Transitioning from Trainersoft/Outstart to Storyline

Jom,

First of all - welcome to the Community. Great question.

1> To get started - I would advise http://community.articulate.com/tutorials/products/articulate-storyline.aspx . The tutorials are the way that many of us get started.

2> You call them "fancy slides". Storyline is a blank canvas - you can make it look pretty much any way you want to. Try not to think of "slides". Think of it as a presentational stage. At the moment, you either use the default Glossary, or you can build your own, (there are threads on this).

3> What, exactly, is it you feel you cannot do? Granted - you will need to put the effort in to do it, because it may not be as "templated" as you want, however, I do not think you are going to get better by going to current Articulate alternative (Studio '09). Studio '13 may change things for you when it is launched, but obviously it is not around yet.

Start with a SPECIFIC target, and build it, (perhaps a replacement of something you have), see where the bottlenecks are, and ask for help when they arise. That would be my suggestion.

Once again a warm welcome - hope to see you stick around.

Bruce

Thanks Bruce!  Yeah my situation is that I don't know what I don't now, so I will take your advice and start with a single slide.  I just have so much content that I need to recreate and without simple templates to guide me, I feel unsure of where to start -- but yeah, I'll start with one item and see where I can get with it.

I would like to find a person or an organization who can help me, but absent that, I think I'll try and find a template I can use as a model, at least to put a framework around what I'm trying to do.

Thanks for your prompt reply.

Jim

Hi Jim! A big welcome to you! 

As Bruce said, many of us got started with the free tutorials that are available. Once you get into them you will see that they include sample files for download so you can practice along the way. Those are a great place to start and will help build a solid foundation for you. If you want something a little more customized, Articulate does have certified training partners that provide both onsite and web based training. Those are not free but may be more of what you're looking for?

As for templates that have controls/buttons/etc built in, I know there are a number of companies that sell those. I've never bought one myself but eLearning Art is one example. eLearning Brothers probably does too. 

One of the first things I did once I got Storyline and went through the tutorials, was get into the built in interactions that are included in Storyline. There are more than just static templates. There are several different types of interactions already created that you can begin with and then customize, deconstruct and even copy/paste elements onto a blank slide. If you don't know they're there, it's easy to miss them so I included pics below. 

I hope some of this will help to get you started. If we misinterpreted what you're asking for, just let us know and we'll try again to point you in the right direction!   ~Natalia

Jim:

My short answer is try Lectora Inspire.  It's the closest thing I have found to Trainersoft.  Here the long answer as to how I arrived at that conclusion:

I recently had to make a similar decision about finding a replacement for Trainersoft, a product that I have used for about 15 years.  Although I currently run the online systems for a community college, my previous life was in Site Safety and Training for a large pharmaceutical company.  

I was recently asked to update a Good Manufacturing Practices course I did for them back in 2003.  After a little work, I was able to get Trainersoft installed again under Win7, and was able to open my original Trainersoft file (good thing I never throw anything away)!  Although I could have made the updates and kept it in Trainersoft format, the pharma company wanted to take over maintenance of the course after this update, and wanted me to train them.  SInce you can no longer buy Trainersoft, I had to look for a modern replacement.

SInce I am involved with creating online courses for the educational world, I have tested and used quite a few course creation tools.  Since nothing new opens a .DTC file, I needed to rebuild the course from scratch.  I have experience with Adobe Captivate, Articulate Studio, Softchalk, Lectora Inspire, Lectora Snap, PowerPoint, and a few other packages (I have not looked at Storyline, although that is on my radar).  I had thought about using PowerPoint just because it would be easy, but I did not think it would look professional, and you have to build all the navigation from scratch.  

I wanted something that was as close to Trainersoft as possible since I am already familiar with that type of course creation tool, and like you, I wanted a template that built the navigation for me  I really tried to use Softchalk, but I just did not have the control of the layout I wanted to have.  Captivate and Articulate Studio have a fairly steep learning curves, and you have to build a lot of the navigation yourself.  

I decided to take another look at Lectora products.  Lectora Snap is a quiz creation tool that works inside of PowerPoint, so that wasn't going to work.  So that left me with Lectora Inspire.  Now that I have re-acquainted myself with Trainersoft, and have been running them side by side, Inspire is the closest thing to Trainersoft out there.  As a matter of fact, I wonder if Inspire isn't built from some of the same code!  It is very similar, but with much updated templates and functionality.

I have almost finished the rebuild of this course, and have put almost 50 hours into Inspire.  I see this post is from April, so I imagine you have started building in something by now, but if you have any questions about Inspire, I will be glad to assist.

Mike Clendenen

Thank you for your response to my question I'm wondering if maybe I'm better off purchasing articulate studio that bundles the engage product , quiz maker and others maybe that would be closer to what I'm used to with trainer soft I don't really want to go to the Lectora platform I like what I see here in articulate I just worry that I'm not going to have as much of a structure around me if I use storyline.

does anyone here in the group think that articulate studio would be a good choice for me as opposed to just starting with a blank slate in storyline? 

Last question can anybody recommend a consultant who I might be able to contract to ihelp advise me on some of these questions that I have I really need to get going on this there's a bunch of critical issues that are happening by the end of the year. 

Thank you everyone I will shoot the feedback

Does anyone know of any training sessions or seminars in using either the storyline or studio product's?

Hey Jim, (and apologies for calling you "Jom" at the start of this thread!

Have you looked at the Articulate Tutorials pages yet?

LOADS of training there, or were you looking for a classroom experience?

Bruce

Hi Jim, if you are willing to share some of your content with us, we probably could give you better guidance as to whether Storyline or Studio would be best for you. It might just be a matter of hiring someone to setup a really good template for you to follow.

You can send me a private message if you want to discuss some options.