Live results
Every poll and survey has a results page. You decide who can open it; what it shows is always aggregate — counts, percentages and scores, never an individual’s answers.
Who can see the results
Set under Settings → Voting & results. This controls the public results page only — your own dashboard always shows everything.
| Setting | Who can open the results page | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| Always | Anyone with the link, at any time. | The result is the point — a live poll in a meeting. |
| After voting | A person who has voted; everyone once voting has closed. | You want independent votes, then transparency. |
| After voting closes | Nobody until the closing date passes, then anyone with the link. | A vote where standings must not influence voters. |
| Only me | Nobody. There is no public results page. | Customer, employee and research surveys. |
“After voting closes” needs a closing date
With no closing date the survey never closes, so the results never publish. The settings screen warns you when the two are out of step. Set the date under Settings → Advanced — see Opening and closing.
A password-protected survey’s results are visible only to you, whichever setting is chosen. Knowing a survey’s address is never enough to read results that are gated.
What each question looks like
- Multiple choice, dropdown, Likert, rating — a bar, a percentage and a count per answer, with the leading answer emphasised. Likert and rating also show an average.
- Checkboxes — the same bars, with each percentage taken out of the people who answered, so 80% means four respondents in five ticked it.
- Net Promoter Score — the score, the promoter / passive / detractor counts, and a bar for each value from 0 to 10.
- Matrix — one stacked bar per row, coloured by column.
- Ranking — options in order of average rank, with first-place counts.
- Constant sum — total and average points per option.
- Text, date, number, file — how many people answered, and nothing else.
How the count stays right
A results page cannot re-read every response each time someone opens it, so Votense keeps a running count per answer and adds to it in the same request that stores the response. If the count cannot be written, the submission fails rather than being stored uncounted.
Only answers that match one of the question’s real options are counted. A response carrying a value that is not an option is still stored, but adds nothing to any bar — so the chart cannot be made to grow a bar you did not define.
Deleting a response takes its votes back out, and editing one moves them. Responses held as suspected spam are not counted until you release them.
After someone votes
When results are set to Always or After voting, the thank-you screen shows the current results directly beneath the confirmation and keeps them updating, with a link to the full results page.
Common questions
- Where is the results page?
- At the public address plus /results — /p/<id>/results for a poll, /s/<id>/results for a survey. As the owner you also have a Results tab in your dashboard with the response timeline, completion rate and device split, which is always available to you whatever the public setting.
- How often do results update?
- The page re-reads the counts every five seconds while it is open and visible. Counts are updated in the same request that stores each response, so a vote is in the results as soon as it is accepted.
- Can people see what others wrote?
- No. The public results page charts choice, scale, rating, ranking and point questions. For a text question it shows only how many people answered. Written answers are visible on your own Responses screen and in the CSV export.
- Can I hide results until voting ends?
- Yes — choose “After voting closes” and set a closing date. Until that date the results page says when results will be published; afterwards it opens to anyone with the link.
- What do the defaults do?
- A poll shows results to everyone, live. A survey keeps them hidden until it closes. Both can be changed under Settings → Voting & results.