This article explains how to create and manage polls and ratings in GuideSpark’s Communicate platform. It covers the purpose of polls and ratings, how to set them up, add them to content, create standalone polls/ratings, edit them, link them to campaign messages, and track their results in the Analytics section. The article emphasizes the importance of these features in creating engaging content experiences and gathering valuable feedback from employees.

You must hold the permission status of Owner or Editor to upload video or other content, create polls, ratings, and content headers, or administer Call to Action buttons. Read more about team access and permissions here.

Polls and ratings help to create more relevant, engaging content experiences for employees by creating a dialogue and encouraging them to lean in. Add a poll or rating to a content asset, create a standalone poll or rating, or even link a poll or rating directly to a campaign message, such as an email or poster. Each rating and poll answer can generate a recommended content asset to watch next. The poll and rating responses are displayed in the Analytics section, providing insight into your employees’ experience with the content.

Polls and ratings provide the opportunity to get a temperature check and/or further insight into the following:

• What employees want to learn.
• How employees are feeling about the content.
• Employees’ knowledge and understanding of the content.
• The impact of the content to program adoption.
• Understanding employees’ behaviors. For example:
  • Are employees prepared to make decisions?
  • Do they value their offerings?

When should you use polls and ratings?

1. Before a campaign, to gauge the interest of your audience and what pieces of content to highlight.
2. During a campaign, to get a temperature check of how your program is being received, including which pieces of content are the most and least effective.
3. After a campaign, to measure your audience’s overall comprehension of the campaign’s information.

Multiple choice polls

A question with up to five answers. Suggested content headers/content can be configured for each answer. The total responses are displayed in the Analytics section to help you get a deeper understanding of employee feelings or comprehension of the content.

Ratings

A question that is answered by choosing one to five stars. Suggested content headers/content can be configured for each number of stars. The total responses are displayed in the Analytics section to help you get a deeper understanding of employee feelings or comprehension.

Setting up a default sentiment rating question

You can create a default sentiment rating question which will be used frequently in your campaign.

1. Start in the Experience section of a Communicate Journey and click on the pencil icon in the Defaults area at the top.

2. A pop-up window will appear, where you can fill out the sentiment rating question. Remember that the viewer responds via a rating system, so be sure to include a clear, direct question that they can answer with a range of 1 to 5 stars.

3. Once you have finished, click Save. This default URL will now appear when you are in the edit window of a piece of content, as an option.

Adding polls/ratings to content

Multiple-choice polls and ratings can be added to any piece of content in your campaign that you are creating or already exist. This connects the feedback to that particular piece of content.

1. In the Experience section, select the pencil icon in the bottom right corner of the content thumbnail. Icons appear on mouse-over.

2. In the Feedback tab of the edit window, click into the Choose Your Feedback Option drop-down menu and select either Multiple Choice Poll or Sentiment Rating. You can always change the option type later on.

3. Then fill out:

• The Question and Answers spaces.
• Toggle on Suggested Content if you want employees’ answer selections to take them to another suggested piece of content.
• Toggle on Standalone Feedback if you want the poll/rating to replace the existing piece of content rather than following the existing piece of content.

4. Then click Save.

Note: For details on this information, go to the Feedback tab steps in “Editing a standalone poll/rating”.

Spark Tip:

Include direct questions focused on comprehension to better understand your employees’ take-aways from the content experience.

Standalone polls/ratings

Standalone multiple-choice polls and ratings are not tied to a piece of content. They exist as an independent piece of content within the campaign and are helpful when you want to directly ask a question to the employees. Just like videos, images, PDFs, and content headers in your campaign, standalone polls and ratings can be linked to your campaign messages, such as emails, posters, postcards, etc.

Standalone rating

1. Start in the Experience section of your selected Communicate Journey.
2. In the top Setup area, select Rating.
   
3. A pop-up window will open. Complete the following:
   • Question: You can select the default or you can create a custom question. Keep in mind if you are creating one, that your employees will be responding with a rating system, so frame the question in a way they can answer on a scale.
   • Parent: This will be the content header/piece of content that the poll will appear after.
   • Primary Title: Provide a brief, explanatory title. This will appear above your survey in the Communicate Journey.
4. Once you are finished, click Save.

5. Your rating will now appear as a new piece of content in Draft form in the Experience section.

Standalone poll

1. Start in the Experience section of your selected Communicate Journey.
2. In the top Setup area, select Poll.

3. A pop-up window will open. Complete the following:

• • Question: Create a question that employees will be able to answer from the options available.
  • Answers: Include simple, brief answers that coincide with the question given.
  • Parent: This will be the content header/piece of content that the poll will appear after.
  • Primary Title: Provide a brief, explanatory title. This will appear above your poll in the Communicate Journey.

4. Once you are finished, click Save.

5. Your multiple choice poll will now appear as a new piece of content in Draft form in the Experience section.

Editing a standalone poll/rating

1. Click the pencil icon in the bottom right corner of the content thumbnail (when you hover over it) in the same way you would for a video or document.

2. Five tabs appear: Content, Publish State, Action, Feedback, and Share. The Feedback tab addresses poll and rating adjustments.

The Feedback tab

In this tab you can adjust the following options:

Choose Your Feedback Option: You can change your feedback option from Multiple Choice Poll to Rating or vice versa.

Question: This is the question that will be displayed for your poll or rating.

Answers (This is included for Multiple Choice Poll): The audience’s selection options in response to the question.

Standalone Feedback: You can toggle between if you want to change a standalone poll/rating to be linked to a file or back to a standalone poll/rating.

Link in a campaign message

Standalone multiple-choice polls and ratings can be added to Communicate Journey messages, the same way as you include a video, PDF, image, or content header. See the Campaign section for more information on linking assets in a campaign message.

Tracking polls/ratings in the Analytics section

Start by going into the Analytics section and clicking on the Feedback tab at the top. This page shows the aggregate responses for the interactive polls and ratings in real-time, that were used in a Communicate Journey.

Locate your ratings or polls by their title if they are a standalone asset, or the content they are attached to if they are tied to another asset:

• Poll results display the total number of votes each choice received as well as a bar graph display to show how it compared to the other choices.
• Rating results display the average number of stars that viewers selected, to give you a mean of the overall rating for that question.

Both ratings and polls display the total number of votes received at the bottom of their display area. You can use the filters to segment the data by audience group in the Analytics section.

Additional notes

• Employees can skip the survey in the Communicate Journey. And if they don’t select a response in the survey, the recommended content headers/pieces of content are not displayed.
• If you have a poll or rating after the single embed video it will appear, however, the Call to Action button will not appear after the video.

FAQ

What are the main types of feedback options available in GuideSpark Communicate?

The two main types of feedback options are multiple choice polls and ratings. Multiple choice polls allow up to five answer options, while ratings use a five-star system for responses.

How can I add a poll or rating to existing content?

To add a poll or rating to existing content, go to the Experience section, click the pencil icon on the content thumbnail, select the Feedback tab in the edit window, choose your feedback option (Multiple Choice Poll or Sentiment Rating), and fill out the necessary information before saving.

Where can I view the results of polls and ratings?

You can view the results of polls and ratings in the Analytics section under the Feedback tab. This page shows aggregate responses in real-time, displaying total votes for polls and average star ratings for rating questions.