Configuration of your computer is important, especially the display settings. We recommend you review these notes before each use of the system.
Getting your computer ready for voting
Before you get started with using your voting system there are some settings to check on your computer and some considerations in terms of where you save your PowerPoint files for use with the voting system.
Where to save your files
For voting to work correctly your files must be saved locally on your computer. Do not attempt to run your voting sessions using a presentation that is saved to a network or USB drive. We recommend that you create a folder on your C drive and name it Voting Files. This will be where you store files that you are actively working with. Of course you can move your finished files to your network for safe storage. Just remember that whilst running the votes live and whilst editing the voting settings your presentation you will need to move your files into a local folder. You many need your IT Administrator to create this folder for you.
Be mindful of OneDrive
It's important not to save your voting presentations to a folder that is backed up by OneDrive. As per the guidance above, whilst not in use you can use a OneDrive location in order to have your files backed up. Just remember to move the files to your Voting Files folder on your C drive for whilst you are editing the vote settings and when running live with an audience.
If you do not have the option to use a different location and you therefore are working with files that are in a OneDrive managed location, you will need to ensure that you pause syncing whilst working with your voting presentations. Click on the cloud icon in your taskbar and then click on the settings cog at the top right. Click on Pause Syncing and then choose the pause duration. This option is not our recommendation because when you pause the sync you will no longer be backing up your other files, so this option carries greater risk than the option to save files to a location not managed by OneDrive.
Display Settings - Zooming
Within the display settings of your Windows computer there is a handy tool called Scale & Layout. When you are working on a high resolution display Windows may zoom in on some items such as fonts and icons to make them easier to read. Unfortunately this is not helpful when using the voting software because Windows will Zoom the text and other items on your PowerPoint slide but it does not apply the zoom to your voting results graph when the slide is shown in full screen. This means that whilst setting up the slide layout your will see your graph in the size and position that you have set but when you run live the graph may look too small and appear higher up the slide that expected. To avoid this issue, before you start working with voting, please go to Display Settings and scroll down to Scale & layout, then use the dropdown list to select a zoom of 100%.
If changing to 100% makes it a little hard to read items on your screen, try dropping your resolution too. We feel that 100% zooming works well with a 1920 x 1080 resolution.
Internet and other considerations
The CLiKAPAD keypad voting system does not require an internet connection. The votes are received from the keypads via RF communication. We recommend that you switch off Wi-Fi whilst running voting in order to minimise interruptions and potential updates etc appearing on screen at inconvenient moments. This is not compulsory though. Voting will work fine whether you have an internet connection or not. If you are using Virtual Keypads (voting on smartphones etc), you will need an active internet connection in order to receive votes.
We recommend that you run as few applications as possible whilst you are running your voting presentations and don't forget to disable notifications from your messaging apps etc to avoid private items appearing during your meeting if you are not planning to disable your internet connection for the meeting.