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AhaSlides Surveys let you collect structured, multi-question feedback. Build the Survey once, then either share a standalone link for people to complete at their own pace, or drop it live into a presentation for your audience to fill in on the spot.

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Creating a Survey

1

Open Surveys

Log in to AhaSlides and click Surveys in the left-hand menu. Surveys live in their own dashboard section, separate from your presentations.
AhaSlides dashboard with Surveys highlighted in the left-hand menu
2

Choose how to start

Click Create survey. In the editor, pick Create with AI to describe your Survey and let AhaSlides draft the questions, Use a template to start from a ready-made survey, or Add a question to build it yourself.
AhaSlides Survey editor with the AI assistant panel highlighted after drafting a feedback survey
The AI options in Surveys follow your account’s On-demand AI setting. If AI is switched off for your account — or by your team admin — the AI starting points and the editor’s AI assistant are inactive, while everything else in Surveys keeps working. See How AhaSlides uses AI and what you should know.
Prefer to watch? This video tutorial shows how to build and share a Survey:

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Question Types

Mix as many question types as you need in a single Survey:

Multiple Choice

Respondents pick one option from a list you define — or turn on Multiple answers so they can select as many as apply.

Rating scale

A slider between two labels you set — for example, Not useful to Extremely useful.

Rating (5-star)

A quick 5-star rating — a simpler visual alternative to the slider scale.

Net Promoter Score

A fixed 0–10 scale — from Not at all likely to Extremely likely — asking how likely respondents are to recommend you. Results are auto-calculated as a Net Promoter Score: the share of Promoters (9–10) minus the share of Detractors (0–6), from -100 to +100.

Short answer

A single-line box for a brief free-text answer.

Long answer

A multi-line paragraph box for longer written feedback.

Matrix

Several sub-questions sharing the same answer choices — great for Likert tables.

Date

Respondents pick a specific date, with a format you can customise.

Ranking

Respondents drag options to order them from most to least preferred.

Contact Information

One block that collects Name, Email, Phone, and Company together.
Beyond questions, you can add a Heading block to group and label sections of the form.
Multiple Choice questions can include an Other option — a text field respondents fill in when their answer isn’t in the list. For a Ranking question, Randomize initial order is on by default, so every respondent sees the options in a different order, reducing position bias. Use the AI assistant to generate a full questionnaire from a prompt, attach an image to any question, and mark a question Required so it must be answered before submitting. Changes auto-save as a Draft until you publish.
For Multiple Choice and Ranking questions, the Option labels toggle shows or hides the chips in front of each option — turn it off for a plainer look. The Label style control switches those chips between Alphabet (A, B, C) and Numbers (1, 2, 3).

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Add a Theme to Your Survey

Give your Survey your own look by applying a theme — the same themes AhaSlides presentations use, so respondents see a branded, consistent form instead of the plain default.
1

Open Customise

In the Survey editor, click Customise in the top action bar. The Customise panel opens on the right with a gallery of themes.
2

Pick a theme

Choose a look from My themes, Team themes, or AhaSlides themes — each card previews its background and palette. Click a card to apply it instantly; the editor updates so you see exactly what respondents get. Pick Default to return to the plain look.
Each theme carries a full set of styles:
  • Background — the theme’s background colour, or image, fills the Survey.
  • Colour palette — the first colour in the theme’s palette becomes the accent for interactive elements like buttons and links.
  • Font and text colour — questions and answers render in the theme’s font, and body text follows the theme’s own text colour for readability.
The themed look shows wherever the Survey runs — on its share link and live inside a presentation.
If your Survey is linked to a presentation, it follows that deck’s theme automatically — the panel shows Theme follows your linked presentation and the Default reset is switched off. Picking a different theme still works and syncs back to the presentation.
Survey theming isn’t available on every plan; if yours doesn’t include it, you’ll be prompted to upgrade. On the Free plan you can still apply the Default look; every other theme shows a crown badge that opens an upgrade prompt.

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Publishing and Sharing

While a Survey is a Draft it isn’t collecting responses. When you’re happy with your questions, publish it — the status changes to Published and it’s ready for respondents.
A published Survey can be shared three ways:
  1. Share link — copy the link and send it anywhere (email, Slack, LMS, poster). You can edit the link to a custom, memorable slug — the QR code updates automatically to match.
  2. QR code — display or download the QR code for print, slides, or on-screen scanning.
  3. Website embed — embed the Survey directly on any web page, so people can answer without leaving your site.
Participants open the Survey on any device (phone, tablet, or computer) with no download or account needed.
AhaSlides Survey Share page with the share link, QR code and website embed highlighted
Responses collect for as long as the Survey stays open. To stop accepting new responses, close the Survey (its status returns to Draft).
Use this when you want structured feedback from your audience while they’re still in the room — end-of-session forms, mid-workshop check-ins, event feedback.
  1. Open your presentation in the editor and add a new slide.
  2. Select the Survey slide type.
Adding a Survey as a new slide in AhaSlides presentation editor
  1. Under More ways to fill this slide, click Add an existing survey, then Select your Survey. Any of your surveys can be linked, including drafts — linking publishes it automatically.
AhaSlides Survey slide in the editor with the linked Survey highlighted
  1. Present your deck as usual — participants join with the normal join code or QR code.
  2. When you reach the Survey slide, the Survey is revealed on every participant’s device.
  3. Each participant scrolls through the questions, answers them, and presses Submit.
AhaSlides Survey slide live on the presenter screen while a participant answers on their phone
Presenting the Survey in the moment lifts response rates well above emailing it afterwards — your audience answers while the session is still fresh.Presentation templates can include Survey slides too, so applying such a template brings its linked Survey along with it — ready to present.

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Add Collaborators

Invite others to work on a Survey with you. In the Survey editor, click Share → Add collaborators, enter an email, pick a role, then Add:
  • Editor — can edit the Survey and view all its results.
  • Viewer — can view the Survey and its results, but can’t edit.
People with access are grouped into Editors and Viewers. A shared Survey appears in the collaborator’s Shared with me section.

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Anonymous or Signed-In Responses

By default, a standalone Survey collects anonymous responses — no name, email, or sign-in is asked for. When you need to know who answered, require respondents to sign in with an AhaSlides account first. In the Survey editor, click the Survey settings gear in the top action bar, then under Respondent identity pick one of two options:
  • Anonymous (the default) — respondents answer without signing in, and each response shows as Anonymous in your results.
  • Require sign-in — respondents sign in with their AhaSlides account before answering, and their name and email are attached to each response.
With Require sign-in on, anyone who opens the standalone link or QR code first sees a Sign in to continue screen with a Sign in with AhaSlides button. Each respondent’s name and email then appear against their response on the Individual tab of your results.
Turning on Require sign-in makes the Survey no longer anonymous — respondents are told up front that their identity is collected. Keep it on Anonymous when honest, unattributed feedback matters more than knowing who answered. Sign-in isn’t available inside an embedded Survey — a respondent on a website embed is asked to open the Survey in its own browser tab to sign in.
Respondent identity is set per Survey, and both options work on every plan, including Free. You can also add a Contact Information question to collect specific details while keeping the Survey itself anonymous.

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Checking Your Responses

You can check results at any time. Open a Survey and click View results, or find every Survey’s results together under the main Reports page — the Surveys tab — with search and date filters to narrow things down. At the top of the results page, a summary shows five key metrics at a glance:
  • Started answering — how many people began the Survey.
  • Completions — how many submitted it.
  • Completion rate — the share of starters who finished.
  • Dropout rate — the share who started but didn’t finish.
  • Average duration — how long a response took on average.
Below the summary, results are broken down question by question.
AhaSlides Survey results page with the response summary and Export button highlighted
Export your results — Click to export the responses to Excel (.xlsx) or CSV from the results page, then analyse them in your own tools. Manage responses — As the Survey owner you can delete a single response or clear all responses from the results page. Deletions apply for you only and are never reflected in the public shared-results view.

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Frequently Asked Questions

A Poll slide asks one question at a time with results shown live while you present. A Survey is a multi-question form participants scroll through and submit once. Use polls for in-the-moment reactions; use a Survey for structured, multi-question feedback.
No. Participants just open the link or scan the QR code and answer in any browser — nothing to install.
Yes — Anonymous is the default. To know who answered, open Survey settings and set Respondent identity to Require sign-in: respondents sign in with an AhaSlides account before answering, and their name and email attach to each response. You can also add a Contact Information question to collect details while keeping the Survey itself anonymous.
A Survey has no response limit of its own. How many people can take part is set by your plan’s participant allowance, with no cap on the total responses you collect over time. For the limit that applies to your account, see what is included in the free account or check your My Plan page.
Not at the moment. Every respondent moves through the same questions in the order you arrange them — there’s no conditional branching that shows a different next question based on a previous answer. To route people down different paths, build a separate Survey for each path and share the relevant link.
Yes. From the results page you can export all responses to Excel (.xlsx) or CSV and work with the raw data in your own tools.
Yes. As the Survey owner you can delete a single response or clear all of them from the results page. Deleted responses never appear in the public shared-results view.
No. Deleting a Survey is permanent, and its responses go with it. If you might need the data later, export your results first, then delete the Survey once you’re sure.
Check the Survey’s status in your Surveys list. If it’s still Draft, it hasn’t been published yet — participants can’t see it until you publish.
Surveys use the same On-demand AI setting as the rest of AhaSlides. If it’s switched off in Account settings → AI preferences, or by your team admin, the AI options stay visible but inactive — hover over one to see why. Switch On-demand AI back on and reload the Survey; the change applies in around 30 seconds. Everything else in Surveys works normally either way.
Yes. In the editor, click Customise and apply a theme — it sets the Survey’s background, colour palette, font, and text colour in one step. Theme customisation isn’t available on every plan; if yours doesn’t include it, you’ll be prompted to upgrade.
Yes. Click Preview to see how it looks on respondent devices and submit a test response. Remember to remove your test submission from the results before sharing the Survey for real.
Yes. In the question’s settings panel, turn off the Option labels toggle to hide the letter chips (A, B, C…) and show only the answer text. The same toggle applies to Ranking questions, and the Label style control lets you switch the chips between letters (A, B, C) and numbers (1, 2, 3).
Have a question? Contact our support team — if you’re logged in, use the chat bubble in the bottom-right of your dashboard; otherwise contact us here or email hi@ahaslides.com. Want to connect with other users? Join the AhaSlides community to share tips, request features, and see how others engage their audiences.