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Smart Slides detects specific patterns in your slide content and turns them into one-click polls, quizzes, or video plays during a BigBlueButton session. There is no setup beyond writing your slides — when BigBlueButton recognises a supported pattern, a launch button appears for the presenter. This page covers the seven Smart Slide types, the quick-reference table, and how Smart Slides feed into the Learning Analytics Dashboard. For a video walkthrough, see How Smart Slides work.

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Launch a Smart Slide

When the current slide contains a recognised pattern, a Quick Poll or Play External Video button appears in the lower-left of the toolbar.
Smart Slides button visible on the toolbar
Select the button to launch the interaction. Question text and answer choices are pulled directly from the slide.
Quick Poll button location
The poll opens with the extracted information.
Poll panel pre-filled from slide content
Students see the corresponding response prompt.
Student view of a Smart Slide poll

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Smart Slide types

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Single choice poll

Trigger: A question followed by a lettered or bulleted list of answer options. Students see the question and select one answer. This is the most common Smart Slide type and requires no special syntax. Example slide text:

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Quiz with a correct answer

Trigger: A single-choice poll with __ (two underscores) appended to the correct answer. Adding __ after an answer marks the question as a quiz. The Learning Analytics Dashboard tracks who answered correctly and shows a per-student breakdown in the Quiz tab. To hide the answer marker from students, change the colour of the __ characters to match the slide background. BigBlueButton still detects them. Example slide text:
Quiz slide with hidden underscore marker
The quiz launches with the correct answer pre-marked.
Quiz panel showing the correct answer marked

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Multiple choice poll

Trigger: A question ending in ?? (two question marks), followed by a list of answer options. Students can select more than one answer. Use this type when a question has multiple valid responses. Example slide text:

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Yes/No poll

Trigger: The text (yes/no) anywhere in the question. Launches a Yes/No poll. Use it for quick checks, opinion questions, or agreement prompts. Example slide text:

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True/False poll

Trigger: The text (true/false) anywhere in the question. Functionally similar to Yes/No, but the response options are labelled True and False. Example slide text:

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Typed response poll

Trigger: A question with no answer options listed below it. When BigBlueButton sees a question without A, B, C choices, it treats the question as open-ended. Students type their answer directly, and responses are visible to the presenter. Example slide text:

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External video

Trigger: A YouTube, Vimeo, or direct .mp4 URL placed on the slide. The URL must be on a single unbroken line. BigBlueButton detects the link and shows the external video button in the lower-left of the toolbar. Selecting it shares the video with all participants in a synchronized player.
External video button in the toolbar
Synchronized external video playing for all users
Single video example:
Multiple videos with labels: You can place several video URLs on one slide. Add a comment after a # on each URL to label it — BigBlueButton displays the labels in a selection menu.
Direct .mp4 links also work:

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Quick reference

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Learning Analytics Dashboard

All poll and quiz responses are aggregated automatically in the Learning Analytics Dashboard. The dashboard shows response distributions per question and, for quiz questions, a per-student view of correct vs. incorrect answers.

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Try it out

To experiment with Smart Slides, download this sample slide deck and upload it in BigBlueButton: Look for the Smart Slides button when BigBlueButton detects a supported pattern.