You can now automate polls in Slack using Workflow Builder and our brand new "Create Poll" workflow step. This means that any custom workflow now has the power to create polls in Slack! 🚀

In the past all polls created with Simple Poll were created by humans, for example using the /poll slash command or via the Slack shortcut. Back in January 2020, we did introduce recurring polls to help with basic poll automation, but Slack's Workflow Builder opens up a whole new world of possibilities.

Create poll step

The “Create poll” step fits neatly into any workflow where gathering quick input from channel members is important. Any poll created via this step is immediately ready to receive votes from users. The poll question can either be predefined, or be set dynamically based on previous steps in the workflow!

Workflow examples

The beauty of workflow builder is that you can automate so many different things, and tailor workflows exactly to your needs. But to kick things off, we've collected a couple of concrete examples which may serve as a useful source of inspiration for your own workflows:

Quickly recreate a favorite poll

A poll created via the shortcut workflow trigger

Save time by setting up a specific or favorite poll to be quickly re-created in 2 clicks with a shortcut. No need to click through a UI or a remember a slash command, just click on the shortcut and the desired poll will be created 🎉

This speeds up poll creation for commonly created polls such as team health check ins, all-hands feedback, to coordinate attendance of social events, or any other topic where the same poll is used on a regular basis.

How different types of users might use this workflow

Team managers: Taking a pulse check on team health each day
Internal comms: Requesting feedback on the usefulness of an all hands
Incident coordinators: Requesting confirmation from all stakeholders that an incident is sufficiently resolved

Follow this link for detailed instructions on how to set up this type of workflow.

Custom posting schedules

Create a poll using a custom posting schedule

Simple Poll has a built-in recurring poll functionality. With the "Scheduled date & time" workflow trigger, you can go beyond what the built-in functionality currently offers and create even more sophisticated posting schedules, for example to create a poll every other week.

This trigger also makes it possible to create a one-off scheduled poll that you don't want posted on a recurring basis 🎉

Webhook triggered feedback

We're especially excited about the webhook trigger, because it makes fully programmatic poll creation possible. Any system or piece of software that can invoke the Slack webhook URL can now create polls in Slack!

For example, if you happen to work as part of a software development team, and use a Slack or ChatOps-based workflow where many users collaborate on the rollout of a software deployment, a poll can be used to automatically gather consensus on whether the rollout should proceed. The existing system that is used for posting deployment notifications in Slack can also be used to create a poll.

Thanks to the webhook trigger, Simple Poll effectively gains an API that you can use to programmatically create polls, so the possibilities for automation are especially broad.

By setting a poll_text variable, the webhook has full control over the poll that gets created

Getting started

If you have the Simple Poll app installed, you'll see Create poll step when adding a new step within workflow builder:

To learn more about workflow builder in general, take a look at this guide by Slack.

If there's no entry for Simple Poll in the list shown above:

  1. Make sure Simple Poll is installed on your Slack workspace. You can install the Simple Poll app using this link.
  2. Unless you've only just installed Simple Poll, it's possible that your Simple Poll installation does not yet have permission to be used in workflow builder. To ensure Simple Poll has the necessary permission, re-install the Simple Poll app by following this link. Note that you do not need to uninstall Simple Poll first – this is just to ensure that you're using the latest Simple Poll version ⭐️
  3. Make sure that Simple Poll is "approved" on your Slack workspace. This is something your Slack workspace's admin can help you with. More information is available in Slack's help centre article

We can't wait to see what you build! And as always, if you have any feedback let us know via feedback@simplepoll.rocks 💛