How to save incremental user-entered data throughout course

Nov 08, 2012

Hi everyone,

I'm still learning how to use Storyline and I need help with something that seems a little tricky for someone like me, who has little hard programming knowledge.

I'd like to create an ongoing "notes" functionality for user text entry that saves, retrieves, and can be added to incrementally throughout the course. For instance, Screen 1-5 would be, list three things. Then Screen 1-8 recalls the three items entered by user, who is then asked to rank those three things. Then Screen 1-3 recalls the data from previous two interactions and asks for additional text entry, etc. At the end the user can print the notes as a takeaway.

My research so far has led me to three possible solutions:

1. Use a Quizmaker quiz. I'm not sure this will work because the data needs to be saved over several non-consecutive screens. Has anyone successfully done this with the Quizmaker functionality?

2. Use text variables. This seems the most likely to offer a solution, but I'm feeling less than up to the task (the entire interaction will require ~8 screens of user entry).  I found a tutorial that explains how to do something similar with a single saved variable, but how would I expand on that?

3. Editable pdf. I did this in a previous course with Articulate (not Storyline) and it seemed to work ok, but I have not tested the functionality with Storyline. Anyone have experience with this method?

Your advice is MOST APPRECIATED!

8 Replies
Melanie Worrall

I'd love to hear a way of doing this too...

For small amounts of text, I used a text variable and then added a page (not linked to the menu) that the user could navigate back to and from, then I added a print screen JavaScript command.

This works okay for small amounts of text, but I'd like to be able to do this with more text.

Leslie Shapiro

I'm trying to do this with a lightbox.

8 different screens have text entry fields and they all feed into the lightbox screen. After each successive entry, the user clicks "Save" which actually take him/her to the lightbox screen. From there, I used a javascript print command.

I'll let you know if it's successful.

Leslie Shapiro

Hi again everyone,

It's working pretty well with a lightbox. I still have one problem I can't figure out:

In one place, I have a variable that refers to another variable. I'd like to have the TEXT of the referenced variable show up, but I'm getting the NAME of the variable instead. I have the trigger button set to do this:

Button: Set FavoriteTopic (variable) equal to %Topic1% (variable) when user clicks

On the next screen I call to %FavoriteTopic% and it prints: %Topic1% (rather than the text entered into this variable).

Please help!

Anna Veach

I'd like to be able to do what you're describing above, allow the user to gather questions throughout the course but  at the end possibly submit it  to someone else. Does anyone know if that is possible and if it is, can you explain it in detailed steps? I can almost follow the process mentioned above but I think I need more details. Thanks!!

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