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Automatic publish at close and per wave

Keep a public results link current at poll close and each wave: after your first publish, your browser republishes the final numbers for you.

  • Workspace admins
  • 4 min read
  • Updated Oct 22, 2026

When a poll closes, and when each wave of a recurring series closes, InviziPoll marks that a publish is owed and keeps your public results link current without a second publish action. It's for the admin who has already published once and wants the final numbers on the link without remembering to come back; it's not a scheduler that publishes for you, because we don't hold a readable copy of any response.

Note

The server can stamp "a publish is owed". It can't compute the numbers; only a browser holding the poll key can, so anything that runs unattended runs in your browser, on a poll you've already chosen to publish.

#When to use it

  • A one-off poll with a public link where the final tally should replace the mid-run one.
  • A recurring pulse where each wave's public page should show that wave's closed numbers.

#How it works

Every fifteen minutes the server checks for polls and waves that have closed and marks each as owing a publish, as of the moment it closed. Nothing clears the mark. A publish is owed while the poll's current document is older than that moment, so republishing settles it on its own and doing it twice changes nothing.

On the results page the Publish control says so in your terms rather than the scheduler's:

  • Never published: "This poll has closed. Publish so the people you asked can see what came back."
  • Published earlier: "This poll has closed since you last published. Republish so the public link shows the final numbers."
  • On a wave, the sentence starts "This wave has closed" instead.

#What republishes without a click

The next time you open the poll's results page with results decrypted, your browser republishes on its own when all of these hold:

  • Public results are on and there's a published document already.
  • No results PIN is required.
  • This browser can sign, meaning your workspace encryption is open on it.

It uses the same publish path as the button, builds the same document, and signs it with the same workspace key. The signature attests the numbers. It never attested that a person clicked, so an automatic republish claims nothing a manual one didn't.

#What waits for you

  • A first publish. Switching the public page on isn't the same as choosing to publish numbers. New polls have the page on by default, and that still publishes nothing. The first time is where you read the floors and the signature warning and decide. That's never automatic. The "This poll has closed" note is your prompt, and respondents holding the link see "Results appear here once leadership publishes them" until you do.
  • A PIN poll. The PIN seals the document and it isn't kept anywhere, not even in memory past the click. The note asks for it: "Enter your results PIN and hit Republish so the public link shows the final numbers." Everything else is primed.
  • A browser that can't sign. You're told before a manual publish when a link would go out unsigned. An unattended publish has no "before", so it doesn't run. Open your workspace keys, or click Republish and accept the unsigned warning.
  • Below the floor, or too large. The attempt stops, the reason appears under the note, and it doesn't retry. One closed wave produces at most one automatic attempt.

#What respondents see

The public page shows the republished summary with a new "as of" line. The date comes from inside the signed document, built on the day it was published. There is no second date from a server clock. If a wave closed and the republish hasn't happened yet, the page shows the earlier summary, honestly dated.

#Limits and gates

  • A publish becomes owed only at poll close and wave close. Reaching a response milestone doesn't trigger one.
  • The automatic republish runs in the poll owner's browser and only while the results page is open.
  • Everything in Publishing results as a signed document applies: the same release floors, cuts that need five (or the poll's minimum group size if higher), and no document history.
  • A republish uses the released answers. At close every answer is released, so the republish after close carries the final numbers. It's also the first document that can carry breakdowns: one published while the poll was open carries none, and an exit pool or speak-up channel never does. How batched release works.