Customizing cmi.suspend_data element in SCORM output file

The LMS never reads cmi.suspend_data; it just stores the blob and hands it back, so no reporting feature can pull responses out of it. But Storyline does write cmi.interactions already, so this may be closer to solved than it looks. 

Storyline reports an interaction based on the question type for true/false, multiple choice, multiple response, fill-in, numeric, matching, sequence, Likert, word bank, hotspot, and essay. Every one of those is a graded question. If your journal entries are collected as text-entry fields bound to variables on ordinary slides, which is how journal-style components are usually built, then they aren't questions (as Storyline defines them), so there's nothing for Storyline to report. That is why you see the values in suspend_data and not interactions.

Try authoring the journal prompts as Essay questions instead of text-entry variables. Essay questions are reported (Storyline sends them as fill-in interactions in SCORM), so the responses should end up in cmi.interactions with no custom code and nothing unsupported. If your PDF Journal component reads learner_response/student_response, that should populate it.

One thing to check in your published output. Open lms/scormdriver.js and look near the top for:

var DO_NOT_REPORT_INTERACTIONS = false;

If it is set to true, interaction reporting is switched off in the entire course while suspend_data keeps working normally which would look exactly like what you're seeing.

If your journal component needs the question text alongside the answer, SCORM 1.2 can't supply it. Description isn't a valid element in 1.2, and the SCORM driver in the Storyline course will discard it. There is a comment in the file that literally says there's nothing it can do with it. It's only sent when using SCORM 2004. If you need the question text then publish in SCORM 2004.