Getting the right IT set-up
Jul 12, 2017
I'm at an organization that's new to creating eLearning for our customers. I'm the first eLearning Developer they've hired, and the first one the IT shop has had to support. I've also never worked at an organization where the IT department had no prior experience supporting developers. I finally have all my software on a desktop computer, I have the ability to develop on a local drive, everything seems to be working... but I continually have IT issues. My Replay file crashed last night and I lost everything. I have no idea why. I also need to work at home but my remote desktop/VPN connection cannot meet this need. It seems like a new technical issue pops up right after resolving one. IT is having difficulty with my help tickets and I don't have the hardware knowledge to tell them what I need.
I would love input on these items:
- What is the best desktop configuration to support eLearning development?
- Is special hardware recommended? What PC requirements should I have if any?
- What other types of programs do you use for successful outcomes? For example, Audacity or Camtasia?
- What types of devices do you use for audio recording? What kind of set-up do you have to record?
- Does anyone know the VPN requirements needed to support eLearning Development? If you work at home and in an office, what is your set up to support this?
- Any other advice? I'm an expert systems analyst. I'm an expert at understanding system functionality and finding the best ways to leverage it, but I am not an expert in the IT infrastructure needed to do my work.
Thank you!
7 Replies
Hi there Katie! I can help with the system requirements and hardware questions. ☺️
What version of Storyline are you using? You'll want to make sure your computer meets the requirements listed for your version:
I'll leave your other questions in the hands of our community. I know they'll have lots of recommendations to share with you!
We have met those requirements, and I still want to throw my computer out of the window. I'm getting good responses on LInkedIn.
Hi Katie. I wanted to chime in with some other information for you regarding working locally and in a remote environment.
You'll want to be sure that you're saving and publishing your work to your local C: drive to reduce any risk of vulnerability from keeping your files on a network drive.
Articulate Storyline, as well as our other programs, aren't supported in a server environment. And when you use a remote desktop to access your machine, since the processes are running on the remote machine, you may experience machine performance issues with application speed or display quality. Working on your machine remotely is functional, but it could be inconvenient to use for more than just a quick change or two.
For your work from home scenario, it would be better if you could install Storyline locally to that machine, and then copy your project files down to the C: drive so that you can continue to work with minimal risk of corruption to your files.
Also, here are some audio and video tips from our own Tom Kuhlmann!
Yesterday I used Replay to cut 2 minutes of dead air at the beginning of a recorded webinar. The webinar was 1 hour long. It took just over an hour for it to publish. Is that normal?
Hi Katie,
That doesn't seem normal, especially the long publishing time. You mentioned some other issues you were having in your initial post. Does it seem like any file (including Storyline files) take longer than expected to publish, or was it just this file in particular?
Were you working from and publishing to your local hard drive?
yes I was. My IT folks say replay only uses one CPU or something.
Replay may be a recording program, but it isn't really a video editing program. You are bound to get better performance with something designed for the task. (MS MovieMaker will even do a superior job.)
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