67 Working with the Polls Service

67.2.1 Working With the Quick Poll Task Flow

Quick Polls allow one-question polls to be published immediately. Each quick poll needs its own Quick Poll task flow on the page. Quick polls can be managed with the Polls Manager.

On the General tab, enter a name and description for your poll, and the number of days for the poll to stay open. The name you enter appears in the Component Properties as a parameter in the Take Polls and View Poll Results task flows.

On the Question tab, design your one-question poll, and click OK.

67.2.2 Working With the Polls Manager Task Flow

The Polls Manager task flow displays a view that lets you create polls, view the status all current polls, and perform operations on them, including edit, save (as poll or as a poll template), publish, close, analyze, and delete. See the latest poll data by clicking the Refresh icon on the Polls Manager view (Figure 67-5).

To add a new poll, click Click Create Poll.

On the Design page, click Add to populate the poll with an existing template or with questions and surrounding text (Figure 67-6).

Click Add Section to enter any explanatory text in a rich text editor (Figure 67-7).

Click Add Question to add each poll question (Figure 67-8).

There are four question types:

• Multiple Choice (Only One Answer)

• Multiple Choice (Multiple Answer)

• Matrix of Choices (Only One Answer Per Row)

• Matrix of Choices (Multiple Answers Per Row)

In this example, the current design looks like Figure 67-9.

On Schedule page, choose publish and close options for the poll. Polls must be published and open to be taken. Users cannot take unpublished or closed polls.

In Publish Options, choose to keep the poll in draft mode for further editing, publish it immediately, or publish it on a future date. Click the Select Date and Time icon to enter the publishing time through a calendar. Click Edit Introduction Message to customize in the rich text editor the text provided at the beginning of the poll.

In Close Options, choose to close the published poll after it reaches a certain number of responses or on a certain date. If you choose both options, then the poll closes when either condition is first met. Click the Select Date and Time icon to enter the closing time through a calendar. Click Edit Closing Message to customize in the rich text editor the text provided at the end of the poll.

On the Settings page, choose what to display after the poll is taken (Figure 67-11). For example, you can set a custom JSF task flow as Thank You page that appears after the poll is taken.

On the Analyze page, view the poll data. Use the Questions box on the right to toggle between multiple questions (Figure 67-12).

67.2.3 Working With the Take Polls Task Flow

The Take Polls task flow displays the most recently-published available poll, unless it is set to display a specific poll with the Poll Id parameter. After a user submits a response for that poll, this task flow displays the next most recently-published poll.

For more information, see Section 67.3, "Setting Polls Service Task Flow Properties."

67.2.4 Working With the View Poll Results Task Flow

The View Poll Results task flow must be set to display a specific poll with the Poll Id parameter.

For more information, see Section 67.3, "Setting Polls Service Task Flow Properties."

67.3.1 What You Should Know About the Polls Service Task Flow Properties

The properties on the Parameters tab of the Component Properties dialog control the default task flow content. For descriptions of the parameters on this tab, see Section 67.3.2, "Polls Service Task Flow Parameters." For some task flows, parameters on this tab facilitate the wiring of the task flow to page parameters and page definition variables. For more information, see Chapter 19, "Wiring Pages, Task Flows, Portlets, and UI Components."

Changes to the properties on the Display Options, Style, and Content Style tabs affect the appearance and behavior of the task flow for all users. These properties are common to all task flows. For more information, see Section 17.5.2, "Setting Properties on Page Components."

The content of the Events tab depends on the events supported by the task flow. For more information, see Section 17.5.2.8, "Working with Component Contextual Events."

The Child Components tab displays all of the components contained within the current component. It provides controls for rearranging, showing, and hiding child components. Not all components contain children. So you may find this tab devoid of content. For more information, see Section 17.5.2.6, "Working with Child Components."

All properties on the Parameters and Display Options tabs provide access to an Expression Language (EL) editor, which you can use to select or specify a variable value instead of a constant value. Click the Edit icon next to a property field to open the editor. For more information about using the editor and for descriptions of common EL expressions, see Appendix B, "Expression Language Expressions."

67.3.2 Polls Service Task Flow Parameters

Table 67-1 describes the properties that are unique to the Polls task flows.