How can I view and save, "Text Entry Field" entered by a user in Storyline?

When you insert a text-entry field, Storyline automatically creates a text variable to store its value. The default name for the first one is "TextEntry." Then they'll be "TextEntry1," TextEntry2," etc.

• I strongly recommend that you give all variables more meaningful names. That will make development and troubleshooting easier.

When someone types in the field and then clicks outside the field, the program puts the entered text into the variable associated with that field.

The variable's value doesn't change unless something else is typed in the field, or unless a trigger adjusts the variable. 

To show a variable's variable to the user, you can type its name with a % before and after (for example: "%TextEntry%"). Or go to the INSERT tab, click Reference, and then select the variable.

Note: When you insert a reference to a variable, Storyline will highlight it in yellow when you're editing the slide. That's so you can easily tell that it's a variable reference. The highlighting won't show when you preview or publish the slide.

A standard graded text-entry question can only score one field. If you want to score multiple fields, you'll need to do custom programming. 

For more info: 

• https://community.articulate.com/series/articulate-storyline-360/articles/articulate-storyline-360-user-guide-how-to-work-with-data-entry-fields 
• https://community.articulate.com/series/articulate-storyline-360/articles/articulate-storyline-360-user-guide-how-to-work-with-variables 

Thank you very much Judy!  Thank you for the detailed explanation, but also for the "For more info:" links. 

However, I am still not able to understand how I can: collect... view... save... the actual data that my users enter. 

This is a very simple example of what I mean. 

1. I create a new Storyline project with only one slide. 
2. On this slide, I insert two fields, Input > Data Entry > Text Entry Fields, for First Name and Last Name.
3. I add a Button and label it "Submit." 
4. I add a Trigger - Action: Complete Course when someone clicks the submit button.  

If I publish this project using SCORM 1.2, and upload it to my LMS... my users may be able to log in... fill in the fields... click submit... and finish the course. But... I do not know how to, collect, view, or save the data they entered in the fields. 

How can I retrieve the information my users enter into Text fields?

Storyline is set up to send specific data to the LMS. This is mostly data related to quizzes and survey questions. 

As noted above, only one text-entry field is "scored" on a quiz question. Thus, only one is submitted to the LMS. The same goes for text-entry survey questions. 

This post has info about how to send variable data to an LMS: https://access.articulate.com/support/article/Storyline-360-How-to-Send-the-Value-of-a-Variable-to-an-LMS 

Again... thanks Judy!  I think that my confusion comes from the following aspects.

1. Each slide should contain a video.
2. Each slide must contain four separate fields where users will enter data.
3. I need this entered Text data to appear somewhere that I can track it. 

• I see that there is a Slide type called: Survey Question
• I see that there is a Survey Question type called "Short Answer," as you pointed out. 
• And I see how I can insert a video onto this Short Answer Survey slide. 

However... This scenario only allows me to ask one question. I need to ask four questions about the video. I find it strange that Graded Questions, Survery Questions, and Freeform Questions all seem to have a "one question per slide" limit. Am I wrong about this?

Maybe you could just tell me whether what I am trying to accomplish is even possible.  I took a look at the article notes on xAPI... and this is outside my wheelhouse. I'm willing to learn what all of this is... but I'd like to first find out if it is even possible. I don't want to dive in and start trying to learn about xAPI, if this will also not allow me to ask four questions on the same slide as a video. 

I really appreciate your help. 

Depending on your LMS and the version of SCORM you export, the data may or may not be stored in an accessible fashion in your LMS. If it's not, there are ways you can save data to other places including SCORMCloud using xAPI statements. If you've got Office365 this may be an option: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPpjfW-Zo10 to save variable data to an Excel sheet. There are also methods of using Javascript to write to a Googlesheet. The LMS I mainly use is Canvas and it's not got great SCORM reporting avaialble so I've used all of the methods I mentioned above to store data - depending on what the project needed.

In terms of multiple text boxes on one slide, you can do this manually using the "inputs" option in storyline to add text boxes to a regular slide. They work the same way Judy mentioned.

I don't have the expertise to provide any advice about xAPI. 

For scoring/reporting purposes that conform to SCORM standards, there is a one-question-per-slide limit. Sorry, but that's just the way it is. 

If you want to get the responses to 4 questions about a single video, you will need 4 graded-question or survey slides. 

• To avoid repeating the video, you could show it on one slide, then follow that slide with the question slides. Put a button on each question slide that lightboxes the slide with the video.

The other option would be to use an Essay Survey slide, and ask the users to enter all four answers in one field. The full response from that field would be reported to the LMS. Of course, to be graded, a survey response has to be pulled from the LMS and manually graded. How you reconcile that with successful completion is up to you and your LMS team. 

Note: For the system to score the entered text on a graded question, the typed response must match what you enter as the correct response in FORM VIEW. You can indicate whether the answer is case sensitive. And you can enter up to 10 variations that are acceptable. Obviously, that isn't a good option for questions that could be correctly answered in more than 10 ways. In other words, it's designed for simple fill-in-the-blank questions (not open-ended responses).