Online help for the SZTAKI Voting system

Management interface

Creating new voting

New vote can be created by clicking the Create new voting action in the list of active votings screen. After the voting is created its creator will be the only organizer of the new voting.

Only organizers can manage the voting. This includes the following issues:

Managing languages

Languages can be added to the existing list of languages. All system generated reports are translated to all these languages, but the questionnaire has to be translated for all these languages. After the voting has started, adding languages is not allowed any more!

Managing groups

The name of the new group must be unique among groups of the voting. Registered users can be added by selecting users from the list of registered users on the server. E-mail user can be added by giving the name, the e-mail address and the preferred language of the user. There are some special groups accessible in all votings, to ease the organizer's task. These are called predefined groups: everybody, all registered users, observers, voters and organizers.

Questionnaire editing

The questionnaire is a collection of questions. Each voting can have only one questionnaire. Only one organizer can edit the questionnaire at a time. The other organizer trying to edit the questionnaire will get a warning, that the questionnaire is being worked on. The questionnaire may have an introduction text, followed by the questions. For each question the following has to be set:

abstention is allowed or not,
comments are allowed or not,
the type of the question, and the type-specific options for the question (e.g. budget in allocative questions or labels in evaluations). These are explained on a separate page

The text of the question and the choices has to be given in the appropriate language. As the questionnaire can be given in several languages simultaneously, the organizer must be careful in handling languages. The editor has two language selection options: a displayed language and an edited language. These can be set at the top of the editor screen. The edited language is the one which appears in editable text boxes. The displayed language is an optional help for the translation of the questionnaire. It is shown as plain text right above the editable text boxes showing the texts in the edited language. The questionnaire is saved every time the organizer pushes a button in the editor. So the organizer should push 'Finish editing' to stop editing the questionnaire.

Control script editing

The control script can be created by filling in an HTML form. Only one organizer can edit the control script at a time. It contains a series of actions to be performed automatically by the voting subsytem at given times. These actions may apply to groups of users. These groups should be created beforehand. The script can be modified later. However in case of a started voting past actions cannot be modified, and the script can only be changed after suspending the voting. Follows the detailed explanation of the settings in the control script.

General settings:

Changing vote: either allowed or not allowed. Has no meaning in case of anonymous votings.
User identification: open, secret or anonymous. Open means the voters' names are shown in the result. Secret means the voters' names are stored in the system, but not shown in the result. Anonymous means the voters' names are not stored at all.

For each command a date is given when it is executed, plus extra parameters and conditions may be given. Commands available:

Start collection: starts the collection of votes for the questionnaire and the selected voter group.
Send reminder: sends a reminder to those voters who has not voted yet. Sends reminder to everybody in an anonymous voting. Not available when the number of voters is indeterminate.
Send notification: sends a short notification message about the voting to a given group. Available only for groups with finite number of users.
Send questionnaire: sends the questionnaire in plain text format to a given group as reference. Available only for groups with finite number of users.
Stop collection: stops the collection of votes. This must have a final stop date when the collection is surely stopped. Conditions can be given to stop the collection earlier (if all votes arrived, or if a given number of votes arrived). Only meaningful stop conditions can be given (e.g. if the number of voters is unknown, then stopping the vote if all votes arrived is not meaningful).
Publish result: puts the result in HTML format into the voting right after the collection stopped. The result can be in default or verbose format. In verbose format all the arrived votes are listed. In case of continuous update this result is updated after every new vote arrival.
Send result: sends the result in plain text to a given group right after the collection stopped. Available only for groups with finite number of users. The result can be in default or verbose format.

There are certain trivial semantical rules for the control script. For example the date order of the commands cannot be arbitrary (stopping the collection before it has been started is prohibited). If the organizer makes any of these errors in the control script, the system gives an error message with explanation, and the control script is not saved. The control script is saved when the 'Ok' buttons are pushed, and the script is correct.

Maintenance commands

Only those maintenance commands are shown which are currently meaningful and allowed in the voting activity. Maintenance commands include:

Suspend voting: In suspended state the control script is stopped (thus voters cannot vote), but the organizers can change some settings.
Resume voting: The normal operation of the control script is resumed.
Calculate result: The result is calculated from the current votes.
Close voting: The voting is closed, no more votes are accepted. Once closed, a voting cannot be resurrected. A closed voting can only be managed in a restricted way (changing observers and organizers groups).
Delete voting: Deletes the voting and all its data from the disk. Lost data cannot be recovered. Use this command cautiosly!
Sending various messages: Organizers can send different system-generated e-mail messages to groups. First the group has to be selected, then the button corresponding to the desired message type should be pushed.