How to Run a Survey In Slack: Quick and Easy Guide
Even though Slack doesn’t offer a native survey feature or command, fret not!
There is still an easy and free way to create a survey for your team and run it directly in Slack messenger: using a designated survey app for Slack.
Although there are several survey apps on the market you can try, in this article we will outline steps to use Geekbot Surveys for that purpose.
Why Geekbot? The reason is simple: Geekbot started as a standup app we built for our internal team to improve our efficiency. Now, after hundreds of requests, we built a survey tool as well.
To do that, we studied the market and its most requested features from users of other apps to create a perfect survey tool for online teams.
And the best news? It’s completely free (!) as part of our free 10-people product license.
Here’s how to use Geekbot to run surveys in Slack.
1. Install Slack Survey Tool
Let’s open Slack app directory and run a quick search to find the survey app:
Here we can click on Geekbot Standup, Poll & Survey and in the opened window on the left, click “Add to Slack”:
2. Open Geekbot Dashboard
Right after the installation, Geekbot will prompt you to open a dashboard to create your first survey.
The bot understands many commands. For example, you can also type /geekpoll to instantly launch a quick poll or survey.
3. Create a New Slack Survey
Make sure you have “Surveys (multiple questions) selected in the left menu.
Geekbot offers a library of pre-made surveys, each designed for a specific scenario. Take a look around – maybe there’s already one that will tackle your needs.
If you want, you can create a custom survey for your team from scratch by clicking the “Build your own” button in the right upper corner. Let’s click it.
4. Add Survey Questions
To create a survey, we will go through filling four different tabs, each customizing different aspects of your survey. Don’t worry, it’ll take you a few minutes and you can save this survey as a template for future uses!
The first tab is Questions:
Here you can add as many questions to your surveys as you need.
Note that you need to choose the type of response each question supports.
This will be important later, when Geekbot presents results for your survey. Geekbot understands and visualizes different types of responses differently into intuitive visual graphs, so you can more easily analyze responses.
5. Choose Survey Participants
Next tab, Audience, will help you select who participates in your survey:
Note: you can also customize welcome messages – your survey participants will see it when invited to participate in your survey in Slack.
Here you can either pick individual team members, so that the survey will be sent privately, or pick an entire slack channel to publish your survey. In this case, anyone who has access to this channel will be able to participate in your survey.
Important: here you choose where to run your survey. We can control the visibility of survey results to other people in the next steps.
6. Schedule Your Survey
The Schedule tab allows you to choose when your survey will be published. For example, it can be published immediately after we finish this survey customization guide, or it can be published with a delay.
Here you can also make your survey recurring – meaning it will be automatically published every day, every week, every month, and so on.
You can also timeframe your survey, allowing new responses only within a certain amount of time after it’s published. For example, the default setting will stop accepting new survey responses after 2 hours.
7. Choose Survey Visibility and How Survey Results Are Published
The last tab we need to set up is Publish.
Here we can choose when our survey results will be published.
If you choose “in real time”, then everyone will see survey results and everyone’s responses in real time before even taking part in your survey.
You can also show survey results only to people who voted.
Lastly, here you can make your survey anonymous with a toggle.
We’re all done here!
Now click the “Publish” button and your survey will be published according to your settings. Don’t worry, you can always return and edit it, adding new questions,participants, and so on.
How to Check Survey Results
There is a separate item in Geekbot dashboard titled “Analytics”
To access it, open the Geekbot dashboard (you can do it by typing “help” to Geekbot in direct Slack messages).
There, on the left, you will see a menu. Click Analytics.
Your survey results will be automatically added here in Team Topics. You can also check general Team Activity.
Based on survey responses, Geekbot will create a visual dashboard to present survey results. It will look something like this, depending on types of responses you allowed fo your surveys:
Make The Most Out of Geekbot!
Even though Geekbot Surveys are a welcome feature that hundreds of teams already put to good use, it’s just scratchnig the surface with what Geekbot can do for your team!
Geekbot can help you with:
As you have already seen the process of creating a survey is straightforward — you can follow it any time and customize anything to your needs.
Start using Geekbot today. We offer completely free version for team with up to 10 people, or a free 30 day trial for larger teams.
See you soon!
Frequently asked questions
Can you create a poll in Slack without installing apps?
Yes, you can create basic polls using Slack’s native emoji reaction feature. But for more detailed, multi-qestion or recurring surveys it’s better to install a designated Slack survey app.
How do you make a Slack poll anonymous?
To create anonymous polls in Slack, you’ll need a third-party app like Geekbot Surveys. When setting up your poll, select the “anonymous” or “anonymize results” option in the survey settings. This allows team members to provide honest feedback without revealing their identity, making it ideal for sensitve topics or workplce satisfaction surveys.