Ideas / advice for creation and maintenance of multiple versions

May 11, 2023

Hi--this doesn't necessarily relate directly to Articulate products but I thought I'd throw it out to this amazing and smart community to see if anyone has conquered a similar challenge.

For every product-related course we create, we have to create up to seven (yes 7!) versions--each with different branding, some in different languages, and sometimes slightly different content too.

We primarily use Rise and take advantage of saved block templates. We track versions in Smartsheet and we deliver all through different instances in our LMS. Our IDs spend a lot of time producing these versions, which obviously takes time away from their creation of new courses. Reviewing versions can be tricky too as all are slightly different but we have a cheat sheet to help us remember and verify the differences.

I'd love to hear any and all ways the community has tackled this! Tools, workflows, Rise capabilities, etc. -- all ideas are welcomed!

Thanks in advance,

Shannon

4 Replies

Bianca Woods
Staff

12 months ago05/15/23 at 1:50 pm (UTC)

Hi Shannon! That's a tricky situation, but it sounds like you've got some solid practices in place to speed up creating and reviewing multiple versions of a course.

Here are two other small things I've found helpful when doing similar work:

When using Rise 360, I make sure I have a different cover photo for each version of the course so they're easier to tell apart in the Rise 360 dashboard. It's a little thing, but it's helpful for not accidentally making edits to the wrong version of the course.
When I need to change out branding elements in Storyline 360—particularly logo image files—I'll use the Replace button in the Media Library to quickly swap every instance of a media file out for a new one.

Hope these ideas help!

Shannon McGinnis
Author

12 months ago05/15/23 at 4:03 pm (UTC)

Thanks, Bianca! I appreciate these. One of the most challenging pieces is not having a solid find-and-replace option in Rise. I know this is a highly-desired option as the workarounds are not 100% (such as CTRL + F. We primarily use Rise for these courses.

12 months ago05/16/23 at 4:00 pm (UTC)

I can definitely see where a solid find-and-replace feature would be handy with these kinds of projects. I've submitted a feature request on your behalf to let our Engineering team know about your interest in a feature like this.

Shannon McGinnis
Author

12 months ago05/16/23 at 6:16 pm (UTC)

Thanks, Bianca! I think I also submitted this feature request a few years ago but the more the better! It would be an enormous time saver and is the largest issue my team has with Rise. We have 90+ courses that all have between 2-8 slightly different versions. The added time scouring every word for a particular product name, for example, climbs high rather quickly. It's a productivity killer.