Setting up conditioned trigger on successful results submittance

Mar 25, 2014

Jamie Shaw
By Jamie Shaw

Hi everyone!

I run an elearning site with a mixture of custom hand coded modules and Storyline modules.  Long term, I want to rely solely on Storyline mainly due to cost.

There is one minor issue that rears its head enough to be problematic, and I am not sure I can solve it. 

Sometimes, particularly when web connections are very slow, the Submit Results trigger does not seem to communicate successfully with the LMS.  It's as though the user gets to the Results slide, sees they have passed, then closes the browser window straight away - I think before the 'Submit Results when the timeline starts'  trigger has loaded and communicated with the LMS properly.

So, the short question is this.  Is there a way to build a condition in to the results slide that changes the state of something (for example, a button from hidden to visible with a Close Window trigger) upon a successful Submit Results communication.

In other words, I want a 'Save and Close' button to appear, only once the LMS has been updated with that users score.

Hoping some of the SL guru's can help!

Jamie

4 Replies
Jamie Shaw
10 years ago03/25/14 at 5:13 pm (UTC)

Hey Steve 

Thanks for your suggestion, and reading the thread was quite interesting - often it's modifying people's behaviour that is the real issue at hand!  On that note, I could build some kind of animation in to the Success layer that gave the impression that the elearning module was talking to the LMS, and to not close the window.  When I say 'give the impression', I mean extend the timeline of the Success layer to about 15 seconds, and have the Close button appear right at the end.  This will buy some time, to hopefully allow the results to go through.

I guess that approach would always be a workaround though - ideally, that 'submit results successful' condition would be the best case scenario.

It's quite frustrating really, most of the time I think Articulate Storyline is the best thing since sliced bread, but then this kind of behaviour temporarily chances my view!

Jamie

Steve McAneney
10 years ago03/25/14 at 5:22 pm (UTC)

Jamie, 

Glad I gave you some food for thought. You could add a layer to the results slide with a 15s timeline, sure. 

There are other factors at work here though, so I wouldn't be too quick assuming this is a Storyline issue. 

For me, the LMS I used responded too slowly, and had some serious SCORM2004 compatibility issues (corporate requirement was to use SCORM2004, which has some ambiguous interpretations). Users also encountered mind-bogglingly slow connections sometimes.

So building a 'buffer' into your e-learning may in fact overcome many other issues, the least of which would be any limitations in Storyline. 

Jamie Shaw
10 years ago03/25/14 at 5:57 pm (UTC)

Steve

You're absolutely right in suggesting it could be an LMS issue.  We use a custom built system (which is also a CMS) that has been built by a creative agency at great expense, and I am reluctant to spend yet more money on bug fixing.  The system was built around the use of hand coded HTML5 modules, and so had to be modified to accept Storyline courses.  

We also have to edit the Configuration and IMS files in the published folders to make sure the modules track correctly and also run on iPads.  It's been a long and painful exercise getting to where we are now!

I consider myself to be quite competent in constructing the courses, but I have very little knowledge of what actually goes on behind the scenes.

Jamie

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