls Manager (Figure 67-2).

Figure 67-2 Polls Manager

Polls Manager at runtime
Description of "Figure 67-2 Polls Manager"

Polls created through the Polls Manager must be published and open to be taken. Users cannot take unpublished or closed polls.

67.2 Working with Polls Service Task Flows

The Polls task flows let you create, take, and manage polls. This section includes the following subsections:

67.2.1 Adding a Polls Service Task Flow to a Page

To add a Polls service task flow to a page in a Spaces application:

  1. Open the page in edit mode.

    See Also:

    For more information, see Section 17.3.1, "Entering and Exiting Page Edit Mode."

  2. Click Add Content in the target region to open the Resource Catalog.

  3. Navigate to the section of the Resource Catalog that provides access to polls (Figure 67-3).

    Figure 67-3 Opening the Polls Section in the Resource Catalog

    Polls section in the resource catalog
  4. Click Add next to the task flow that you want to add to your page (Figure 67-4).

    Figure 67-4 Polls Selections in a Space

    Task flows under Polls

67.2.2 Creating a Quick Poll

Quick Polls allow one-question polls to be published immediately. Each quick poll needs its own Quick Poll task flow on the page.

On the General tab, enter a name and description for your poll, and the number of days for the poll to stay open. The name you enter appears in the Component Properties as a parameter in the Take Polls and View Poll Results task flows.

Figure 67-5 Quick Poll - General

Quick poll - General Tab
Description of "Figure 67-5 Quick Poll - General"

On the Question tab, design your one-question poll, and click OK.

Note:

The same types of questions are available in the Quick Poll task flow and in the Polls Manager task flow.

Figure 67-6 Quick Poll - Question

edit quick poll
Description of "Figure 67-6 Quick Poll - Question"

Quick polls can be managed with the Polls Manager. Or, in Edit Page mode, you can click the Design Poll button to edit the quick poll.

67.2.3 Taking Polls

To take a poll, simply select or enter your choice, and click Vote.

The Take Polls task flow displays the most recently-published available poll, unless it is set to display a specific poll with the Poll Id parameter. After a user submits a response for that poll, this task flow displays the next most recently-published poll.

67.2.4 Working with the Polls Manager

The Polls Manager lets you create polls, view the status all current polls, and perform operations on existing polls, including edit, save (as poll or as a poll template), publish, clear results, close, analyze, and delete.

See the latest poll data by clicking the Refresh icon on the Polls Manager view (Figure 67-8).

Figure 67-8 Polls Manager

Polls Manager
Description of "Figure 67-8 Polls Manager"

To add a new poll, click Create Poll.

On the Design page, click Add to populate the poll with an existing template or with questions and surrounding text (Figure 67-9).

Figure 67-9 Polls Manager - Add

Polls Manager - Design tab to add content
Description of "Figure 67-9 Polls Manager - Add"

Click Add Section to enter any explanatory text in a rich text editor (Figure 67-10).

Figure 67-10 Polls Manager - Design Page to Create/Edit Section

Create Section part of the Polls Manager
Description of "Figure 67-10 Polls Manager - Design Page to Create/Edit Section"

Click Add Question to add each poll question (Figure 67-11). New questions are added to top of the poll, so you may want to enter poll questions in reverse order.

Figure 67-11 Polls Manager - Design Page to Create/Edit Questions

Polls Manager - Design tab
Description of "Figure 67-11 Polls Manager - Design Page to Create/Edit Questions"

There are four question types:

  • Multiple Choice (Only One Answer)

  • Multiple Choice (Multiple Answer)

  • Matrix of Choices (Only One Answer Per Row)

  • Matrix of Choices (Multiple Answers Per Row)

With matrix questions, responses are presented in columns and rows. In this example, the current design looks like Figure 67-12.

Figure 67-12 Polls Manager - Design Page

Polls Manager - Design tab
Description of "Figure 67-12 Polls Manager - Design Page"

To apply a template, you must have an existing template saved. For example, when you save any poll, you can select to save it as a template.

Figure 67-13 Saving a Poll as a Template

Description of Figure 67-13 follows
Description of "Figure 67-13 Saving a Poll as a Template"

After it is saved as a template, you later apply that poll template to other polls.

Figure 67-14 Applying a Poll Template

Description of Figure 67-14 follows
Description of "Figure 67-14 Applying a Poll Template"

On Schedule page, choose publish and close options for the poll. Polls must be published and open to be taken. Users cannot take unpublished or closed polls.

In Publish Options, choose to keep the poll in draft mode for further editing, publish it immediately, or publish it on a future date. Click the Select Date and Time icon to enter the publishing time through a calendar. Click Edit Introduction Message to customize in the rich text editor the text provided at the beginning of the poll.

In Close Options, choose to close the published poll after it reaches a certain number of responses or on a certain date. If you choose both options, then the poll closes when either condition is first met. Click the Select Date and Time icon to enter the closing time through a calendar. Click Edit Closing Message to customize in the rich text editor the text provided at the end of the poll.

Figure 67-15 Polls Manager - Schedule

Polls Manager - Schedule tab
Description of "Figure 67-15 Polls Manager - Schedule"

On the Settings page, choose what to display after the poll is taken (Figure 67-16). For example, you can set a custom JSF task flow as Thank You page that appears after the poll is taken.

Figure 67-16 Polls Manager - Settings

Polls Manager - Settings

On the Analyze page, view the poll data. Use the Questions box on the right to toggle between multiple questions (Figure 67-17).

Figure 67-17 Polls Manager - Analyze

Polls Manager - Analyze tab
Description of "Figure 67-17 Polls Manager - Analyze"

67.2.5 Viewing Poll Results

The View Poll Result task flow provides a graphical view of poll results. The View Poll Results task flow must be set to display a specific poll with the Poll Id parameter.

For more information, see Section 67.3, "Setting Polls Service Task Flow Properties."

67.3 Setting Polls Service Task Flow Properties

The Polls service task flows have associated properties, which users with sufficient privileges can access through the Component Properties dialog in Oracle Composer (Figure 67-18).

Figure 67-18 Task Flow Component Properties

Component properties for the Poll Manager task flow
Description of "Figure 67-18 Task Flow Component Properties"

For information about accessing the Component Properties dialog, see Section 17.5.2.3, "Setting Component Properties."

The following sections provide information about properties of the Polls service task flows and describe the properties on the Parameters tab.

67.3.1 What You Should Know About the Polls Service Task Flow Properties

The properties on the Parameters tab of the Component Properties dialog control the default task flow content. For descriptions of the parameters on this tab, see Section 67.3.2, "Polls Service Task Flow Parameters." For some task flows, parameters on this tab facilitate the wiring of the task flow to page parameters and page definition variables. For more information, see Chapter 19, "Wiring Pages, Task Flows, Portlets, and UI Components."

Changes to the properties on the Display Options, Style, and Content Style tabs affect the appearance and behavior of the task flow for all users. These properties are common to all task flows. For more information, see Section 17.5.2, "Setting Properties on Page Components."

The content of the Events tab depends on the events supported by the task flow. For more information, see Section 17.5.2.8, "Working with Component Contextual Events."

The Child Components tab displays all of the components contained within the current component. It provides controls for rearranging, showing, and hiding child components. Not all components contain children. So you may find this tab devoid of content. For more information, see Section 17.5.2.6, "Working with Child Components."

All properties on the Parameters and Display Options tabs provide access to an Expression Language (EL) editor, which you can use to select or specify a variable value instead of a constant value. Click the Edit icon next to a property field to open the editor. For more information about using the editor and for descriptions of common EL expressions, see Appendix B, "Expression Language Expressions."

Note:

Wherever you enter EL on the generic Display Options tab in the Component Properties dialog, the entry is automatically validated. If the EL is invalid, an error appears and the value is neither applied nor saved. Generic Display Options are those cataloged in Table 17-1.

EL validation is not performed on non-generic display options.

67.3.2 Polls Service Task Flow Parameters

Table 67-1 describes the parameters that are unique to the Polls service task flows.

Table 67-1 Polls Service Task Flow Parameters

Parameter Description

Scope

The space name from which polls are to be fetched. If this is supplied, then polls of that particular space are shown.

On the Home space, when this parameter is not supplied, it fetches polls from all spaces.

This parameter appears in the properties for the Polls Manager task flow.

Show User Data Only

This parameter determines whether to display only those polls created by the user.

Set to Yes to display only those polls created by the user. Set to No (default) to display all polls. If the scope parameter is specified, then this parameter works the same but within only that scope.

This parameter appears in the properties for the Polls Manager task flow.

Poll Id

The name of the poll to display, available from the dropdown list.

This parameter appears in the properties for the following task flows.

  • Take Polls

  • View Poll Results

Show In Edit Mode

This parameter determines whether users can edit a quick poll.

When this parameter is set to No, the Design Poll button for editing the quick poll only appears in page edit mode only; it is not visible to users viewing the page. When this parameter is set to Yes, the Design Poll button appears in both view and edit modes, so users can edit the quick poll.

This parameter appears in the properties for the Quick Poll task flow.