Conducting polls in webinars
When enabled, hosts can create poll questions for webinars. You can launch the poll during your webinar and gather responses from your attendees. Hosts have the option to download a polling report after the webinar. Polls can be conducted anonymously if you prefer not to collect attendee information with the results.
Hosts and co-hosts can launch polls, but only the host (or alternative host, if enabled) is able to create new polls. Hosts and co-hosts are also not able to vote in polls themselves. When launching the poll, they can choose whether or not panelists are able to participate.
Polling reports contain full details of the results, such as each attendee's answers and submission times. These reports are available after the webinar by default, with an option to access them during the live session.
In addition to polls, hosts can create and launch quizzes, which allow you to set correct answers.
Creating polls or quizzes in meetings is also possible.
Requirements for conducting polling in webinars
- Zoom Webinars add-on
- Webinar polling enabled
- Zoom desktop app for Windows, macOS, or Linux: Global minimum version or higher
- Zoom mobile app for Android or iOS: Global minimum version or higher
Note: Users on the iOS or Android mobile app can participate in polling, but hosts need to be using the desktop app to manage polling. - Zoom web app
Limitations of webinar polls
- By default, only the original webinar host can edit or add polls during a webinar. If the host or co-host role is transferred to another user, that user will only be able to launch polls already created. Alternative hosts can add or edit polls, if the setting is enabled in the web portal and the host selects the option when scheduling a webinar.
- You can create a maximum of 100 polls for a single webinar, with each poll having a maximum of 100 questions.
- If a poll is relaunched in a webinar, the poll report will only display the last poll occurrence. If you know you will need to launch the same poll twice and want both sets of data, consider creating a second poll with the same questions as the original to avoid re-launching.
How to create a poll for a webinar
Hosts can create polling questions before or during a live webinar session. During the webinar, all questions under a single poll will be asked when launched. You can create additional polls to ask questions at different times during the webinar.
Create a poll before a webinar
- Sign in to the Zoom web portal.
- In the navigation menu, click Webinars.
- Click the name of the webinar you want to add a poll to or click the Schedule a Webinar button to schedule a new webinar.
- If you are editing an existing webinar, scroll to the bottom of the page and click the Polls/Quizzes tab. If you are scheduling a new webinar, click Save, then scroll to the bottom of the page and click the Polls/Quizzes tab.
- Click + Create.
- Click the title Untitled Poll... to give the poll a name.
- Review the question types and configuration options, then select the question type for the first question.
- (Optional) Click + Add Question to add another question to the poll.
- (Optional) Click gear icon at the top right to configure the following options:
- Require answers to be anonymous
- (Optional) Click the preview icon
to see a preview. - (Optional) Click the arrow icon next to Save at the top right to Save as draft.
- (Optional) Click Save to allow the quiz to be started during webinars.
Create a poll during webinar
- Sign in to the Zoom desktop app.
- Start a webinar as the host.
- In the webinar controls, click Polls/Quizzes
. - Do one of the following:
- Click Create if there are no polls created yet.
- In the top-right corner, click the plus icon
to add more polls to the existing ones.
- Click the title Untitled Poll... to give the poll a name.
- Review the question types and configuration options, then click the arrow
to the right of the question title to select the question type. - (Optional) Click + Add Question to add another question to the poll.
- (Optional) Click the ellipses
at the bottom left of the creation window, then click Settings to configure the following options:
- Require answers to be anonymous
- (Optional) Click the ellipses
at the bottom left of the creation window, then click Preview see a preview. - (Optional) Click Save to allow the poll to be started during webinars.
How to use the Surveys & Polls library
You can manage a central library of polls for webinars.
How to launch a poll in a webinar
Polls are not immediately available to webinar attendees, as the host needs to launch a poll for attendees to respond to. Hosts can create polls before or during the webinar.
During the webinar, all questions under a single poll will be asked when launched. You can create additional polls to ask questions at different times during the webinar.
- Start the scheduled webinar.
- In the webinar controls, click Polls/Quizzes
. - In the Polls/Quizzes window, click the name of the poll to open the details.
- (Optional) Click the ellipses icon
to access the following options:
- Click Edit to modify questions and answers to the poll, then click Save.
- Click Allow panelists to vote to choose if panelists can participate in the polling.
- Click Launch.
The attendees in the webinar will now be prompted to answer the polling questions. The host will be able to see the results live. - Once you would like to stop the poll, click End Poll.
- Click the ellipses icon
to access the following options:
- Re-launch Poll: Launches the poll again.
Note: If a poll is relaunched in a webinar, the poll report will only display the last poll occurrence. If you know you will need to launch the same poll twice and want both sets of data, consider creating a second poll with the same questions as the original to avoid relaunching. - Download Results: This will launch your default web browser so that you can download the entire poll report, which shows what each attendee chose, instead of the percentages of each choice.
- View Results from Browser: Launches your default web browser and displays the same polling results on the web page.
- Allow Panelists to vote: Click this option to change the setting, which will take effect if you re-launch the poll.
- Click Share Results to share the results with the attendees in the webinar, then click Stop Sharing when needed.