Forum Discussion
Exporting Variables into a Google Spreadsheet
Having read this post on how to export variables to be read in a google spreadsheet, I set about trying to get this working in my project, I soon ran into problems, I just could not get it to work as google have changed some of the ways they work their drive documents.
So, after a LOT of google searching and testing various methods, plus reading this article, I came up with the following method which is a combination of the two articles – and it works, hurrah!
1. Create a new google spreadsheet and change the sheet name (lower left hand corner) to DATA. Make sure your column names are the same as the variables you want to export (exactly matching case)
2. Find out your spreadsheet ‘key’ by looking in the address bar, the key is the long series of letters and numbers after /d/ and before /edit:
Eg: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gF0QCNA1TZCNY3qr2zNpWKQ8r43D39o-nqz56c7cQUs/edit#gid=1283040575
Key = 1gF0QCNA1TZCNY3qr2zNpWKQ8r43D39o-nqz56c7cQUs
3. Open the script editor (Tools ==> Script Editor) in your spreadsheet and paste the script from the attached file (I have copied and pasted this script and just kept in all the instructions)
4. There are two places in the script where it says “KEY” – copy and paste your key into these two places, between the “”.
5. Run the setUp script twice (Run menu). The first time it will ask for permission to run (grant it), then the second time you select to run it you won't get any popup indication it has run.
6. Go to Publish > Deploy as web app, enter Project Version name and click 'Save New Version', set security level and enable service (most likely execute as 'me' and access 'anyone, even anonymously).
7. Copy the 'Current web app URL' and paste in a notepad file to keep safe.
8. In Articulate, add a trigger to run javascript and use the following code, replacing “Current web app URL” with your URL you copied in the previous step (in””):
var player = GetPlayer();
$.ajax({
url:
"Current web app URL",
type: "POST",
data: {"Name": player.GetVar("Name")
, "Rating1": player.GetVar("Rating1")
, "Rating2": player.GetVar("Rating2")
, "Rating3": player.GetVar("Rating3")
, "Rating4": player.GetVar("Rating4")
, "postRating1": player.GetVar("postRating1")
, "postRating2": player.GetVar("postRating2")
, "postRating3": player.GetVar("postRating3")
, "Postrating4": player.GetVar("Postrating4")},
success: function(data)
{
console.log(data);
},
error: function(err) {
console.log('Error:', err);
}
});
return false;
9. Publish your articulate project – you need to host it somewhere like SCORM cloud or a LMS. When it has finished publishing click to open the files and edit the story.html and story_html5.html files – add the following line in under the line <!-- version: X.X.XXX.XXX --> or somewhere after <head>:
<script src="//code.jquery.com/jquery-1.11.0.min.js"></script>
10. Go back to articulate and click ‘zip’ – then publish your zip file and hopefully it will work!
This isn’t for the faint hearted but it is so worth it if you can get it working! Good luck!
160 Replies
Hi Norman -
Since the script can bomb on any number of things, I'll usually run the JS console in the browser to watch for errors. This will quickly tell you if the problem is in your send function or if there's something else going on.
Another method you can use in a pinch is editing the user.js file on the server. Many FTP clients allow for direct edit and save of the file (auto-upload of changes). This would make it easy to insert an alert, something like alert("here"); to see how far through the script it goes. Wherever the alert stops working, the problem is somewhere above that.
If you don't get errors and the alert works, it may be that something is going on with your field ID's or the structure of your endpoint string.
Do you have a link you can share here?
Hi Norman, I haven't tried it in SL1 but I do use it on a normal slide, i.e. not a results slide and it works well. Just a thought, have you made your google doc public? If it's not shared it won't work.
Louise, thanks for the updated code to avoid the [object] alert, I have pinched that!
Steve - you really are a hero! I have just tried your JS to autoadd the JQuery library to my header so I didn't need to do any post-publish surgery - it WORKED! Hurrah! Thank you!
Hi. Thanks for the suggestions. I'm going to redo it from scratch and post the links here.
One thing I notice when I do this is that when I select Tools > Script Editor I get a popup headed Create Script For ... but doesn't list the title of my spreadsheet. (Attached screen shot)
I've just been clicking Close on this and the script editor opens. Do you think I'm going wrong at this step?
Another naive question while I'm at it. When I paste the text from your file, should I put it inside the function myfunction() { } that appears in the Script Editor, or overwrite it?
Success!
This time I overwrote the function which probably explains why it works now. I must have had function calls within a function call previously.
I'm finding it works - and I'm delighted and grateful - but when I hit the send button I get a popup saying [object][object] Does anyone know how to get rid of that? Is it maybe caused by this line in the Storyline script?
success: function(data)
{
alert(data);
}Sorry for learning out loud here, but I hope it's useful to others who come along later. The popup is caused by that part of the code. I commented out the alert and it no longer appeared. The data still transferred to the spreadsheet.
success: function(data)
{
//alert(data);
}Hi Norman
I am glad you have managed to get it working. Louise changed the code slightly to get rid of the popup so that section should read:
success: function(data){
console.log(data);
},
error: function(err) {
console.log('Error:', err);
}Although, your code seems to work as well!
Thanks for a very valuable set of instructions. That's been really helpful.
