Retrieve the results from a Quick Poll (Atlas 5.0+)

In this article we will show how to get the results from a Quick Poll web part, particularly how to get the results after the question has expired.

To learn how to create and configure a Quick Poll on your page, please visit this article: Create a Quick Poll on a Page (Atlas 5.0+)

In this article:

• Retrieving Poll results
  • Results for expired questions
• Restore a deleted Poll to see responses
• Poll Data Storage in SQL
• Still need help?

Retrieving Poll results

To retrieve the results, the expected approach is simply to view them on the web part. If you need a record of the results then copy the data into a Excel file or similar. A question can have up to 6 answers, so at most for each question you need to record the answers and the number of votes for each answer.

As long as the question is still being shown (based on the End Date) you can simply look at the web part - as an Owner you can always see the results - and write them into Excel.

Results for expired questions

Polls can have multiple questions, and each question can have its own Start and End date which determines when it is shown. After the question has expired it is no longer shown, which means you cannot get the results just by looking at the web part.

However there is a simple way to get the results as long as the question is still configured in the web part:

1. Navigate to the page containing the Poll and Edit the page
2. Edit the Poll web part - a panel will open on the right side of the screen
3. Open the Poll Settings section and click the Manage questions button
4. Identify the question you want to retrieve results for, then change the End Date for that question to a date in the future so that it would still be shown
   
5. Click Save at the bottom of the panel. You will notice that the web part reloads when you do this, and the question and answers will now be shown. The page is still in Edit mode, so the question is still hidden from users as expected, but you can see it to get the data.
6. You can now write the results into Excel or similar - if you are showing the data as a chart without numbers, hover over each bar or section to see the number of votes for that answer.
7. Once you have recorded the data you need, if it is still available in your tenant, simply click Discard changes at the top of the page. The page will return to the state it was in before you clicked Edit - so the Poll will still be hidden due to the End date, but you now have the data.
   
   • Unfortunately, Microsoft have been rolling out a change which no longer allows you to discard page changes. If you are unable to discard changes, you'll need to edit the web part again and change the question back to Expired, then re-publish the page.
   • Since you now have the data, you could delete the question from the Poll then Publish the page.

Restore a deleted Poll to see responses

Please be aware that if you delete a Poll web part from a page which had questions with votes already, you will lose this data. Even if you re-create the web part with the same question it will be treated as a new poll and the previous results will not be pulled in.

However, what can be done is restoring the previous version of the page with the poll still included - this will restore the question with the same internal ID so the responses should be loaded back in so you can then get the data you need.

Poll Data Storage in SQL

If restoring the page version doesn't work, it is possible to retrieve the data for deleted polls from the SQL database in Azure as a last resort, but you will need expertise on your side to query this data. If this is required please raise a ticket with us and we can provide details of the SQL table you'll need to query.

The data, when exported, looks like the below, with UserID captured. This table can be transposed into tables or manually filtered and counted with some additional editing.

Still need help?

If you need further assistance after reading the information on this page please contact our support team.