Everything we know about Cornerstone on Demand and Storyline!

Sep 04, 2013

Jason Chan
By Jason Chan

I thought I would start a thread about Cornerstone on Demand so there's a central place for people to read and add to. There seems to be a dearth of information about how CSOD and Storyline interact with each other as well as the unresolved issues surrounding it. I've spent many hours scouring the web and speaking with Cornerstone trying to find a solution. Hopefully this thread will serve as a resource for others going forward.

On a side note, I love Articulate Storyline. I started with Adobe Captivate with limited success. It was a very steep learning curve, but I was able to get some basic functionality out of it. I tested out Storyline with it's 30 day trial, and I will say that time-to-effectiveness was drastically reduced. It really IS like using powerpoint. Granted there is less complex functionality and interactions available than Captivate, but so far it's given me everything I've needed to use. The benefit is that the learning curve is much less steep too. Think of it as the difference between iMovie and Final Cut Pro. The latter can do some crazy effects, but the former gives you 90% of what you need and can get you comfortable in 1/4 of the time.

It's nice to have a properly-working content creation tool when you're in an LMS like Cornerstone. I have enough trouble in CSOD as it is.

So some of the nuggets of wisdom that I've found are :

  • Cornerstone does not track SCORM 1.2 content properly. You cannot pull a lot of the reports if they are not in SCORM 2004 format. You don't have the option to select that course in the reports.
  • If you export into SCORM 2004, there will be an extra section on the left with text links to the module. This takes up 30% of the screen, and on smaller laptop screens may crowd out the module window. Cornerstone says this is a Storyline exporting settings issue. I couldn't find any settings that shows/hides that section. The workaround is to resize the module to the screen, which doesn't get rid of the section, but at least fits the module.
  • When reporting, you can get the completion status for a course based on quiz result or last slide viewed. You can also get a final grade for course. Storyline passes the results information for each question (including short answer) but you cannot pull a list of the answers for an individual. Therefore, it may not be advisable to administer any testing where you'll need to review individual answers
  • You can get a list of aggregate answers for a module. e.g. I can see how 100 employees answered this multiple choice question. This is helpful to determine if learners are absorbing the course information correctly.
  • Web objects (such as websites, or links to sharepoint documents) work in modules if your IT has added csod.com to the trusted sites
  • Popup windows that open up the articulate module in CSOD will work if you add csod.com to the allowed list for popup blockers. Your IT dept can also add this to everyone's computer. Otherwise when learners click the "launch" button, the module does not show up.

I'll post more as I think or find them, but feel free to add to this list!

906 Replies
Jerome Bautista
over 5 years ago09/01/18 at 1:02 am (UTC)

Hi All. I am humbly asking for some help/advice. It's my first time uploading content into CSOD with SL3 content. Following this thread, I publish HTML5 only, SCORM 2004 3rd ed. Complete/Incomplete, and zip. When uploading the content in pilot using the Content Uploader, I get "CSOD Unauthorized Exception: Check your credentials."

Not sure what I am missing/doing wrong. Any help would be greatly appreciated. 

Steve Flowers
over 5 years ago09/01/18 at 1:28 am (UTC)

Sounds like a permissions error. First thing I'd try is a logout / login. Sometimes permissions can go sideways without explanation. If the problem persists, could be one of these problems:

- If using the old content loader, a license needs to be assigned to you in order to upload content. I didn't think you should be able to even see the content upload form if you didn't have a content license assigned but CSOD permissions get wacky.

- If using the new content loader, your security role might need an update to enable you to upload content without error.

Jerome Bautista
over 5 years ago09/01/18 at 2:12 am (UTC)

Thanks Steve and Will. It seems that there is an issue with pilot. We just had a copy down two days ago, so this might be a reason. We are using the newer content loader and my permissions should be everything. 

Anyways, many have created a GPS ticket, which I will bring up to our implementation specialist. The strange thing is that it was working fine yesterday for one of my courses, but today it decided that same course is unacceptable. *mini headache alert*

David Ellenwood
over 5 years ago10/02/18 at 6:42 pm (UTC)

Hi, everyone. We are trying to launch a course with a client who uses COD. We have carefully read this thread, so when we started testing we used all the proper settings EXCEPT we decided to try publishing as HTML5 only with the new modern player (other folks said this works).  Yesterday morning the course worked fine. So, we finished building out the content and added a bit of Javascript on the first screen to sort learners based on the browser they were using. We already had some javascript in the course we tested yesterday morning, so we did not think this would be an issue. We published the course this morning with the EXACT same settings as yesterday, and the course will not play. The first screen is blank. Naturally, the course loads and plays perfectly on SCORM Cloud. I know this is not a lot to go on, but does anyone have any ideas? Also, is there a way (as a vendor serving a COD subscriber) I can test my courses before sending them to my client? This is driving my client's COD admin nuts . . .

Thank you!

Will Findlay
over 5 years ago10/10/18 at 2:27 am (UTC)

Thanks Steve! Just for some additional confirmation, in 2017 a Cornerstone
CSM said 4th edition was not supported here:

https://clients.csod.com/phnx/driver.aspx?routename=Social/Topic/Posting/QAPostingDetails&Posting=55417

If you want, you can upvote a request for 4th edition support posted in
June 2018 here:

https://clients.csod.com/phnx/driver.aspx?routename=Social/Topic/Posting/SuggestionPostingDetails&Posting=65301

Lesly Becerra
over 5 years ago10/15/18 at 5:31 pm (UTC)

My colleague created a module using Storyline 360. The ICU button on slide 1.12 --- when the user clicks it, you just get three flashing dots on the screen and it never takes the user to the next slide. Thoughts on why this is happening and how to fix it? (File uploaded)

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