Inserting activities with Poll Everywhere for Windows

In this article:

Poll Everywhere for Windows allows you to seamlessly integrate interactive activities directly into PowerPoint, enhancing audience engagement with ease. From simple activities like Multiple Choice and Word Clouds to more advanced options such as Surveys and even Competitions, you can get started in just a few clicks.

You can create new activities directly within the app without needing to leave your presentation or log into the website. Follow the steps below to set up your presentation deck and start interacting with your audience!

Inserting activities

Step 1: Open a new or existing PowerPoint presentation.

Step 2: Click the Poll Everywhere tab in the toolbar.

Step 3: If not logged in, click the login button. (If you are already logged in, skip to Step 5).

Step 4: Enter your Poll Everywhere credentials. (Need an account? Click the sign-up option in the login window).

Step 5: Click on Activities.

Step 6: Choose the activities you want to include by checking the boxes, and Click Insert

Helpful tip: If you want to use the activity flows feature on a multiple-choice question, tap the Insert as… button. Check out the Activity flows article for more information about this feature.

After all the activities you selected have been inserted, slides with mockups of your activities appear in the deck. Each activity has its own slide. Blue placeholder marks in the corners of the slide tell the system where to display your activity. (The Survey placeholder looks a bit different and you can find some tips on using surveys further down in this article.)

Helpful tip:  Activity placeholders will appear in your slide deck. These are mockups of the activities, marked by blue corners. To update placeholders after editing an activity, click Sync in the Poll Everywhere tab

Step 7: Switch to Slide Show/Presentation mode. You can do this in three different ways:

• Press the F5 key on your keyboard.
• Select the Start From Beginning command on the Quick Access toolbar.
• Click the Play Slide Show command at the bottom of the PowerPoint window.

Your activities will now load and activate from within your presentation. Whichever question is displayed will be automatically activated and ready to receive responses.

Helpful Tips for a Seamless Experience

• Stay Logged In: Ensure the Poll Everywhere app is installed and you’re logged into PowerPoint as the activity owner.
• Do Not Edit Notes: Each activity slide’s notes section contains essential details (e.g., activity title and link) that need to stay intact for the activities to function correctly. Do not delete them, but you can add extra notes below the link.
• Arrange Slides as Needed: Activity slides can be moved between other slides or presentations. The placeholder image size dictates where the activity will be displayed on-screen.

Activity Tips for Competitions and Surveys

Competitions: when inserting a competition into your PowerPoint presentation, the app will insert the competition welcome slide and a slide for each phase of every question (Question, Answers, Responses, and Leaderboard). For example, if you have a four-question competition, the app will insert 17 slides: Four for each question and one title slide.

Helpful tip: While it’s possible to drag and drop competition slides to rearrange your questions, we recommend making these adjustments via the web interface before inserting them into your presentation.

If you need to adjust the order within your presentation (e.g., due to time constraints preventing you from rearranging them on the web and reinserting the competition), ensure that:

• All phases for each question stay together (e.g., question, answer reveal, leaderboard).
• The phases remain in their correct sequence to avoid confusion during your presentation.

Surveys: Survey slides show progress instead of individual responses during presentations. The placeholder slide for a survey looks a little different. It still has the blue marks in the corners but the slide itself contains only the survey title and instructions to respond. Otherwise, it’s blank.

Please contact us if you run into any issues.