Ballots App Overview

Ballots

1. What it is

Ballots lets you run structured, auditable votes on documents or people. A ballot can be a simple Yes/No decision (approve a policy, confirm a candidate) or a multi-option Election (choose among up to 10 candidates or documents). Every vote is attributable, every change is logged, and the voter roster is frozen at publish so late membership changes cannot alter an in-progress vote.

• Enablement: Ballots requires a license. An admin enables it from the Apps Marketplace; it is not active by default.
• What it is not: Ballots is not a survey or a poll. It produces a recorded outcome (Approved, Rejected, Winner declared, or Closed – no winner) with an audit trail. For lightweight opinion-gathering without an outcome, use the News Feed poll or a Survey.

2. Standing it up

1. Go to Apps Marketplace, enable Ballots for your business, and publish it to users. Until it is published, only admins and Ballots contributors can open Ballots — the app shows a banner saying so — while a ballot published in the meantime still sends voting notices to the employees on it and closes on schedule with no employee votes.
2. Open Ballots → Settings. Review Who can create ballots? — the default is Only Ballots admins and contributors can create (businesses already using Ballots before September 2026 keep Any member can create). To let members create, choose Any member can create, or Ballots admins, contributors and members of specific groups and pick the groups in the group picker that appears under that choice. To let one person create without Ballots settings, make them a Ballots contributor under Apps → Ballots → Admins & Contributors. (Ballots admins are App Admins, Admins and Super Admins.)
3. Under Analytics access, choose who can see the Analytics tab: Ballots admins only (the default), or Ballots admins and members of specific groups.
4. Under Vote labels, confirm or customize the three vote-button labels (default: Affirmative / Negative / Abstain). These apply to every Yes/No ballot.
5. Under Auto-approval, decide whether Yes/No ballots should be approved automatically at close when the affirmative votes reach a threshold share of all eligible voters (default: Off, threshold: 60%). This applies organization-wide, to every Yes/No ballot when it closes — including ones already open; creators cannot override it per ballot. The threshold box is greyed out while auto-approval is off, and its saved value is kept.
6. Under Defaults for new ballots, set the two defaults that creators can still change on each ballot: Allow voters to change their vote before close (default: On) and Show live results to members while a ballot is open (default: Off).
7. Under Ballot notifications, turn the six notification switches on or off (see §5 below).
8. The Ballots widget on the home dashboard shows each member the open ballots they can still vote on. No separate widget configuration is needed.

One choice needs a second step: Ballots admins, contributors and members of specific groups needs at least one group. If you save that choice with no group selected, only Ballots admins and contributors can create — the save warns you, and the page then shows Only Ballots admins and contributors can create.

3. How it fits together

Ballot types — two dimensions, four combinations. Every ballot has a subject (what is being voted on) and a style (how voters choose). The subject is either Document or Person. The style is either Yes/No (single-choice: Affirmative, Negative, or Abstain) or Election (voters pick from multiple options). Combining them gives four shapes:

Subject	Style	Example
Document · Yes/No	One document, approve or reject	“Approve the updated travel policy”
Document · Election	Up to 10 labeled options, pick a winner	“Choose among three vendor proposals”
Person · Yes/No	One person, affirm or reject	“Confirm the new safety officer”
Person · Election	Up to 10 candidates, elect a winner	“Vote for Employee of the Quarter”

The subject and style can be changed while a ballot is a draft or scheduled. Once voting opens they are locked.

Voter roster — frozen at publish. When a ballot is published, the app resolves the audience you picked (everyone, groups, or individual people) into a concrete list of members and snapshots it. From that point, the roster is immutable to group membership changes. Someone joining or leaving the group after publish cannot vote and is not counted. The ballot’s creator and Ballots admins can still switch individual members’ voting rights on or off with Manage voters.

Statuses and lifecycle. A ballot moves through a defined sequence:

Draft → Scheduled (if a future open date is set) → Open → Closing soon (last 24 hours, a display state) → Closed – pending decision → Approved or Rejected (Yes/No), or Winner declared or Closed – no winner (Election).

The lifecycle job runs every 10 minutes to open scheduled ballots, close expired ballots, auto-approve eligible Yes/No ballots, ask the creator (or a Ballots admin, if the creator has left) to record an outcome for a ballot that closes without one, and send closing reminders — 24 hours before close, or halfway through a voting window shorter than two days. Ballots also self-heal when viewed — if a scheduled ballot’s open time has passed, it transitions to Open the moment anyone opens the list or detail page, without waiting for the next job tick.

Auto-approval (Yes/No only). When auto-approval is turned on in Settings, a Yes/No ballot that closes with an affirmative share at or above the threshold is automatically approved. The affirmative share is measured against all eligible voters, not just those who voted — so a ballot where 1 of 87 voters said Yes reads ~1%, not 100%. Elections are never auto-approved; someone has to declare the winner or close the election with no winner.

Comment policy. Each Yes/No ballot has a per-choice comment policy: the creator can set the comment for each choice (Affirmative, Negative, Abstain) to Optional, Required, or Not allowed. The default is Optional for Affirmative and Abstain, Required for Negative. Elections have a single comment policy that applies to the whole vote.

Discussion thread. Vote justifications are mirrored into a real, repliable discussion thread (the Comments tab on a ballot). When a voter re-votes, the same comment is updated in place so replies survive. On each ballot, the creator sets who can comment and who can read comments separately: all members, voters only, or admins only.

Result visibility and availability. Two independent controls determine who sees results and when. Who can view results is Everyone, Voters only, or Admins only. Result availability determines timing: Real-time (results update as votes come in) or After ballot closes (the tally is hidden until voting ends). Both are set per ballot by the creator.

Election seats. For Election-style ballots, the creator sets how many selections each voter may make: Pick 1 (the default) or Pick up to 2–9 — always fewer than the number of options on the ballot. When the winner is declared, the system elects the top candidates by vote count; nobody picks them by hand. If candidates are tied for the last seat, the tie is broken by ballot order, and the confirmation and the ballot history say so. If nobody voted, there is no winner to declare: re-open the ballot for more voting, or close it with no winner. (An older election with no more candidates than seats is the exception. It can still be declared without votes, every candidate is elected, and the confirmation says the result doesn’t come from votes.)

Audit trail. Every consequential action on a ballot — created, opened, edited, vote recorded, voter list changed, vote value changed, closed, approved (manually or automatically), rejected, winner declared, closed with no winner, re-opened, re-circulated — is logged with a timestamp, the person who did it (or “System” for automated actions), and a description. The full trail is in the Ballot history window (the ballot’s ⋮ Actions menu), which has an Export to Excel button. Deleting a ballot deletes its history too.

Roles. Ballots admins (App Admin, Admin, and Super Admin) see every ballot in the business on the Dashboard and My Ballots list, can open Settings, and can act on any ballot (record the outcome, manage voters, change votes, re-open, re-circulate). Analytics is open to Ballots admins and to anyone the Analytics access setting adds. Regular members see only ballots they created or are on the voter roster of. A ballot’s creator can take the same actions on it as a Ballots admin, with two exceptions: once votes have been cast, only a Ballots admin can delete the ballot, and re-circulating also needs permission to create ballots.

Navigation. The app has four tabs in the sidebar: Dashboard (all members), My Ballots (all members), Analytics (Ballots admins, plus anyone Analytics access allows), and Settings (Ballots admins only). On a phone, the Dashboard opens its mobile view at /m/apps/ballots.

4. Running it

Creating a ballot

1. Go to Ballots → My Ballots and click New ballot. (The button appears only for people the Who can create ballots? setting allows.)
2. Under Who can vote, add groups, people or everyone — the members they cover when you publish become the frozen voter roster.
3. Enter a title (required, up to 100 characters) and optional description.
4. Choose the subject (Document or Person) and style (Yes/No or Election). For a Person Election, select up to 10 candidates; for a Document Election, add up to 10 option documents.
5. Set the comment policy, voting instructions, open/close dates, result visibility, and whether revoting is allowed.
6. Click Save as draft to save without publishing, or Save and publish to freeze the roster and open (or schedule) the ballot.

Resolving a ballot

After voting closes, the ballot’s creator or a Ballots admin records the outcome from the Record the outcome panel on the ballot’s Results tab:

• Yes/No: Approve or Reject. If auto-approval is on and the threshold is met, the ballot is approved automatically at close. (Yes/No ballots are no longer declined; one declined earlier keeps its Declined label.)
• Election: Approve (declare winner) — the system elects the top candidates by vote count — or Close with no winner, which elects nobody and shows Closed – no winner. An election can’t be rejected. If nobody voted, it can’t be declared: re-open it for more voting, or close it with no winner. (An older election with no more candidates than seats can still be declared.) Until an outcome is recorded, an election stays Closed – pending decision.

Re-opening and re-circulating

Both are in the ballot’s ⋮ Actions menu.

• Re-open ballot sets a new close date and moves a closed or resolved ballot back to Open. Existing votes are kept, and any recorded outcome is cleared.
• Re-circulate ballot starts a fresh round on a closed or resolved ballot: you pick who can vote and a new close date, all existing votes are permanently deleted, the roster is re-snapshotted from the audience’s current members, and the new round opens straight away.

Managing voters and changing votes

• Manage voters (creator or Ballots admin): view the frozen roster and switch individual members’ voting rights on or off. On a resolved ballot, the roster is read-only.
• Change votes (creator or Ballots admin): on a Yes/No ballot that is open or closed but not yet decided, record a vote for a member who hasn’t voted, or change a recorded vote if revoting is allowed. A comment is required for every change. On drafts, scheduled ballots, elections and decided ballots the window is read-only, and the menu calls it View votes.

Reviewing analytics

Ballots admins — and anyone Analytics access allows — can go to Ballots → Analytics. The analytics dashboard shows all-time metrics across the organization:

• Ballots run — ballots that have opened for voting. Drafts and scheduled ballots are not counted.
• Avg. turnout — average share of eligible voters who voted, across the same ballots. A ballot that drew no votes counts as 0%.
• Auto-approved — percentage of closed Yes/No ballots that were approved automatically.
• Avg. time to decide — average calendar days from opening to the outcome being recorded (Approved, Rejected, Declined, Winner declared, or Closed with no winner).
• Participation rate over time — average turnout of the ballots whose voting closed each week, for the last 12 weeks.
• Vote choice mix — how the votes on Yes/No ballots split between Affirmative, Negative and Abstain.
• Fastest and slowest time to outcome — up to five ballots each; a ballot never appears in both.
• Approval outcomes — how decided ballots were resolved: approved automatically, approved manually, winner declared or closed with no winner (elections), rejected, or declined.
• Highest turnout ballots — the five ballots with the highest participation rate.
• Most active voters — the five members who voted on the most ballots.

Exporting data

• Export to Excel in the Change votes window downloads the roster with each member’s department, vote and comment.
• Export to Excel in the Ballot history window downloads the full audit trail.
• Export on the Analytics page downloads ballots with their type, status, turnout, days open and days to decide. Ballots admins get every ballot, including drafts and scheduled ones. Anyone else with Analytics access gets the ballots the page measures, which leaves out drafts and scheduled ballots.

All exports are Excel workbooks (.xlsx).

5. Settings

Setting	Where	Default	What it changes
Enable Ballots AI agent	Settings → Ballots AI agent	On	Members can work with Ballots from Ask AI — find ballots waiting for their vote, look up results they are allowed to see, and cast or change their own vote. Ballot creators and Ballots admins can also record outcomes, re-open and re-circulate ballots, and review a ballot’s history.
Who can create ballots?	Settings → Who can create ballots?	Only Ballots admins and contributors can create	Any member, only Ballots admins and contributors, or those plus members of specific groups.
Who can see Ballots analytics?	Settings → Analytics access	Ballots admins only	Ballots admins only, or Ballots admins plus members of specific groups. Anyone else who opens Analytics is sent back to the Dashboard with “You don’t have access to that section of Ballots.”
‘Affirmative’ / ‘Negative’ / ‘Abstain’ label	Settings → Vote labels	Affirmative / Negative / Abstain	Changes the Yes/No vote-button labels across all ballots (up to 40 characters each).
Enable auto-approval	Settings → Auto-approval	Off	When on, Yes/No ballots are approved automatically at close if the affirmative votes reach the threshold.
Auto-approval threshold	Settings → Auto-approval	60%	The affirmative percentage (of all eligible voters, not just the votes cast) required for auto-approval. Applies to every Yes/No ballot at close, including ones already open — not per ballot. Greyed out while auto-approval is off.
Allow voters to change their vote before close	Settings → Defaults for new ballots	On	Pre-sets revoting on new ballots. Creators can change it per ballot.
Show live results to members while a ballot is open	Settings → Defaults for new ballots	Off	Pre-sets result availability on new ballots. Creators can change it per ballot.
When a ballot opens	Settings → Ballot notifications	On	Sends an email, an Inbox voting request and a push to every member who can vote and hasn’t voted yet.
When a ballot is closing	Settings → Ballot notifications	On	Reminds members who haven’t voted yet — 24 hours before close, or halfway through a voting window shorter than two days.
When a ballot is edited	Settings → Ballot notifications	Off	Tells everyone on the ballot when its details are changed.
When a ballot is re-circulated	Settings → Ballot notifications	On	Asks members who can vote in the new round to vote again (one request per member). When it is off, the usual “voting is open” request goes out instead, if When a ballot opens is on.
When a ballot’s outcome is recorded	Settings → Ballot notifications	On	Tells everyone on the ballot when it is approved or rejected, or when an election’s winner is declared or it is closed with no winner — never who won or the tally.
When a member is added as a voter	Settings → Ballot notifications	On	Tells a member when they are given a vote on a scheduled or open ballot.

6. More help

• Ballots FAQ — specific setup and operating questions
• Ask AI — the assistant answers questions about Ballots from these articles.