Email survey results not working

Mar 27, 2012

Rebecca Dodds
By Rebecca Dodds

I've put in a case with Articulate, but I need an answer sooner rather than later.  So, I thought I'd post here to see if anyone has insights. 

I've got a quiz that I'm using as a level 1 evaluation.  When I put together a new presentation, I add the quiz to the end of it.  It's set up to email the survey results to our company university mail box.  I've used it in 6 presentations and it's always worked.  So I know there are no problems with our email program or server handling. 

In my latest presentation, it doesn't work.  I can see the quiz and make responses.  But, when I click "email results," nothing happens.  I took the quiz out and reinserted.  Nada.  I republished under a different name.  Didn't work.  I changed the name of the presentation and saved in a different location (to create new .ppta file).  Nope.  To see if the quiz file itself is corrupted, I put into a new presentation.  Works just fine.  I copied the last 5 slides from the existing presentation and saved as a new name.  Works fine. 

So, why won't it work in the actual presentation?  I have no idea what's wrong and didn't see anything in the help or blogs.  Has anyone seen or dealt with this before?

16 Replies
Peter Anderson
12 years ago03/27/12 at 11:54 am (UTC)

Yep, that's probably the fix  There is a known issue where the email results feature in Quizmaker '09 does not work if a quiz contains 13 or more questions. Depending on the browser you are using, you may experience a blank email, or an error may occur. Our Quality Assurance team is investigating this issue. In the meantime, the only workarounds are to reduce the number of questions in the quiz to 12 (or fewer) or to disable the email results feature.

Rebecca Dodds
12 years ago03/27/12 at 12:02 pm (UTC)

Just opened the presentation and took out the majority of the content slides...left 3...and left in all quizzes and interactions.  And the email survey works.  There are only 42 slides in the presentation.  So, it doesn't seem like file size ought to be an issue.  And, it doesn't seem like file size should have anything to do with quiz results being emailed. 

But, for whatever reason, it seems like presentation size is interacting with the email functionality on the quiz.  BTW, for anyone else who might be thinking about this one, it's the last quiz and last slide in the presentation. 

Rebecca Dodds
12 years ago04/04/12 at 7:33 am (UTC)

I figured out a workaround.  IWhen I went into "publish" options, in reporting and tracking, I changed the quiz to be tracked to the quiz that I'm using as the level 1 survey.  Now the email function works again. 

I don't know whether that will always be the solution, because I don't know why it works.  But, if anyone else is having a similar issue where a known quiz has been working and suddenly isn't, try changing your tracking options. 

Mike Mrazek
12 years ago04/04/12 at 5:18 pm (UTC)

Another follow up to this thread.

We also encountered a similar problem where emailed results were coming out blank from one particular quiz.

After hours of trial and error, weve narrowed it down to a combination of:

a) tracking settings need to be set to track quiz in the reporting/tracking area (as above)

b) multiple response quiz question had an apostrophe in one of the answer options. Removed the apostrophe, and things began to work again

Hope this helps someone...

Mike

P.S. quiz only had three questions, and Quizmaker 09 version is v3.3.1103.112

Rebecca Dodds
12 years ago04/05/12 at 5:39 am (UTC)

Mike--

Not quite the same situation.  You were at least getting an email, even though it was blank.  When we clicked the email button, nothing happened at all!!!

But, it does sound as though they're somehow related.  Something in caching those quiz answers to be emailed back. 

Did you do the tracking adjustment first, and then follow with the apostrophe removal?  Or did you do both at once?  I'm interested, because I wouldn't think a punctuation mark would make a difference...wouldn't the program just see that as more text and ignore it for execution purposes?

Rebecca Dodds
12 years ago04/13/12 at 5:35 am (UTC)

And now for the reason that it works.  One of the good folks at Articulate showed me that each computer has a Flash Local Storage setting that can be changed.  Knowing that, I figured out why the various things I tried worked.  I had a presentation with 42 slides, 5 quizzes and an Engage interaction.  As the presentation plays, a Flash object file is working in the background.  That file works like a cache file, storing information about the presentation...slides viewed, quiz results, etc.  Because of the number of slides and quizzes in this particular presentation, that file was full by the time it reached the last quiz so that quiz wouldn't work. 

All of the troubleshooting that I tried worked because everything I did either reduced the amount of data going into that flash object file or instructed the object file to only record the information that I wanted. 

Most people will probably never run into this type of issue because they're posting and running from an LMS.  But, for at least another year, my company won't be on an LMS, so I've got to run out of SharePoint.  That means my L1 and L2 evaluations have to be part of the presentation, and I have to get results via email.  Knowing what results in that object file getting overfilled will allow me to instruct my team on whichever workaround makes sense, given the presentation characteristics!

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