Combining custom and out-of-the-box xapi statements

Dec 16, 2019

Hi everyone

The out-of-the-box xapi statements that storyline sends out when publishing for xapi are nicely reported in Scormcloud. I've also had success when publishing for HTML/SCORM and sending custom xapi statements to Yet LRS. I think both options are really cool to play around with. However I would like to combine the ease of use of the out-of-the-box xapi statements with the flexibility of tracking whatever I want with custom xapi statements. 

Can anybody confirm if this is possible and send me in the right direction on how to do it? 

With kind regards
Anneleen

5 Replies
Doug Nelson

Hi Anneleen,

It's completely possible. If you publish as an xAPI package you'll get the "out-of-the-box" statements. And then you can add custom statements via Javascript for individual objects, triggers, etc. that will get sent separately to the LRS. 

I found this series of video tutorials very helpful for learning how to insert custom statements into Storyline via the "Execute Javascript" trigger. It's based around using the xapi.ly tool to construct the statements, but you can construct them manually and use the same approach: https://xapi.ly/Home/Walkthrough

Fiona Macelli

Hi Anneleen, did you get anywhere with this effort?  I am wondering also how to mix the default xAPI statements that Storyline constructs to report on graded questions, while adding my own custom statements.  

The tutorials that Doug mentions, and all others that I've looked at, tell you how to do one or the other only.  I think what I want though is one file (probably the tincan.xml file that's produced when you export from Storyline as xAPI) that has both out-of-the-box statements AND custom statements, so that the LMS/LRS reads them as one cohesive data set.

Have you been able to do this, or does anyone else know how to create a combined output?  I assume that the activity ID has to correspond with the one that Storyline will use, and I don't know which other elements need to be in the javascript in order to have it combine nicely with the out-of-the-box statements. I'm a beginner coder and I'm trying to use the xAPI compatible LMS "LearnUpon".

Maria Hoepf

Anneleen or Fiona,

Did either of you have success with trying to combine the out of the box statements with your own custom statements? If I publish to web, I'm successful in being able to report my custom statements to an LRS. But ultimately, I want to be able to publish to TinCan so I can upload the course to our LMS. When I try this, it only reports the out of the box statements to the LRS within our LMS and not the LRS I've specified for my custom statements. I'd appreciate any and all insights you'd be willing to share!

Fiona Macelli

Hi! I left the company I was working on that for before I was able to have
any luck with this, so I don't have any successes or suggestions to report.
However, Articulate contacted me recently to help pilot a beta that is
supposed to make custom API possible/easier. I suppose if you can wait for
that, then there might be a solution on the horizon. I've no idea of the
time frame but perhaps an Articulate staff member can provide one.