Poll / Survey Web Part Options for SharePoint

Clients ask me so frequently for a poll web part for their SharePoint intranets, I would be shocked if Microsoft did not include this in the next version. I have tested three third-party solutions, reviewed below. If anyone out there is aware of another option, please add a comment and let me know!

1. Polling Web Part on CodePlex - http://www.codeplex.com/PollingWebPart

   Cost: free

   How it works: This web part doesn't connect to a SharePoint survey, but rather creates a list item in a simple list and displays that item in the survey. When you want to set up a new poll, you just add a new item to the list and that's the poll that is displayed.

    Pros: It's free, and simpler for the end-user than creating a new survey and connecting it to the web part each time they want to post a poll.

    Cons: There is no way to prevent users from voting multiple times, and survey results are not tracked by user. A maximum of five choices is allowed for any poll question. Graphical results are very simple – bar graphs are the only option. If you add the poll web part to the same page twice, it will display the same poll – you can't display two different polls on the same page at the same time. Data for all polls is stored in a single list, and is not optimized for export and analysis - as the developer states, this is not meant to be an analytic tool, but rather "for fun."

   To note: although there seem like a lot of cons for this web part, I have a client who uses it and is happy with it, as a no-cost way to bring a life to a team site home page.

2. SharePoint Poll Web Part from Bamboo Solutions - http://store.bamboosolutions.com/ps-70-5-sharepoint-poll-web-part.aspx

   Cost: $400

   How it works: This web part doesn't connect to a SharePoint survey, but rather creates a list item in a list and displays that item in the survey. When you want to set up a new poll, you just add a new item to the list and that's the poll that is displayed.

    Pros: It's simpler for the end-user than creating a new survey and connecting it to the web part each time they want to post a poll. It displays results in color, in choice of bar graph or pie chart.

    Cons: There is an administrative web part which you need to set up each survey, and this is clunky to use – when you add it to a page it makes the page really wide so that navigation then involves a lot of scrolling.

1. SharePoint Survey Web Part - Survey Plus from Kwizcom.com - http://www.kwizcom.com/ProductPage.asp?ProductID=333&ProductSubNodeID=353

   Cost: $399

   How it works: This web part connects to a SharePoint survey – you create the survey, then set the URL of the survey in the web part modification pane.

    Pros: I prefer the way this web part works to the two others, because it is most in keeping with how many other SharePoint web parts work – you add the web part to the page and then connect it to a list (the survey in this case). This is a little more overhead for the end-user, but I believe it's a more consistent and intuitive interface in the long run. The fact that you're creating a standard SharePoint survey means you can do more with the data once the poll has ended.

    Cons: The Pro above could be seen as a con if the end-users require the ability to create polls on-the-fly without having to create a survey first. Graphics are not quite a slick as Bamboo's.

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