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Microsoft Forms Blog
2 MIN READ

In-line poll experience in Outlook Web

junyuB's avatar
junyuB
Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
May 10, 2024

I'd like to introduce you to our brand-new poll experience in Outlook web with Microsoft Loop to streamline your workflow. The current process of creating polls in Outlook can be somewhat cumbersome and less user-friendly. Email/poll composers must navigate through a side-pane to create a poll and cannot preview how it will appear to recipients before sending the email. With the in-line experience that Microsoft Loop provides, they can now create polls directly within an email thread. Recipients can then vote in line and instantly check the real-time poll results. Let's dive into this amazing new feature and explore it together!

 

Intuitive entry point for insertion

In Outlook web, just click on "Insert" in the ribbon, and select "Polls" to effortlessly add a poll into your email body. Insert a poll into Outlook web now!

 

Insert polls into your email

In-line poll creation

The enhanced poll experience offers a seamless method for crafting polls directly within the email, eliminating the need to switch between the side-pane and the email body. Additionally, you can add multiples polls and choose a variety of question types while creating the poll for different scenarios. For example, an email aimed at gauging team morale, you can incorporate a ranking question to assess activity preferences and a multiple-choice question to determine preferred time slots.

 

In-line poll creation

WYSIYG (What You See is What You Get)

Previously, email/poll composers could only see a hyperlink of the poll when creating it within an email, now they have the ability to preview exactly how the poll will appear to recipients before sending the email.

 

WYSIYG

In-line poll vote experience with live result

Once recipients get the email, they can easily vote in line without being redirected to Forms web, and both the email composer and recipients can see the live results as new responses coming in. It's important to note that the email composer will need to navigate to the "sent items" in mailbox to view the live results.

 

In-line poll vote experience with live result

Fallback experience to Forms web

In the initial phase, Loop Polls is now fully enabled for Outlook web. If recipients receive emails containing embedded polls via Outlook desktop or mobile, they will still see the hyperlink and being redirected to Forms web to continue voting.

 

Fallback experience

Our goal is to ensure in-line poll availability across all platforms towards the end of this year. Try to insert a poll now!

Published May 10, 2024
Version 1.0
  • KChachanidze's avatar
    KChachanidze
    Copper Contributor

    Hi, so is the Loop Component used for Poll now? Or is it Forms interface but just as Loop component? Or how does it work? For tenants that do not allow access for externals to Loop - what is the user experience for externals? How is this experience managed in admin centre? 

  • Steven West's avatar
    Steven West
    Copper Contributor

    This is a terrible experience for organisations using normal Outlook

    The poll looks great when you draft it but it is just sent as a link which just looks like a spam link. 

    Another example of Microsoft pushing enterprises away using installed Office. 

  • KChachanidze's avatar
    KChachanidze
    Copper Contributor

    This is so frustrating. Every new feature is coming out half baked, is integrated with Outlook for Windows and not the standard outlook that everyone uses, since outlook for Windows is half baked and very restricted, then this very well thought out integration with forms, no information on governance anywhere, it makes me really mad

  • klontok's avatar
    klontok
    Copper Contributor

    Agree with Steven, why in the world would you roll this out with such limited capability on the receiver side? I'm now getting replies from people asking where the poll is because they just get a poorly-placed and easily missed link. Talk about poor user experience, I'm now spending MORE time on polls than if I just created them in Forms and shared that link.