Using UPK and Storyline? Here's a cool way to combine them.

Apr 15, 2013

Using Storyline's Web Object to Insert a UPK Published Topic into a Storyline Slide

Storyline's web object option is really powerful. It's a simple, easy way to add different types of content to your slides: live websites, publicly hosted files, etc.

Storyline also does some pretty awesome screen recordings on it's own. But sometimes here at DHS, we use a tool called UPK instead. UPK does a nice job, but it's even cooler when we can combine those UPK topics with some content in Storyline. Because of Storyline's awesome ability to insert a web object, this is perfectly possible!

To demonstrate how easy this idea is, I've created a Screenr recording that shows each step of the process. It's really not difficult, but does involve quite a few steps!

https://player.vimeo.com/video/204929776

9 Replies

Emma Wolfe

over 7 years ago01/09/17 at 6:55 pm (UTC)

Hi Brenda! I was wondering what method you used to host UPK as a web object? We don't seem to be able to publish UPK to the internet; it can only be accessed via the VPN Connected UPK Knowledge Center. I'd love to be able to embed UPK modules in our Articulate modules and have the best of both worlds, but it seems that even if we are able to connect the Knowledge Center to the internet it would require us to sign on to the Knowledge Center every time to access it! If you have any insight to this I'd really appreciate it!

Thank you!

over 7 years ago01/09/17 at 7:08 pm (UTC)

Hi Emma! We publish UPK locally, then post the published files to a local server so that we can access the files via a web link. That web link is used in the web object. Does that help at all?

Emma Wolfe

over 7 years ago01/10/17 at 1:30 pm (UTC)

Thank you so much for getting back to us so quickly! Yes, I believe that makes sense! I think our main issue is that our UPK Knowledge Center where we post the modules can't access the internet and is VPN only... we'll have to see if we can change that.

We also wanted to check and see how you posted your UPK files and were able to have them accessible without having the user sign on to the Knowledge Center. Do you have single sign on?

Thank you so much for your time!

Brenda Heilman
Author

over 7 years ago01/10/17 at 2:57 pm (UTC)

Hi Emma,

We actually don't use Knowledge Center. Our UPK courses are posted in our LMS (PeopleSoft), which is why we have that local server space. I don't know much about Knowledge Center, so am unable to help you out there--sorry! :)

Francesca Montanini

over 5 years ago01/08/19 at 11:12 pm (UTC)

Hi Brenda,

Thank you for this information! I was able to add the upk topic as a web object in Storyline but I can't get the upk topic to play in the slide. It forces me to open it in a new browser window. Any suggestions on how to fix this?

Thanks!

Katie Riggio
Staff

over 5 years ago01/09/19 at 3:18 pm (UTC)

Welcome, Francesca!

This conversation is a bit older so Brenda may no longer receive its notifications. If you'd like, you can use the Contact Me button on Brenda's ELH profile to send a private message.

Good luck with your project, and we're also here if you have any questions!

Francesca Montanini

over 5 years ago01/10/19 at 4:27 pm (UTC)

Thanks!

Brian Cook

5 years ago02/20/19 at 10:36 pm (UTC)

This is VERY intriguing! My company does change management for clients moving over to digital and UPK is one of our tools. We are looking for ways, however, to enhance our basic eLearning courses and instructional videos and it seems this would be a great way to get someone familiar with UPK without having to build each transaction out!

Frank Smalec

3 years ago01/29/21 at 7:53 am (UTC)

Need to get off of UPK now that it is disappearing from Oracle's product line? Don't despair. Convert your UPK tutorial to Power Point presentations, that you can then import into Articulate or Adobe Captivate. More below.

You can export your training simulations, that is existing Tutorials, from UPK and into PowerPoint presentations. Within UPK Developer 12.1.0, change Preview (at the top left of the screen) to Presentation, highlight one of your tutorial files, and press the Green Arrow icon. UPK will create a .pptx powerpoint of your tutorial, usually in:

C:\users\your_user_name\AppData\Local\UPDev9\Preview\Publishing Content\Presentation.

Note: In the above example, "your_user_name" is your windows username literally.

If you don't see the above folders/subfolders, you likely have Show Hidden Folders / Files turned off in Windows. Turn this setting on under Control Panel, File Explorer Options, View, Show Hidden Files Folders and Drives.

Go into the above folder and find your PowerPoint. Copy it to somewhere else that you will know to look in the future (i.e., a folder under Documents or on your Desktop).

Once the tutorial is exported to a PowerPoint, you can easily import it into Adobe Captivate, Articulate, or whatever other eLearning authoring solution you are using. Cheers. This may be years late, but better late than never.