Restricted Navigation and Free Navigation

Aug 27, 2013

Hi, Folks!

I want to Restrict menu navigation for the first completion only of an LMS course for a learner. Then upon revisit for the same learner, allow Free navigation. Can this be done in Storyline?

Thanks for your help!

15 Replies
Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Bob and welcome to Heroes! 

You can set up restricted navigation as an option under the Player Templates -> Menu and that would allow the learner to move through the lesson and then they could only view the previous slide and the current slide. This article gives you a few different examples on how to further lock your navigation. Additionally, if you wanted to have the user be able to return to a course after viewing it, you can set each slide to "Resume saved state" which will tell the course that when they're looking at it again to not reset anything.  You'll also want to ensure that from the player template -> other section you have the "Resume on Restart" feature set to "prompt to resume" and the user will be able to pick up where they left off. 

Let us know if you need anything else! 

Bob Browne

Thanks for the response Ashley.

I followed your directions but I'm not getting the results I'm looking for.

What I'd like is for the learner to be restricted so they must complete the entire course for the first time (all slides for LMS completion). Then, at a later date when they want a refresher, to be able to have free navigation to any slide on the menu. So, if they want to refresh on one topic only, they don't have to go through the entire course.

Is that possible?

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Bob,

I haven't seen a built in way to do so, but this thread presents a few interesting examples. Also, I read this article about sequencing it within Articulate Online and wonder if you could set something similar up in one Storyline course where at the end of the course they're given a "password to unlock" that if they enter on the first page, it changes the variables as described in the article I first posted so that they can navigate through freely. 

Maya Edmead

Hello,

I've been reading a few threads on restricting and locking navigation however, have not seen a clear response regarding the "Free" navigation option.

I choose "Free" navigation for the course I'm developing and during user testing, the previous button did not work at all (for all slides).

I would like the course to be accessed freely i.e. be able to move ahead and back in the course.  Did I choose the correct navigation option?

Dawn Miles

If you click on Player in the Home Tab then Menu, you can set restrictions by clicking the Additional Options icon in the lower right of the menu window. You can set Navigation Restriction to Free, restricted or locked.  The Restricted setting prevents learners from jumping ahead but can go back and view slides they've already previewed.

Hope this helps.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Maya,

You've got a few different options to restrict (or not) navigation in Storyline: 

Also, if you've set the player menu options to Free that refers to the player menu solely, but you can restrict navigation on a slide-by-slide basis too. You'll want to check each individual slide (or slide masters) to see if you've set up triggers there which are restricted the learner's movement back in a course. 

If you need an extra pair of eyes on that .story file - let us know! We're here to help. 

Kate Mackenzie

Hello - sorry to jump here - i'm trying to achieve a similar thing - in that i'd like the learner to not be able to freely progress through the course without viewing the whole content, but once returning to a completed course they can.

Can I clarify that if the player menu is free, yet the slides are such that the next button is disable/hidden until the timeline is complete/all states changed etc, then the menu can override this restriction on the user being unable to progress without complying to the course imposed restrictions?  (I've just re read this sentence about 3 times - i think it makes sense!)

Leslie McKerchie

Hi Kate,

No worries, you are welcome to jump in any discussions :)

Thanks for letting us know the navigation you would like to see within your project.

If you have the navigation set to Restricted, your learner should be able to revisit any slides they have already seen even when resuming.

You are correct. If you leave the menu free, this will still allow the learner to skip around your content using the menu.

Leslie McKerchie

Hi Kate,

Are you running into an issue during the resume of your course? 

I would expect that the learner could revisit any slide previously visited.

If you're seeing something different, then with your permission, I'd like to take a look at your project file to investigate what's happening. You can share it publicly here, or send it to me privately by uploading it here. I'll delete it when I'm done troubleshooting.

Carl Gignac

Hi all, I think my situation might fit within this discussion (otherwise I will create a new one).

We have a course hosted on an LMS. It is currently in restricted navigation.

We want users to gain free access to the training upon completion so that they can revisit it freely.

My issue is that we update the training twice a year and we would like trainees who completed an earlier version of the training to be able to access the new content freely. Even whole new modules.

Is there a way to do this? Currently we have 2 versions of the training online. Upon completion of the original you gain access to a new training called "open version"  which has free navigation.

This works but we would rather have only 1 copy of each training rather than 2. Is there anything I can do?

Thanks in advance.

Sean OBrien

This thread is 3 years old. I don't understand the responses given by the STAFF. Its like they are avoiding saying.. Yeah we can't do that.

It is clear what the thread wants. First pass through a restricted course is restricted. Complete the course second pass is UNRESTRICTED. 

Not sure why there is not a clear answer here. We need to know the variable that sets if the course is completed. Don't know if there is a way to suck that out the LMS or if we can use the RESUME variable to do this. The Resume variable is not documented as far as I can tell.

So 3 years later... anybody figure this out?