The PowerCom Poller Wizard

From the PowerCom menu or toolbar, select "Insert Poller ”. This will launch the 4 step Polling Wizard. Please click the Next button when you complete the entering of data at each step, and at the last step, click “Finish”. PowerCom will then insert a Poller object on the PowerPoint slide.

Step 1: Choices and Labels

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- On the Choices and Labels screen, enter the total number of choices for the current question. (For the above example you would enter 6). Normally, if you follow the question slide creation rule, PowerCom will detect the presence of 6 choices and correspondingly insert 6 for you.

- Please enter one or two words to describe the question. The word(s) entered will become the column heading or label title for data analysis and reporting purposes. We recommend you keep the description as short as possible and perhaps to use short one-word synonyms to describe the question.

The maximum length for the column heading / label is 30 characters. Naming rules is as follows:

1. The first character must be one of the following:

· A letter as defined by the Unicode Standard 2.0. The Unicode definition of letters includes Latin characters from a through z and from A through Z, in addition to letter characters from other languages.

· The underscore (_), "at" sign (@), or number sign (#).

2. Subsequent characters can be:

· Letters as defined in the Unicode Standard 2.0.

· Decimal numbers from either Basic Latin or other national scripts.

· The @, $, #, or _ signs.

3. Embedded spaces or special characters are not allowed.

Tips:

You can navigate your mouse out of the Poller Wizard and click and hold the right mouse on the question word(s) on the slide to highlight the word(s) then copy (right mouse or Ctrl + C) the word(s) to paste (Ctrl + V) to Wizard.

2. Check "Demographic question" box if this question is a demographic question. By identifying this question as a demographic question, you can perform data analysis on a later question, based on the demographic questions. All demographic questions should be placed near the beginning as the first group of questions.

3. "Start polling right after slide shown" - PowerCom defaults this setting to ON. The audience can start voting right after the slide shown. We recommend you do not change this setting, since this is the most common practice. It is highly recommended not to put anything other than question and answer choices on a slide with a poller object to avoid cramming the slide.

4. "Do not display result graphic for this slide" - You can use this option to skip the results graph display. For example, for questions like "Please rate todaypresentation."

5. You then need to specify whether you want you use the Numerical (1-10) (the default setting) or Alphabetical (A-E) buttons on the keypad.

Step 2: Custom Labels and Correct Answer

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Here, you can specify custom bar labels. The default setting is either the numbers or letters you specified in Step 1.

Tips:

You can navigate your mouse out of the Poller Wizard and click and hold the right mouse on the answer choice word(s) on the slide to high light the word(s) then copy (right mouse or Ctrl + C) the word(s) to paste (Ctrl + V) to Wizard.

$images\newylw.gif$ You also have the option of specifying a correct answer (or best answer). You can select one or more correct answer.

You can assign point(s) to any answer choice regardless if it is correct or not. You even can assign negative point(s) as point deduction of wrong answer. PowerCom Winners screen will track scoring if you enter points for the answer choices, it will flash any bars that you have checked as being correct.

There is also an option to specify that the majority vote will be considered the correct answer.

Step 3: Graph Type and Format

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Here you can set the Graph Type, whether to have percent labels or not, and the font style and size. Try using one of the horizontal graph types. This will give you more room for the labels.

This screen contains three tabs: "General”, "Bar Colors", and “Background”

General tab:

PowerCom provides 6 chart types:

3D Vertical Bar

2D Vertical Bar

3D Horizontal Bar

2D Horizontal Bar

Vertical Cylinder

Horizontal Cylinder

The best choice for horizontal display is Horizontal Cylinder which has a gradient effect.

The best choice for vertical display is Vertical Cylinder which has a gradient effect.

Click the 1st graph type and scroll down to decide the best graph type for your polling results display.

For the results graph, you can choose either Show Percent or Show Number or both.

You can shadow the text by checking the "Text Shadow" checkbox. You can change the shadow color by clicking the color box.

You can change the background color by checking the checkbox and clicking the colorbox.

For transparency, uncheck the box.

Check "Show Mean" to display the average (approximating the statistical norm).

Click ‘Font’ to set your font.

Bar Colors tab:

You can customize the color for results graph bar 1 to 10 by clicking the color box next to the bar #.

Choose your graph type and click "Save as default". The font and graph style default will apply to all your new graph displays from now on. However, you always can override the type and format later on or save a new default.

Step 4: Polling Music and Timer

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Music

If you would like PowerCom to play Music while people are voting, browse for and select a music file here. The type of music files that you can play is totally dependent upon the version of Windows Media Player that you have installed.

If you would like to use this music file for all of your voting music, click the 'Save as Default' button.

If you would like to use formats such mp3s or streaming audio files, and they do not play when you test them, you should get the latest Media Player from www.microsoft.com.

$images\newylw.gif$ When you check the “Play Music While Polling” and select a music file, the music will start when polling starts. However, if the presenter may want to explain the question when the question slide is presented and if you would not want to disturb the presenter’s comments, you can un-check the “Play Music While Polling” box. This setting allows you to control music playback with shortcut key “M” to start playback and “M” again to mute the music.

Timer Clock Countdown

Using a countdown clock

Check this box to turn on Timer Clock option

Time on clock

Set Timer clock countdown in seconds (from 1 to 999). Zero seconds means no timer clock.

When you enter a non-zero time, PowerCom will insert a clock icon $images\timer.gif$ at left bottom screen by default. You can move the Timer Clock to your preferred location by dragging the icon to that location.

You can change the Clock and Font size just as if you are changing a PowerPoint object.

Start automatically when slide is presented

Select this Check Box means that you want to start the Timer Clock countdown immediately after a slide is shown. It is best used for a time-limit test question.

During the slideshow, the presenter may use shortcut key “T” to start and stop the Timer Clock countdown.

Tip: Checking the “Start Count Down right after slide shown” and setting 0 seconds as Timer Clock would have no timer effect.

Notes: Poller Wizard Step 4 is optional. You can save the Music and Timer clock as default and all the pollers you create will have the same effects regardless of whether you click Step 4 or not.

Once Finished

Once you have finished with the wizard, PowerCom will place an example graph on your slide.

You can move or resize the graph to arrange the results graph display in the slide. During the presentation and voting, the graph will pop-up as a transparent graph and will be located in the same position and size as the example graph on the slide.

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For a long list of answer choices (more than 3), we recommend you use horizontal graph type such as Horizontal Cylinder, 3D Horizontal Bar, or 2D Horizontal Bar. You can line up the results graph next to the answer list. Run slideshow in demo mode to position the best fit.

For short list answer, we recommend you use vertical graph types such as Vertical Cylinder, 3D Vertical Bar, or 2D Vertical Bar.

We recommend you place the result graph box at bottom right corner.

Now you can create your next slide and repeat the process as needed.

Important Notes:

· You can use the PowerCom toolbar to change the Poller properties.

· If your question has identical choices, you can copy and paste the Poller in another slide rather than run the Wizard each time. However, please remember to change the question label to avoid duplicated label error.

· You can either right-click the small box located on the lower-right-hand side of the slideshow screen, or use hot keys to play Music (M), start / stop Timer clock (T), stop polls (S), continue polling (C), clear data (R), display data (D), and show absent clickers (A).