Overview

As part of the Touchcast suite of engagement features on the event page, there are two poll options that clients can choose from: Third Party Polls & Showtime Polls. The poll feature is a great way to gauge attendee sentiment, attendee knowledge on a subject, or link out to a non-Touchcast hosted survey or feedback form. Polls can be used before the live day and live stream, during the live stream, and after the live event depending on preference and purpose. The clicks and poll results are gathered in the Analytics dashboard of the CMS that clients have access to for their reporting needs. 

This document will detail how to create both types of polls, the differences between the two poll types, the relationship between sessions and polls, and other technical considerations to note when discussing polls with clients or standing up an event page for demos. 

Terminology

1. Third Party Poll: Using a client-provided, third-party platform or URL, attendees will see a pop-up with an image, title, brief (optional) description, and a Call-To-Action (CTA) that links to the client’s poll provider in a new browser tab or on the page in a lightbox if the URL’s destination is compatible with iFraming.  

2. Showtime Poll: Built in the Touchcast CMS, this format allows you to add a question or prompt and up to six possible answers that attendees can select/engage with on the Touchcast platform.

How To

Each poll type requires different assets and information. To begin, go to the “Content Management” tab of the CMS and scroll down to the “Polls” section.

Create a Third Party Poll

Navigate to the “Third Party Poll” section where you can access the dashboard of all Third Party Polls created and select the “+ New Poll” button. 

Open

Enter the information in the fields listed below:

• Title: The title of the Third Party Poll can be a prompt, question, really anything that makes visual and editorial sense to the location that the poll will re-direct attendees. Title character count: 20

• Launch Option: You have two options: Manual launch or Timed launch. 

  • If Manual launch is selected, you will not need to fill out any additional information about the timing of the poll. Manually launched polls require a Touchcast designated resource (usually the Event Coordinator or an extra coordinator to assist) to launch the poll at specifically prompted times per the client’s direction or a speaker cue. 

  • If Timed launch is selected, additional fields appear. You will need to set the timezone (same as the overall event page), start & end time for the poll. You can also assign it to a session. Polls must be displayed for one minute at a minimum.

• Groups: Polls can be assigned to one or more access groups.

• Track: if your poll appears only in the stream, you can assign it to a track or multiple tracks. If you don’t assign it to a track, it will appear across all tracks at the time scheduled or when manually launched.

• Description: The description appears below the Third Party Poll title and is used for any more instructive language or further context behind the call to action. Description character count: 50-70

• URL: The field where the client-provided URL for the external poll service or site is inputted.

• Display Area: Third Party Polls are positioned in the bottom right corner and can appear in the Player only or in the Player and main experience. 

  • Player only: The poll will only be seen if the attendee has the full player opened, watching the live stream. If “Player only” is selected, the poll will not be visible if the player is closed. 

  • Player and main experience: The poll will be visible within the opened player and on the main event page experience. This option must be selected if launching a poll before or after the player is open. 

• Image: All Third Party Polls require an image to be uploaded that appears above the title. Asset specs: 480x240 pixel JPG

• Button Label: Adding call to action text in this field will enable attendees to click on the external link provided in the URL field. The button will not appear if left blank. Button Label (CTA) character count: 10-15

• Open Type: To control how the external link is opened.

  • Lightbox modal: If your external link supports iFraming, upon clicking the button, attendees can access the external link in a pop-up that appears on the event page covering the player. 

  • Window: Opens the link in a new tab for the attendee. If the link does not support iFraming, you will need to select this option to ensure attendees can access the link. 

• Params: If your Third-Party poll service receives and tracks additional information identifiers like Email, First name, Last name, Company name, or Job title, you can enter the correct URL info in the field and select the option from the dropdown accordingly. To ensure this is executed correctly you may need to involve the Product team. 

• Internal Notes: help identify/label the polls, only viewable if you have access in the CMS and often helpful for staying organized if you’re the person initiating the launch of polls. 

Don’t forget to hit Submit to save your Third Party Poll! 

Open

Use a Third Party Poll as a Notification

Clients may request notifications to help guide the attendee experience or notify them of any session or content specifics. Using the Third Party Poll feature, you have the ability to create simple notifications that exclude the CTA button. These can be pre-timed or manually launched but must be created prior to the event page opening to attendees and the live stream beginning.

To create a notification, simply create a Third Party Poll and follow the instructions above. Instead of providing the information for the following fields, you will leave them blank.

• URL - the notification does not serve the purpose of directing attendees to an external page so this must be left blank.

• Button Label - this must be left blank in order to exclude the CTA button from the poll (notification). 

• Open Type - not applicable since there is nothing that will be opened. 

• Params - not applicable

Since there are no clicks that occur on the notification (with the exception of a user clicking the “X” to close), the analytics dashboard will only list the notification name, when it was launched, and will display a click count of zero (under the Third Party Poll section). .

Create a Showtime Poll

Navigate to the “Showtime Poll” section where you can access the dashboard of all Third Party Polls created and select the “+ New Poll” button. 

Enter the information in the fields listed below:

• Type: You can determine if you want the poll to function like a Poll (attendees select one option from a series of options) or set as a Quiz (with 1 correct answer or multiple correct answers). In both instances, the attendee can only select one answer.

• Title: Should be the poll or quiz question or prompt.

• Launch Option: You have two options: Manual launch or Timed launch. 

  • If Manual launch is selected, you will not need to fill out any additional information about the timing of the poll. Manually launched polls require a Touchcast designated resource (usually the Event Coordinator or an extra coordinator to assist) to launch the poll at specifically prompted times per the client’s direction or a speaker cue. 

  • If Timed launch is selected, additional fields appear. You will need to set the timezone (same as the overall event page), start & end time for the poll. You can also assign it to a session. Polls must be displayed for one minute at a minimum.

• Groups: Polls can be assigned to one or more access groups.

• Track: if your poll appears only in the stream, you can assign it to a track or multiple tracks. If you don’t assign it to a track, it will appear across all tracks at the time scheduled or when manually launched.

• Display Area: Showtime Polls can appear in the Player only or in the Player and main experience. 

  • Player only: The poll will only be seen if the attendee has the full player opened, watching the live stream. If “Player only” is selected, the poll will not be visible/accessible if the player is closed. 

  • Player and main experience: The poll will be visible within the opened player and on the main event page experience. This option must be selected if launching a poll before or after the player is open.

• Placement: The “Placement” selection determines the position of the poll within the opened player and on the main event page (outside of the player, if selected in Display Area). 

• Options: Where poll responses are entered. You can enter a maximum of 6 options that attendees can select from. Attendees will only be able to select one option. 

• Colors: Showtime polls can have various color customizations that can be controlled on an individual poll level. If desired, you could create multiple polls with different on-brand colors. See the following page for color customizations.. 

• Show Poll Percentage: When toggled on, the percentage of attendees who have selected each option will appear automatically once the attendee submits their answer. The percentage will reflect only the results at that moment in time. If toggled off, poll results can be launched separately, at a later time and the attendee will see a “Thank You” message instead of immediate results..

• Show Number of Votes in Results: You can enable or disable displaying the amount of submitted responses/votes in the Poll/Quiz percentage/result popup. 

• Internal Notes: Help identify/label the polls, only viewable if you have access in the CMS and often helpful for staying organized if you’re the person initiating the launch of polls. 
  
  

The Showtime Poll using the “Poll” type. 

The Showtime Poll using the “Quiz” type

Identifying Which Poll To Use

The below table illustrates the use cases for both poll options. 

Technical Considerations

The Third Party and Showtime Polls features are HTML overlays that appear on the event page and player of the attendee experience. In order for polls to appear on the attendee’s end, the poll must be launched, their page must load with the information they receive, and the poll will then appear. Before committing to pre-timing or manually launching a poll there are a few technical aspects around poll behavior to make note of:

For pre-timed polls

• Polls that are pre-timed will appear for the full duration of their launch time even for attendees who enter the event page (or for those who refresh) after the start time of the poll.

• If the specific poll needs to appear to attendees more than once, you will need to duplicate the poll and enter in the timing for each one. 

• If a poll is pre-timed and you would like to manually launch it before or after its set time, it will still launch at it’s pre-set time if that individual poll’s setting is not switched to the launch type of “manual”.

• The CMS allows you to stop the poll, even before the pre-set end time occurs. Do not launch a poll for less than 1 minute as this could result in some users with slower internet bandwidth to not receive the poll data to their page, thereby not receiving the poll entirely. 

For manually launched polls

• Attendees who refresh or enter their page after the poll has been launched will not see the poll. 

• If the specific poll needs to appear to attendees more than once you will not need to duplicate the poll, you can just launch the same poll multiple times at the agreed upon or prompted timing. The analytics dashboard will identify each launch instance by the time it was launched.

• Do not launch a poll for less than 1 minute as this could result in some users with slower internet bandwidth to not receive the poll data to their page, thereby not receiving the poll entirely.

For any polls

• If a poll is created (added to the CMS) after the event page is opened to attendees there is a risk that some attendees will not see the poll if they do not refresh or close/reopen the event page prior to the poll’s desired or planned launch time. 

• To avoid attendees’ experiences not reflecting any updates to polls or the creation of new polls after the event page is opened, confirm with the Touchcast product team that a Realtime push is feasible with server load and user traffic.

• Some clients and attendee networks have strict firewalls or restrictions that may not allow for the receipt of polls. If you are aware of any network/firewall/VPN access concerns, it’s important to work with the client’s IT team to test the appearance and receipt of polls. 

Polls During Live Event: Launch & Analytics

See the below information for how to launch the poll, considerations to be made with launch cases that require listening to speaker cues, and information around poll analytics.

How to Manually Launch a Poll

Enter the Third Party Poll dashboard from the Content Management tab of the CMS. Simply click on the launch button to start the poll and, after at least one minute, click on the stop button to take it down. 

Enter the Showtime Poll dashboard from the Content Management tab of the CMS. Simply click on the launch button to start the poll. The button adapts to the poll’s current status so once it’s launched, the “stop poll” prompt will appear. After at least one minute, click the stop button.

If the manually launched poll requires listening to a speaker cue, it’s important to remember that there is an approximate 45 second delay between what the speaker is saying in real time and what attendees are viewing on the event page. Since the poll is an attendee-facing feature, it’s important to sync the launch of it with the attendee-facing timing of the speaker’s words. Make sure to listen and watch the live stream on the event page for the speaker cue that is dictating the poll. 

Analytics

The Poll Analytics dashboard will not update live in your browser, so a refresh of the dashboard is required to see the most up-to-date poll reporting. If you would like to see the status or progress of a poll (perhaps to gauge how many have taken it/clicked so far or to see what answers are trending), you may do so by refreshing the analytics dashboard. The final and most accurate results for polls will not be available until after the poll is stopped and attendees can no longer submit answers or action clicks. 

Click on the poll (purple text) to expand to see the results for Showtime Polls (# of votes, option percentage, and individual vote history per user) and the clicks for Third Party Polls (overall and clicks per user history).