How to create a poll in Microsoft Teams
Polls are a quick way to get very precise feedback about anything. They limit reply options for respondents who tend to be overly-verbose when answering a question and they can be interpreted quickly and accurately.
Microsoft Teams allows users to run a poll within a meeting or within a channel. It adds this feature by integrating Microsoft Forms within the Microsoft Teams app.
Polls in Microsoft Teams
A poll in Microsoft Teams relies on Microsoft Forms which is not available to users with a free Microsoft Teams account. You must have a paid subscription for Microsoft Teams or Microsoft 365 that includes Microsoft Teams.
Create poll in Microsoft Teams
To create a poll in Microsoft Teams, follow these steps.
- Open Microsoft Teams.
- Select the team you want to create a poll in.
- Select a channel under it.
- Click the New Conversation button.
- Click the more options (three dots) button on the toolbar.
- Select Forms from the menu.
- Create your poll i.e., enter the question you want to ask, add answer options to it.
- Click Send when it’s ready.
- All team members in the channel will see the poll and be able to respond to it.
Customize polls
If you create a poll directly in a Microsoft Teams channel, you have the option to;
- Allow anonymous replies
- Allow multiple answers
For more customization options for a poll, you should add a Form tab in the channel and create the poll in it.
- Open Microsoft Teams.
- Go to the Team and channel you want to run the poll in.
- Click the plus button at the top.
- Select Forms from the windows that opens.
- Create the poll and customize how users can respond to it and what sort of response, (text-based, rating, ranking) they can give. You can also attach media to the poll.
- Once created, the poll will automatically be shared to the channel and team members can respond to it.
Conclusion
Most features in Microsoft Teams are other Microsoft apps that have been integrated within the Microsoft Teams app. This is why most features that are not built right into the app itself are often subject to a paid subscription of Microsoft Teams or Microsoft 365. The polls can be run during a meeting i.e. a video or audio call, and they can be run outside a meeting. There is no option to limit how long the poll will be live and team members can respond to it.
