Importing Questions From Excel

Nov 01, 2013

andres cueva
By andres cueva

I would like to know if is there any tutorial or example that show us how to format the spreadsheet, in order to import questions with feedback text (correct, incorrect and post-quiz review).

24 Replies
Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard
10 years ago11/01/13 at 12:51 pm (UTC)

Hi Andres, 

It is detailed in this tutorial, and I copied it below for you. You can provide answer level feedback for particular question types - but there is not an option to incorporate the post-quiz review feedback. 

Importing questions from an Excel spreadsheet

First, populate an Excel spreadsheet with your questions and answers. Here's how:

  1. Download this template. (A sample question is provided for you.)
  2. Enter the Question Type, Points, Question Text, and Answer Choices for each question. See the table below for notes regarding each field.
  3. Save and close the spreadsheet. (Save in XLS or XLSX format.)
Question Type
  • Question Type is required.
  • Use the following abbreviations for supported question types: 

    TF True/False
    MC Multiple Choice
    MR Multiple Response
    FIB Fill in the Blank
    WB Word Bank
    MD Matching Drag and Drop
    MDN Matching Drop-down
    SD Sequence Drag and Drop
    SDN Sequence Drop-down
    NUM Numeric
    LIK Likert
    PO Pick One
    PM Pick Many
    WW Which Word
    SA Short Answer
    ESS Essay
    RD Ranking Drag and Drop
    RDN Ranking Drop-down
    HM How Many
Points
  • Points are required for graded questions.
  • Enter points for the correct answer. Points can range from -1000 to 1000.
  • Points for incorrect answers aren't supported via import.
Question Text
  • Question Text is required for all questions.

Answer Choices
  • Answer Choices are required for all question types except Short Answer, Essay, and How Many.
  • Enter up to 10 answer choices for each question.
  • Designate correct answers for graded questions with an asterisk (*) at the beginning.
    Example: *True
  • For choice-level feedback, separate each answer choice and its feedback with a pipe (|).
    Example: Houston | Sorry, the capital of Texas is Austin.
  • For matching questions, separate each answer choice and its match with a pipe (|).
    Example: Texas | Austin
  • Numeric questions only support "Equal to" answers via import.

Then do the following to import questions from an Excel spreadsheet into Quizmaker:

  1. Open an existing quiz, or create a new one.
  2. Then do either of the following:
    • Click the round Articulate button in the upper left corner, and select Import Questions.
    • In Question List View, go to the Home tab, and click Import Questions.
  3. Browse to the Excel spreadsheet (XLS or XLSX) that contains the questions you want to import, and click Open.
  4. Quizmaker displays a list of questions from the spreadsheet you selected. Mark the questions you want to import.
  5. Click OK to complete the import process.

Notes:

  • If there are any errors in your spreadsheet, Quizmaker will display an Import Errors window, listing each error. Correct the errors, and import again.
  • Formatting in your spreadsheet will be removed during import (italics, font size, hyperlinks, etc.).
  • Text that follows two forward slashes (//) is identified as a comment. Comments will be ignored during import. (Leave the slashes in the column headers.)
  • Only questions in the first worksheet (tab) of your spreadsheet will be imported. Additional worksheets will be ignored.
  • Questions will be imported into the question list after the currently selected slide or, if a slide isn't selected, at the end of the quiz.
  • The more questions you import, the longer it'll take to process and create them in Quizmaker.
Cath P
almost 10 years ago02/23/14 at 9:35 pm (UTC)

Hi Ashley

This is great information unfortunately though I cannot get it to work.   I have created my questions/answers as per the instructions and saved as both excel file types but keep getting the same message.

I have changed the file extension to all 3 types i.e *.quiztemplate, *aqm and *.quiz in the hope that this might work but when I try to import  I get a variation of messages.  It either indicates file cannot be opened and to check whether it is open in another instance of quizmaker or with the aqm type it indicates the file needs to be converted to new format but when I click OK nothing happens.  I tried to open the file directly via Quizmaker and I get an exception or file path error.  If I try to open via Windows Explorer it indicates that the file path is incorrect so no matter what I try it will not recognise the template file.  I even deleted the instruction worksheet but no go. 

Do you have any suggestions as to why it might not be working.  I have Windows7 nd use MS Office 2010 and Version 3.3 - Quizmaker 09.

Thanks Cath.

Leslie McKerchie
almost 10 years ago02/24/14 at 7:37 am (UTC)

Hi Cath!

Unfortunately, the functionality and instructions shared above are only valid for the feature that was introduced with Studio '13 and is not available in your Studio '09 version.

Hi Dieu and welcome to E-Learning Heroes!

I'm attaching an example of the multiple response question in an Excel spreadsheet, and will follow with the .quiz file.

This question type does not allow feedback per choice though.

Julien Martin-Schmitt
almost 10 years ago02/24/14 at 8:25 am (UTC)

Hello Leslie, I am working with Dieu, and we would like to know actually if it is possible to add feedbacks By Question (and not by choice) for the MR question type.

In your example, we cannot see any of them but it is really important for us to have feedbacks for the whole MR question.

Is it possible or not?

Thx & BR

Julien

George Sandison
9 years ago09/18/14 at 7:26 am (UTC)

I've just come to this post having failed to import some multiple response and true/false questions because they include feedback text. It would be really helpful to allow for answer feedback to be imported via Excel for these question types. We have over 300 questions and a significant percentage are either MR or TF, so manually adding the feedback text takes a significant amount of time.

Graham Betts
over 6 years ago08/23/17 at 8:00 am (UTC)

Hi Ashley - happens on Quizmaker on My PC and direct import to SL2 on my colleagues.

I have attached the upload spreadsheet for upload and the example of the output in QM.

Thanks for any help you can give.  We have hundreds of quizzes to upload and this is going to be a bit of a headache.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard
over 6 years ago08/24/17 at 1:44 pm (UTC)

Hi Graham,

Thanks for sharing those! I looked at testing it in Storyline 2, and I'm assuming you're also using Quizmaker '13?

What I noticed when testing your import document is that the question types were all set for Multiple choice or Multiple response instead of the True/False type (use TF in that field). I also saw that the text was written in caps within your excel document - so I modified both of those items and it all imported normally. 

I attached my updated Excel document. Can you give this one a try? 

Leslie McKerchie
6 years ago11/09/17 at 4:47 pm (UTC)

Hi Kirsten!

You can certainly use a Pick Many and the instructions can be found here.

You mention a correct answer though, so I think you may mean a Multiple Response question type as that is a graded question versus the Pick Many being a survey question with no 'right' answer.

I'm attaching an Excel template to demonstrate as well as a .quiz file for you to take a peek at.

Hope this helps!

Felix Franke
6 years ago11/22/17 at 9:20 am (UTC)

Hi,

everybody says that Storyline (3) does not import questions from excel.

 

I am just starting to work with AS3.

If I click through the menu Slides - Import - Import Questions It lets me choose excel-files. I don't have excel files in the right format apparently, but if AS3 does not import questions from excel anyway as stated above, what does this feature here do?

If it does import excel files, very cool!

Thanks!

Felix

This discussion is closed. You can start a new discussion or contact Articulate Support.