Creating a poll, and where people answer it
You lay out the candidate times and participants answer ○, △, or ×. The four creation steps, and the three ways in for the people answering.
- Help category
- Scheduling
In "Poll" you lay out the candidate times yourself, and each participant answers ○, △, or × against them. Once the answers are in, the host picks one candidate and confirms it.
Up to 100 candidate times and 200 participants
A poll takes at most 100 candidate times and at most 200 participants. The duration is picked from 15, 30, 45, 60, and 90 minutes, and 60 is the default.
Creating one takes four steps
- "Basic information" is where the title, the duration, and the conference method are decided.
- "Candidate times" is where you lay out the candidates and set the response deadline.
- "Participants" is where you add members, or invite people by email address.
- "Review" shows how it will look; "Publish and send" sends it out.
The time zone field is free text and starts at Asia/Tokyo. The poll cannot be created unless the name is a real time zone. The answering page itself is rendered in the time zone of the browser looking at it (see When a Tokiawase link arrives).
How the schedules you create are counted is set out in How pricing works.
There are three ways in for participants
A public slug is assigned automatically as the poll is created, and the answering page is published at /poll/{public slug}. Answering it needs no sign-in.
- The invitation email. Its subject line reads "[Tokiawase] 投票のお願い: (event name)" — these messages go out in Japanese — and the link inside it is personal to the recipient.
- The shared URL, which you take with "Copy URL". It is the same page for everyone who opens it.
- Signing in. Members can answer from the detail screen.
When "Copy URL" reports "No shared URL yet", the poll is an older one that has no public answering URL.
There are three kinds of participant
| Kind | Way in | Identified by | Confirmation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Member | Detail screen or invitation email | Their account | Arrives |
| Invited guest | The link in the invitation email | The email they received | Arrives |
| Shared-URL guest | The shared URL | A name and a password | Does not arrive |
The role is either "Required" or "any", which is what the screen calls the optional one. A guest who signs up through the shared URL gets "any".
No email address is kept for a shared-URL guest, so neither reminders nor response reminders reach them. Pass the time on separately (see When a confirmation or reminder does not arrive).
Answers cycle through ○, △, and ×
For each candidate the participant picks ○ (can attend), △ (can attend depending on the case), or × (cannot). Tapping a cell moves it along: ○ → △ → × → unanswered. "Mark all ○" and "Save draft" are there too.
Somebody answering through the shared URL for the first time is told: "On your first response, set your name and a password of at least 8 characters. Use the same name and password to update your response later." The password is never shown or sent to the host.
Publishing sends the request to answer, by email, to every participant who has an email address on file. The host does not get one.
Results can be read as a heat map, a bar graph, or a matrix. When two candidates tie, "{count} candidates have the same score. Select one manually if needed." appears.
Only the response reminder is off to begin with
| Option | Default | When it is on |
|---|---|---|
| "Automatically issue meeting URL" | On | Creates the meeting URL as the time is confirmed |
| "Add to calendar after confirmation" | On | Writes the event into the calendar |
| "Send confirmation notification" | On | Notifies by email and to a webhook |
| "Set a reminder" | On | Notifies 24 hours and 1 hour before the start |
| "Automatically remind pending respondents" | Off | Sends a response reminder 24 hours and 3 hours before the deadline |
"Allow answer changes" is on by default. With it off, people who have already sent an answer cannot change it, and the answering page says "This scheduling event does not allow changing a submitted response. Contact the organizer if you need to change it." A first submission is still accepted.
The conference method is one of seven — Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Webex, nCha, "In person", and "Hybrid" — and the ones on screen are those you have connected, plus "In person" and "Hybrid". If you do not want a meeting URL, turn the automatic issuing off, or pick one of those two (see Connecting your calendar and meeting tool).
Only the host can confirm
Permission to create schedules does not extend to other people's: you cannot confirm, cancel, or send a response reminder for a poll that is not yours.
After confirmation the automatic actions can no longer be changed, and "Automatic actions cannot be changed after the event is confirmed." appears. Participants can then say whether they are attending, declining, or tentative, and give the number of guests coming with them, from 0 to 99 (see What happens automatically once a time is confirmed).
A confirmed time cannot be swapped
There is no action that confirms a poll again on a different candidate. To move the time, cancel it, create the poll afresh, and pass the new URL on yourself.
Cancelling cannot be undone
A cancelled poll takes no further answers and can no longer be confirmed, and if it was already confirmed, deletion of the meeting and of the calendar entry starts. The confirmation screen says "This cannot be undone."
If a linked meeting cannot be deleted, the cancellation does not go through, and "The linked meeting could not be deleted, so the event has not been cancelled." appears.