This question requires the Collaborative Decision Making feature to be enabled in FlowForma Settings > Features.
A voting question provides collaborative decision making functionality within the workflow/form. Each voter can cast their vote based on the information presented to them at that time and can optionally record their rationale. Voting results are presented in graphical or tabular format (or both) on a summary process step using the Voting results question.
Question title: each question must have a title. It’s a required field and will appear on the form as a label when the user fills in the question
Question code: each question needs a unique code. One is generated by default when you start creating a new question, but you can overwrite this and give it a different code if you prefer. The question code won’t appear on the form itself, but you can use it to search and filter by when adding questions
Question type: voting
Required: not applicable to this question type; included for consistency
Question description: this field is optional. If you enter a description here, the user will see this information displayed in the voting step. The description appears to voters as rich text, placed on a transparent background
Publish question as list field: select this field to publish the status of a vote in the forms list. The possible published values are:
- In progress: the vote has started but is still in progress.
- Completed: the vote has been completed by the user(s).
- Cancelled: the vote has been cancelled by an administrator.
- Reset: the vote is shown as in progress, but the users are required to vote again
Start vote automatically: if this option is checked, the vote starts automatically when the step containing the voting question is reached; alternatively, the vote administrator can choose to start the vote at a later stage. This option doesn’t apply to the first step
Use weighted calculation: this field provides a way of assigning levels of importance to the questions contained in the vote, allowing you to determine how much weight each value in the vote should have. It’s an average calculation where each quantity to be averaged is assigned a weight. These weights determine the relative importance of each quantity in the average. You can assign a weight to each question
Use weighted percentages: if you select this option, you can assign weighted averages as a percentage; the total of all weighted percentages entered must equal 100%
Voting questions: you must add the question(s) to be voted on. At least one question must be added, but multiple questions can be included. These questions can be either rated number questions (e.g. 1-10) or Yes/No questions. The edit button opens a dialog window for the sub-question properties
Use slider: this option is used for rating questions and can be enabled on a number question
Decision group: this allows you to select a SharePoint group from which you select the people who will take part in the vote. The system displays a list of all the group members’ names below
Decision group settings: when you create a SharePoint group, make sure that the appropriate level of permissions is set up. If the vote administrator is not in the decision group, you need to make sure “who can view the membership of the group” is set to “Everyone”
Group members: when the decision group is selected, all the members of that group are shown. You can reduce the number of voters by deselecting any member(s) of the group
Minimum number of votes: this allows you to select the minimum number of voters that must cast a vote before the form progresses. This number cannot be greater than the number of users selected in the “Group members” field
Public or private: this setting influences the display of information in the panel and in voting results. If private vote is selected, the system won’t display how group members voted, i.e. it won’t display usernames beside the votes
e-Signature required: this requires the voter to submit their log-in credentials to verify their identity when submitting their vote/decision
Capture rationale: allows the user to comment on their vote. If this option is selected, the voter is required to provide some information relating to their vote
Show question title on form: check this option if you want to display the question’s title to the left of the input field. If you uncheck this option, the input field moves to the left and appears right under the other questions/question titles
Place title on top: check this option to display the question’s title above the input field. If you uncheck this option, the title appears to the left of the input field, as normal
Render, but hide question on form: if you check this option, the question behaves as shown by default (default value, publishing, and calculation still apply). However, the question isn’t displayed on the form
Once you’ve entered all relevant information, click Save. If you don’t want to save the question or the changes you’ve made, click Close
Notes:
- The vote owner is a user assigned to the step containing the voting question. Therefore, the voting question should not be used on the first step of a form, as this step is always assigned to the logged-in user
- Where there is a voting question, the step won’t show the regular action buttons. The only button available is “Close”
- Once the step has started, the vote owner won’t be able to upload or modify uploaded documents
- A step that contains a voting question is read-only to all voters until the vote starts. When the vote starts, the step becomes accessible to each voter
- If a user has cast their vote but the minimum number of votes hasn’t been reached, the user is redirected to the read-only version of the step; otherwise, the form progresses to the next step