Free Navigation in Bulletin Board without Advancing to Next Slide before Engagement Complete

Hi Susan!

The Prev/Next player buttons go to property in Presenter will only work when the interaction's playback mode is set to Interactive and the corresponding box to Show previous/next buttons is marked.

If the button property in Presenter is grayed out, it indicates one of the following is true:

• The interaction's playback mode is set to Interactive, but Show previous/next buttons is unchecked.
• The interaction's playback mode is set to Linear.
• The interaction's playback mode is set to Presentation.
• The course was created in an earlier version of Studio '13 and then updated.

See this article for additional information.

Thanks for the info...it jogged something in my brain which helped me
resolve this issue.

*In order for the learner to visit each of the Bulletin Board notes (in any
order) before advancing to the next slide,* the settings I used are:

- Engagement Properties: Allow User to Leave Interactions - After All
of the Steps
- Interaction Properties in the Playback Tab:
- Interactive
- UNCHECK show prev/next buttons
- Slide Properties:
- Auto Advance
- Nav Locked
- Controls Auto

Fantastic, Susan! Thanks so much for the update! :)

Okay...so I jumped the gun on that one!  (I tested it, but in my enthusiasm at what appeared to be success didn't try to break it.)  The settings mentioned above do NOT work.  (Sorry for the false hope!)

I put a request in for support and this is the reply I received:

As I double check, this has something to do with product limitation.

You mentioned that what you need are as follows:

- My client wants the learners to be able to click on the notes in any order to see the content

- but wants to be sure that the learners view all of the notes prior to moving on to the next slide.

Studio '13, only allows the following:

- Scenario - Interactive (user can advance in any order) is selected in Engage and Show previous/next is enabled

- in the Interaction Slides you can only change the Prev/Next buttons to "Step in the interaction" or "Slide in the Presentation" ONLY when the Allow user to leave interaction is set "at any time".

- if "After viewing all the steps is selected", the Prev/Next player buttons default to "Step in the interaction"

We don't currently support the feature you're looking for. I have submitted a feature request on your behalf.

So, if anyone else is interested in this feature, please send in a request so that the development team knows that this is a desired feature.  Here's the link to request a feature:  http://www.articulate.com/support/contact/feature/

Thanks Susan for sharing that update here and I'm glad our  Support engineers were able to determine the exact set up you needed and provide an answer. Please feel free to let us know if you need anything else. 

Many thanks for sharing, Susan. :)

I'm back at it.  Just wrapping up 8 modules and I think I have this figured out.  (I've tried it out several times in different ways...so I think it's solid.  I'd be more than delighted to have someone else try this to and confirm, or not, what I think works.)

THE PROBLEM:

• Desire to allow learners to navigate within the Engage interaction freely
• Learners may not leave the Engage interaction until all steps have been completed
• Do NOT want the next button to go through the series of steps, regardless of if a particular step has already been visited
• Learners should be able to click the Next button to view the next slide in the presentation

• Slide Properties
  • Advance:  By User
  • Navigation:  Locked
• Engage Properties (the Edit Properties button on the slide)
  • Allow learner to advance: After Viewing All the Steps
• Interaction Properties (in the place where you build the interaction)
  • Interactive with Show Previous/Next Buttons checked

* I have not found a solution for the Accordion interaction yet.  I haven't tried to accomplish this on the other Engage interactions.

Glad you've been able to continue to play with the settings and find another set up that'll work for you. It'll certainly be of assistance to other users who come across this thread. 

Okay...so there's (at least) two more important things to know:

1. The order in which you do the steps makes a difference!  It takes a bit of fiddling but try this:

Step 1:  Click the "Edit Properties" button on the Engage Slide in PPT.

Step 2:  Set it so the learner can leave "At any time".

Step 3:  Set the next button to go to next "Slide in presentation".

Step 4:  Click the "Close" button.

Step 5:  In the Articulate tab in PowerPoint, click on "Slide Properties".

Step 6:  Set Advance to "By User".

Step 7:  Set Navigation to "Locked".

Step 8:  Click the "Okay" button and watch the Engage properties magically change to "After viewing all the steps" and "Slide in presentation."

NOTE:  If you go back into the engagements the settings rest to the defaults and you will have to go through these steps again. 

2. You can't have a "hidden" summary.  For example, on the accordion if you have a summary, there is nothing for the learners to click to activate the summary, but Studio still sees it as a "slide" that must be viewed before the learner can move on.  (See the Articulate support note above about each step in an engagement being viewed as a slide by the software.)