Surveys and Polls Addon

Would you like to easily view statistics and results for information you collect in your forms? With surveys and polls, you can easily analyze data, generate reports, and even share results with your users.

This tutorial will show you how to install and set up the Surveys and Polls Addon for WPForms.

---

Before you get started, be sure to install the WPForms plugin on your WordPress site. Once your license is verified, you’ll be able to quickly install and activate the Surveys and Polls Addon as well.

Creating a Survey or Poll Form

After the addon is installed and activated, you can enable survey functionality for any new or existing form on your site. To access the form builder, create a new form or edit an existing one.

The Surveys and Polls Addon enables you to use the Likert Scale and Net Promoter Score fields to easily gather feedback or other information from users. However, you can include any of the following fields in your survey results:

• Single Line Text
• Paragraph Text
• Dropdown
• Checkboxes
• Multiple Choice
• Rating
• Likert Scale
• Net Promoter Score

Once you’ve customized each field’s options to your liking, save your changes.

Enabling Survey Reporting

There are two types of reporting available: Survey Reporting and Poll Results. Survey Reporting will collect field result statistics and display them in your WordPress admin area, while Poll Results can be added to your site for your users to view.

In your form, you can choose to enable Survey Reporting, Poll Results, or both. In this section, we’ll specifically focus on Survey Reporting options.

Enabling Survey Reporting Form-Wide (Simplest Option)

The easiest way to quickly add survey functionality is to enable it for the entire form. This will calculate survey results for all supported fields.

To set up form-wide survey functionality, go to Settings » Surveys and Polls in the form builder.

From here, turn on the Enable Survey Reporting option.

Enabling Survey Reporting for Individual Fields (Advanced Option)

In some forms, you may not need to calculate results for the entire form. For more control, you can instead enable survey functionality for individual fields in your form.

First, you must disable form-wide survey functionality by disabling the Enable Survey Reporting option from Settings » Surveys and Polls.

Then, click Fields to return to the main form builder screen. In the preview area, click the field you want to enable reporting for to open its Field Options panel. Click on the Advanced tab, then check the box to Enable Survey Reporting.

You can enable survey reporting in this way for as many fields as you’d like, as long as the Surveys and Polls Addon supports them.

Displaying Poll Results

Poll results will display a summary of all data collected for a field, or multiple fields, in your form. Additionally, you can enable both survey reporting and poll results for the same form if you’d like.

Poll results can be collected and displayed for the following field types:

• Dropdown
• Checkboxes
• Multiple Choice

The easiest option is to display poll data within your form’s confirmation message. However, we’ll also cover a more advanced option that lets you display poll results anywhere on your site.

Displaying Poll Results in a Confirmation Message (Simplest Option)

To quickly and easily display poll results to your users, you can enable them form-wide.

This will automatically calculate how many users select each choice for all Dropdown, Checkboxes, and Multiple Choice fields. Then, the results for these fields will be displayed to users after they submit the form, under the confirmation message.

To set this up, first be sure that your form is using the Message Confirmation Type. You can do so by going to Settings » Confirmation and choosing the Message option.

Next, go to Settings » Surveys and Polls. Here, you’ll need to check Enable Poll Results. Remember, you can also have the survey results option enabled if you’d like.

Once poll results are enabled, they will display immediately after a user submits the form, along with any confirmation message text.

Displaying Custom Poll Results Anywhere on Your Site (Advanced Option)

If you’d like to display more customized poll results, you can use a shortcode instead of (or in addition to) enabling poll results within your form’s confirmation message.

For this option, you do not need to have poll results enabled for your form.

To get started, be sure that you have at least one Dropdown, Checkboxes, or Multiple Choice field in your form. These are the fields that you can use to collect poll data.

Next, you can add the poll results shortcode to a page or post, or even to a sidebar or other widget area that accepts shortcodes.

Here’s an example of the shortcode needed:

[wpforms_poll form_id="23" field_id="7" label="true" counts="true"]

You can customize the following values for this shortcode depending on which form, field, and display options you’d like to include:

• form_id: The Form ID identifies which form you’d like to display poll results from. To easily find the Form ID number, go to WPForms » All Forms and look in the shortcode field.
  
• field_id: The Field ID indicates which Dropdown, Checkboxes, or Multiple Choice field you’d like to display data for. You can find this ID at the top of the Field Options panel for each field.
  
• label: This will determine whether the field label is included at the top of the poll results. To display the field label, set the value to "true". To hide the field label, set it to "false".
• counts: With this option, you can choose whether to display the number of votes for each option. To display the vote count, set the value to "true". To hide the count, set it to "false".

On the frontend, your poll results will look something like this:

Generating Survey Reports

Once you enable survey reporting for a form, you’ll be able to view data for any applicable fields.

To generate a report for a form, go to WPForms » All Forms and hover over the form title to display additional options. Then, click on Survey Results.

The Survey Results page shows every reportable field from your form, each in its own card with a graph (when applicable) and a breakdown of responses. To keep the page fast on longer surveys, only the first 5 fields are shown initially. Scroll to the bottom and click Load More to reveal the rest.

From this page, filter responses, customize how each graph is displayed, and export or print your results. We’ll walk through each of these in the sections below.

Filtering Survey Results

To narrow down the responses shown on the Survey Results page, use the Filters menu in the top right of the first field card. Filters are configured once on this field, then applied to every field with a supported graph in the report.

Filtering by Date Range

The Date Range filter limits responses to a specific time period. Choose from the preset ranges (All Time, Today, Yesterday, Last 7 days, Last 30 days, Last 90 days, or Last 1 year), or select Custom to pick your own start and end dates.

Filtering by Question and Answer

Below Date Range, the Questions & Answers section lists every question in your survey along with its answer choices. Check individual answers to include only entries where users selected those specific options. To include everyone who responded to a given question, check the question label itself. This automatically selects all of its answers.

Saving and Managing Filters

After selecting filters, you can save them for reuse.

To save your current filter setup, click the save icon below the filters. To quickly select all checkboxes in a filter group, click the plus icon. To clear all checkboxes in a filter group, click the minus icon.

Customizing Graph Settings

To change how an individual graph is displayed, click the gear icon in the top right of any field card that has a graph.

The following options are available:

• Graph Style: Choose between Line (default), Vertical Bar, Horizontal Bar, or Pie.
• Graph Line: For line charts only. Choose between Precise or Rounded lines.
• Graph Color: Choose a preset color (Gray, Blue, or Orange) or pick a custom color. This option isn’t available for pie charts, which use a separate color per slice.
• Graph Size: Adjust how much space the graph takes relative to the answers list. Options are SM (25% graph), MD (50%), LG (75%), or XL (graph and answers stacked full width).
• Hide Graph: Toggle on to hide the graph for this field and show only the answers table.
• Apply To All Graphs: On the Survey Results page, toggle this on to apply your current settings to every graph in the report at once.

When you’re done, click Save Changes to keep your selections.

The format and options included for each field will depend on the field type. We’ll cover each below.

Dropdown, Checkboxes, Multiple Choice, and Rating Field Reports

For any of these field types, you’ll see a graph on the left and a table of results on the right, along with totals for how many users answered and how many skipped the question.

By default, the choices listed in the table will appear in order of most responses to least responses. To change the sort order, click on Responses column header from the table.

Likert Scale Field Reports

For Likert Scale fields, data is displayed in a table showing the number of votes for each option and the percentage of users who chose each one.

By default, Likert Scale rows appear in the order they were set up in your form. To change the sort order, click any of the options at the top of the table.

Net Promoter Score Field Reports

A Net Promoter Score (NPS) field will ask users to respond using a 0 to 10 rating scale. Based on the number they select, the NPS approach divides users into three categories: Promoters, Passives, and Detractors.

In the results for an NPS field, you’ll see a graph of score counts on the left and a table on the right showing the number and percentage of users in each category. WPForms automatically calculates your overall Net Promoter Score and displays it alongside the table.

If you’d like more details on the meaning of these categories or your overall score, please see our Net Promoter Score tutorial.

Single Line Text and Paragraph Text Field Reports

Reports for these field types will display the text entered by users and the date and time of the related entry. To open the full entry, click the icon on the far right of a response.

Because these field types don’t produce a graph, the Filters and graph settings menus aren’t available for them. Use the Export menu in the top right of the field card to save or print responses.

Previewing Survey Results on the Entries Page

When viewing entries for any form with survey reporting enabled, a single field result preview will be visible at the top of the page.

The field name appears in the top-left of the preview, next to an icon indicating its type. To switch to a different question, click the field name to open the dropdown and select another question.

Preview cards on the Entries page include the same Filters, graph settings, and Export menus as the Survey Results page, though filters here apply only to the currently previewed field and aren’t saved as presets.

When you’re ready to view the full report for all fields, click View Survey Results below the answers table.

Exporting and Printing Survey Reports

Each field card on the Survey Results and Entries pages includes an Export menu in the top right. Use it to save or print a single field, or to export the full survey report.

Exporting Survey Results

To save survey results as an image or PDF, click the Export button on any field card and set the options:

• Export: Select Current Question to export just this field, or All Questions to export the full report.
• Content (single-field exports only): Choose Graph + Data to include both the chart and the answers table, or Graph Only to export just the chart.
• Format: Save as JPG or PDF.

When you’ve made your selections, click Export Results.

Printing Survey Reports

To print survey results, open the Export menu on any field card and select Print as the format. Choose Current Question to print a single field, or All Questions to print the full report.

The print preview uses your current graph settings for each field. From your browser’s print dialog, choose to send the report to a printer or save it as a PDF.

Frequently Asked Questions

These are the top questions we get about surveys and polls in WPForms.

Can I display survey results on the frontend?

At this time, there is no built-in way to display survey results on the frontend using WPForms. If you want to make them available to your users, you can save your survey results as a JPG image and embed it on a page on your site.

Can I merge the survey results of two fields?

Currently, there isn’t a way to merge survey results from two separate fields in WPForms.

Can I hide poll options that receive no votes from the results?

Yes, it’s possible to configure your poll to only display options that have received votes. For complete guidance on this setup, visit our developer documentation.

That’s it! You can now create surveys and polls, as well as generate reports and display results to your users.

Next, would you like to learn more about the options for the Rating field? Be sure to check out our Rating field tutorial for details on all of its built-in customization options.