SL360 July 11 Update Breaks course behavior

I should mention here that any of our existing courses that need to have a minor change cannot be published using the latest SL360 update.  

This is kinda serious to us.

Is this not a problem for anyone else?

Sam

Hi Sam,

This was a much requested change and feature enhancement that was included in the update for Storyline 360. You can read about the way the change impacts the course navigation here. 

If you have any other questions, please feel free to connect with our Support Engineers. 

The feature requested was that the navigation buttons be grayed out.  There was no request to unconditionally change the state to normal if the author triggered it to be disabled.

I am sure this poorly implemented feature will break many courses in the field.  I am also sure the enhancement can be done without breaking courses.

Sam

Let me bounce this back to you another way Ashley.  How can I have restricted navigation yet prevent a learner from advancing until an action is completed on slide?

Sam

Sam, I have sent you an email. I will take a look at this as soon as I get a sample from you.

Is there no way I can back up to the previous release?  It would be a great help to me right now.

Our courses are not operating as they should under this July 11 update.

Sam

Hi Sam

I've done a couple of tests in SL360 - not sure if this helps you but test 3 showed I could use state change triggers as long as the new option was UNTICKED

Test 1:

1. Player setting - Menu restricted with the option to Restrict Prev/Next buttons unticked
2. No Change state triggers

Result: Next button enabled at timeline end - clickable and go to next slide

Test 2:

1. Player setting - Menu restricted with the option to Restrict Prev/Next buttons ticked.
2. No Change state triggers

Result: Next button enabled at timeline end - clickable and go to next slide

Test 3:

1. Player setting - Menu restricted with the option to Restrict Prev/Next buttons unticked.
2. Change state of Next button to disabled when timeline starts
3. Change state of Next button to normal when state of x is visited

Result: Next button NOT enabled at timeline end - honours the triggers.

Test 4:

1. Player setting - Menu restricted with the option to Restrict Prev/Next buttons ticked
2. Change state of Next button to disabled when timeline start
3. Change state of Next button to normal when state of x is visited

Result: Next button enabled at timeline end - DOES NOT honour the triggers - clickable and go to next slide

Hi Sam,

Magnus let me know that he has spoken with you, and he and the team are hard at work on this. We'll share an update here when we have more information!

The short: SL360 June update unconditionally controls state of NEXT in restricted mode.

The simplest solution I've found is to suppress the NEXT button on slides requiring learner interaction and add a graphic NEXT button on-screen that I can control the state.

It's a lot of work across so many courses.  Especially problematic when a client wants a minor change in an already-published course.  Lots of reworking to do to get the behavior right.

Sam

We are also concerned with this, as I often use mini-course maps inside the course that must all be visited before proceeding. Being able to roll back to a previous release would be extremely helpful. Is there an ETA on an update of this -- perhaps a more customizable control of next-button behavioural options?

Hi David,

Our team is still looking into this based on the information that Sam shared, so I don't have an update to share yet. We'll keep you posted here and now that you've replied you should receive email notifications for this discussion! 

My team and I also view this as a huge issue. This is not helpful to course designers. We now have re-work and delayed projects due to this system glitch. I have also spent a few hours today troubleshooting and searching for answers as to why Storyline had this issue. 

A new update would be much appreciated.

Sam -

Our team has found the following work around:

Pause the timeline until the state of A,B,C,D, are equal to "visited". When A,B,C,D are equal to visited that can trigger to resume the timeline, and then the next button will be enabled.

Still not ideal, but just wanted to share. Good luck!

A little birdie told me a week ago there may be a beta coming to fix this.

That is all.

I agree that this change seems to have missed the mark and should not be unconditional. As Sam mentioned, minor course updates will no longer be a quick process and will require significant time and effort.

One workaround we've found was to use a Restricted menu with Restricted Next/Previous buttons and then use the "Pause Timeline" trigger right before the timeline ends to force the user to take some sort of action. When the user satisfies the interactive requirement, we use the "Resume Timeline" trigger to enable the Next button.

Example: We have a slide with a 5-second timeline and a slider interaction that goes from values 0-4. We want the learner to advance when they've reached the final step in the slider (value of 4). For triggers, "Pause Timeline" when timeline reaches 4.75 seconds, then "Resume Timeline" when the slider is equal to 4. The timeline ends after .25 seconds and the learner can advance.

Thanks Billy for that workaround - we'll keep you posted here once we have any information!