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
Tracy Marshall
almost 8 years ago07/21/16 at 4:08 pm (UTC)

Does anyone know how to use deep links in Storyline to deploy a course (via SSO) WITHOUT opening up the Cornerstone On Demand user transcript in the background? Basically, we do not want users to even be aware that they are actually taking a course in Cornerstone (long story). My apologies if this was already answered. Thanks!

Christie Pollick
almost 8 years ago07/22/16 at 1:48 pm (UTC)

Hi, Cassie -- Thanks so much for reaching out here! I did want to note that as this thread was originally posted a few years ago, Jason or other participants may no longer be subscribed, so if there is a particular individual you would like to reach, you are welcome to do so via the 'Contact Me' link on their profile page. 

Or perhaps others here will be able to share their thoughts on your question, and in case you were interested in taking a look at other discussions and resources where various LMS providers are discussed, I thought I might pass along the following: 

Forums Compilation: Learning Management Systems (LMS)

All About Learning Management Systems

Amanda Howard
over 7 years ago07/25/16 at 8:05 pm (UTC)
Emily Broad

Bathre - if the changes that you have made are significant (ie, a new slide added) not just a minor update like a change of a picture or wording, you must inactivate the old published version and upload a new one. If you try to overwrite it, it will be all jumbled up. So, inactivate and then "create / publish" a new file and you're good to go.

I am having the same issues with the jumbled text and graphics... if I am to unpublish and republish the course, everyone who has completed it will not receive credit for completing this module? Do you have a work around for this?

Carmen Hamlin
over 7 years ago07/29/16 at 3:10 pm (UTC)

Hi! Is anyone here using Cornerstone for Salesforce? 

I'm looking to start building more SL courses that are mobile-friendly, and we are also moving the majority of our users onto the salesforce.com platform this year. Currently, a small percentage of our users are on salesforce, and we use CSOD for our sales training (nonmobile).

Would appreciate any insight, best practices, or questions I need to ask for implementation.

Thanks!

Sighle Denier
over 7 years ago08/05/16 at 12:03 am (UTC)

So the original post was from 3 years ago and it states the following - I'm wondering if this is still true? Can I really NOT get individual question results in SCORM 2004 reporting in Cornerstone?

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

Sighle Denier
over 7 years ago08/05/16 at 12:09 am (UTC)

Oh I see what you are asking -- Cornerstone likes SCORM 2004 Edition 3; that's what I published to, but it seems from the post that the data gets stored and Cornerstone won't allow reporting on an individual's question results. We use this for remediation purposes. So once again, we may be forced to use Cornerstone test engine instead of having the test at the end of our eLearning even though they told us that we could get all reports if we use SCORM 2004.

Mary McDermott
over 7 years ago08/05/16 at 5:59 pm (UTC)

Yikes. My management is giving serious consideration to Cornerstone and this thread is making me very nervous. We are on a SABA system now and my Storyline courses upload easily, no problem. You all are discussing workarounds I don't want to deal with regarding scoring and uploading course revisions. Is there anyone who would actually recommend Cornerstone for use with Storyline? And if so, why?

Adam Cannon
over 7 years ago08/05/16 at 6:12 pm (UTC)

Matthew, 

I spent the better part of a year going back and forth with the CSOD support team on this very issue. We never did figure out a way. (BTW, it didn't seem to matter whether I was in Storylline or Captivate, they both had the same result in CSOD). We finally just moved our quizzing to the antiquated built-in Test Engine in CSOD (at the behest of our management team).

Abdulhadi Al Rubaye
over 7 years ago08/10/16 at 6:58 pm (UTC)

Hello,

I have an embedded deeplink to an old LMS training for reference to the users in my current training that is not directing me to the LMS training I want.  The problem started when I published my current LMS training to the company's CSOD for testing.  When I click on the embedded link during testing it is not directing me to the old LMS training, it is redirecting me to the login screen for some reason.  Is there any idea of why this happening?

Will Findlay
over 7 years ago08/10/16 at 9:01 pm (UTC)

The closest you can get to SCORM individual item test results is to go to Standard Reports > Training > Scorm 2004 Course Progress Chart

Choose "Assessment Summary."

In the report criteria you can designate a single user and run the report for that single user. You will see which questions they answered correctly and incorrectly, but you cannot see which responses they chose.

The headers of the report are the following (they make more sense for a summary report of multiple people):

Question #

Question (text)

Attempts

Incorrect

Incorrect%

Correct

Correct %

Question Weight

Laura Gourley
over 7 years ago10/11/16 at 2:08 pm (UTC)

Hi everyone--I have been receiving numerous reports of an end-user's Storyline course freezing, or their whole computer freezing, while trying to complete the training. I am trying to get more info on our end user's ISPs (we work from home and use our own ISP). Has anyone noticed issues with course or whole computers freezing when experiencing jitter or packet loss? Thanks!

Marcy Watzl
over 7 years ago10/11/16 at 3:47 pm (UTC)

Does anyone have experience with using the Cornerstone mobile app for your Storyline content? I have Storyline 1, and we're testing the mobile app, but even though I've published to SCORM 2004, and selected Mobile & HTML 5, the content doesn't open properly in the mobile app. I just get the background of the player and it never loads. (I do have mobile selected in the properties for the LO within CSOD). Thanks much!

Will Findlay
over 7 years ago10/23/16 at 2:36 pm (UTC)

Reports (Menu) > Standard Reports (Submenu) > Training (Tab) > SCORM 2004 Course Progress Chart (Report) > Assessment Summary (Option)

As implied by the name, it only works for SCORM 2004 modules and not 1.2. So whenever you publish for Cornerstone, make sure to use SCORM 2004 if you want to use this report.

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