Custom Poll on Sharepoint

Well this is a technical blog item after a long break, I like to blog personal stuff more.

I had a requirement to get a Poll webpart on the portal Main page like you usually see on websites.

• A question, 3 options as a radio button list and a submit button.


• A user should be allowed to vote only once


• If user has voted show him the response

Out of your mind, U think of Survey on Sharepoint but it wont work like this, the way polls work on websites. SO I searched online and found some poll web part for $199. Big money. If the client buys it shame on me. Y not make my own Poll webpart. So folded my sleeves up started a web part project using C# made my Poll webpart soon. Tested and delivered upto satisfaction. Well now lets get to the technicality, what magic did my code do. Its pretty simple. U just need to take a pen n paper , think of all permutations, combinations possible and than make a good design and than start coding. usually people just fold their sleeves and start coding. Avoid it.


Solution:

1. Create a Custom list to save the Questions, with following fields Question, Answer1, Answer2, Answer3, Expiry Date


2. Create a Custom list to save the votes, with fields Question, Answer.
   It will by default have the created by Field indicating the Author
3. Create your webpart project.
   

Khallas means Thats It. u r done.

What does the webpart code to do:

1. Override the Createchildcontrols method.


2. Query the Questions List to check if any questions exist with expiry date greater than or equal to today. U will need CAML query


3. If No, create a label control stating "No Polls currently available"


4. If Yes, query the Votes list with the current User name and current question, if an record exists means User has voted else Not Voted.


5. If Voted, Query the Votes List get all the responses for the current Question and Response1, Question and response2, Question and Response3 . So the 3 queries count value gives u the number of votes for each option. make a Table to represent this information.


6. If Not Voted, Create a Label control for question. create 3 radio buttons for three responses, with radiobutton groupname same. So that they act as a Radio button list


7. Create a submit button and also a Onclick event for the button.


8. In the Onclick event you simply get the question and selected Radio button value and insert a new record in the Votes list and than repeat step 5 and hide the controls for submitting vote and also add a label "You voted successfully"


9. Refactoring comes here, create a separate function for step 5 accept a boolean value indicating whether it is step 5 or step 8 and accordingly to show or not to show the "Voted Successfully message"
   

Thats it so zimble, I meant simple. Leave a comment if u lost anywhere in between