Collecting responses from a group of people is something very common in an office environment. Whether you are trying to ask what type of pizza to order for a meeting, or taking a vote on who's going to quit next, what you need is a poll.

What you might not realize is that if you are using Outlook 2007 and Exchange at work, you've got everything you need to send out a poll through email.

Compose a new email in Outlook, click the Options tab and select Use Voting Buttons.  Here you can choose the defaults or create your own answers to the poll question.

If you select Custom just type in the answers you want to appear in the Use voting buttons field, separated by a semicolon.

Now you have the custom answers listed.  That is all there is to it!  Now send off your message.

When the recipient opens the email there will be a message advising them to respond by using the vote button which includes the custom responses.

After the recipient has made their choice a box will pop up verifying the poll response and an option to add additional information in the email.

When they respond you will have a flag on the email advising they have answered the poll … similar to a read receipt.

To view the totals of the poll, you can open up the original message in your sent message folder, and then click on the Tracking button. You'll see a list of totals underneath the ribbon, and then a list below that of all the responses.

I can imagine plenty of possibilities for this feature in the office.  What types of polls do you think would come in useful where you work?