How to Ask a Poll Through a Push Notification

Use a PingRoom Question when the sender needs one bounded choice. Write the prompt, provide two to four predefined options, choose the recipient scope, and send. The answer becomes a structured outcome that a person or connected system can interpret.

Design an answerable question

Ask one decision at a time. Deploy release 8f31c2 to production? with Approve and Deny is better than a paragraph containing several conditions. Put relevant, non-secret context in the prompt or structured data, and link to the authoritative detail page when needed.

Room-scoped Questions use the first valid response as the result. Direct Questions can target one person. PingRoom tracks pending, answered, expired, and cancelled states; an expiry is not the same as a negative answer.

People receiving a Question on Apple's wearable can follow the focused guide to answer a PingRoom Question from Apple Watch, including notification routing and a first-answer rehearsal.

Questions can also invite a short typed answer, up to 60 characters, with text_input on the API or MCP. Offer it alone or alongside the choices when the workflow needs a name, version, or brief reason. Use a message, call, or another collaboration tool when the person needs a longer explanation or discussion.

Choose the right primitive

Use a plain Ping to announce that something happened. Use acknowledgement when a person or the original recipients must confirm receipt. Use a Question when the workflow needs a choice among known outcomes or one short answer. Questions and confirmations in standard private rooms do not require Pro; agent requests use their separate daily allowance.

When the choice is specifically who can take one immediate task, use a two-option first-answer Question, then record the winner in the team's task system. The quick-task ownership guide shows the complete handoff and fallback rules.

For consequential actions, set a timeout, apply least-privilege access to the sender, and keep the system of record responsible for enforcing the result. A push response should not bypass normal authorization.

Read the Question Protocol, Question state model, and outgoing result flow for implementation details.