Viewing Articulate 360 Content in SharePoint Online

So my little input, as I also have 'download' problem.

First of all, you can discard entirely analytics-frame.html. If you rename it to .aspx nothing will happen, as sources INSIDE story.html refers to analytics-frame.html. If you change extension of the physical file, it won't magically replace the inside story.html reference to the new one. It will produce the same error in the console - file not found. And analytics-frame is not a necessary file to run the course.

And to the topic - I created library and uploaded files right into it. You can see it has library icon, and I have two documents libraries, which I one just created. 

And yet when I click story.aspx it tries to download. And it probably will, always, unless you have some option(*) somewhere checked that @Jennifer Brown didn't include in the instruction - not her fault, as we are just learning guys, not neccessarly sharepoints superadmins ;)

I did however nailed things down a little.
1. You need admin privileges or be able to contact your sharepoint admin (and convince them to enabling option opening vulnerabilites in the sharepoint ;)). 

2. You need to enable Custom Script, either on the admin level (permanent solution for all sites) or site level (temporary, 24h solution for just one site/site collection). You can read here.

3. Then you should view your site (communication or teams channel, doesn't matter at all) contents and navigate to the Styles Library. Inside, you can create new folder, for example TestCourse, and upload all Storyline published files (with of course ALREADT CHANGED story.html to story.aspx, because amount of people not getting that you need to do that beforehand is astonishing) into it. If you don't enable custom script, you won't be able to upload files here at all, that's why.

4. Now when you click the story.aspx you should indeed open a fully functional storyline course. You can embed it into any other site (at least within your space).

I've managed to do that on my 'test' sharepoint and now I will try to test it organization-wide ;) If someone might have an idea about (*), I mean why it is working from document library perspective for some, and for others not, I'd happy to hear. As enabling custom script and trying to run the course from another location than Styles Library produced "download" window instead of showing course, and trying to access direct link or embedding it, produced "File not found" notification. 

My org's Sharepoint admin and I are having the same issue described above - the story.aspx file downloads instead of opening, and nothing populates when you try to open after downloading. Any help would be so appreciated!

Here's most of what you need to know to publish Storyline to SharePoint.

Publishing Storyline for SharePoint

• Authoring Tools: Storyline 3, Storyline 360, likely Rise
• SharePoint:  SharePoint.com “Modern and On-Premise “Classic” with ability to 1) create a library, and 2) upload files
• Operating System: Windows 10/11, with ability to edit file extensions

High Level Steps

1. Publish to Web
2. Change .HTML file extensions to .ASPX
3. Upload to a SharePoint Document Library
4. Use the Story.ASPX file as the target file

Before You Begin

• Verify the files will be at the top of a SharePoint library and not a folder in a library
• Ensure Storyline is up to date and save before publishing
• Ensure “clean” publishing and do not overwrite existing folders
• Must change the file extensions before uploading to SharePoint

Actions for Storyline Author

1. Publish to Web (save project first, publish clean)
2. Change any .HTML file extensions to .ASPX from File Explorer window:
   1. If file extensions are visible, slow double click and change the HTML to ASPX.
   2. Alternatively, right click and select Properties and change in Properties window
   3. Say yes to message, “If you change a file name extension, the file might become unusable. Are you sure you want to change it?”
      1. Storyline web publish only has two HTML files: Story.HTML, analytics-frame.HTML
      2. If attempting to use Rise or publishing for xAPI, search for all .HTML files
   4. Deliver output folder to whomever can upload to SharePoint if you are unable to upload yourself.

Actions for SharePoint Communications Owner/Designer/Member

This will not work for a Teams site, only a communications site.

1. Create a document library just for the output
   1. Must have it’s own library
   2. Best practice: no spaces in library name (Pascal_Snake_Case for example)
2. Place the contents of the output folder into the new SharePoint Library
   1. Upload as a group to avoid breaking connections
   2. Do not load the folder itself into the library
3. Use Story.ASPX as the target file
   1. Target file may vary for other products like Rise
   2. xAPI target file may be Story.HTML or Index_lms.HTML

Important Considerations

How organizations manage computers images, permissions, cloud backup/storage, and SharePoint can vary far beyond what can be covered here. Contact your support teams for assistance if you have any issues at any point.

This works for a SharePoint Communications site, what most people think of as SharePoint, and not a Teams site. When testing on a Teams site, even opening up "in SharePoint" and getting to the Site Content level, creating a new library to put it in, it still won't work. It will only download the Story file, and not launch. My SharePoint Admin team, that manages our tenants and works with Microsoft directly, reached out to me to research this. We're not sure precisely why, even when we create a library, not a folder. For this to work, the Storyline output must be on a communications site, and output files must be uploaded into a Library, not in a folder. 

We just got a new version and update for Teams in our organization (March 2024) and I attempted again to get web published Storyline output to work, and it still fails.

SharePoint.com generally sets up three SharePoint groups with new sites:  Owners, Members, Visitors.  Owners can create libraries (lists, etc.). Members can usually add, edit, delete items in the libraries, etc.  Visitors can read. Everything SharePoint is highly configurable from the tenant level down to the hubs and sites, so exactly how this works in your organization may vary.  But generally an Owner will create the library, and they or Members will add the files.

If a file downloads instead of running the WBT, then you are likely launching from a folder or a team site.

If you are still using Classic SharePoint, there may be other factors that are causing issues. Because SharePoint is so highly configurable, there are may places where things can create headaches.

Publish to web only; the output has less files and doesn't include the required files to send data elsewhere. This can impact whether or not it will work on your particular SharePoint tenant. Publishing for an LMS includes more files and ones that send data. If you opt to use an LMS publishing option, note there will be more HTML files that will need to have their extensions changed.

Files cannot to be ZIP'd up on SharePoint for this to work.

Storyline 360 has an option to publish to video which means a single file and may be a suitable option.

Windows File Explorer settings and what's available to you varies, depending on Windows version, edition, and your organization's settings/policies, etc. The variations are beyond scope of these steps, so you may need to consult with your IT support. 

Changing file extensions should only be done when you know exactly what you're doing and why. So don't do this for fun for other circumstances. These are specific steps for specific circumstances and are known to work for using Storyline on SharePoint when published to web. Changing file extensions changes the default program to open it.

The file extensions must be changed prior to uploading to SharePoint. 

Cloud backups and other settings may cause issues when trying to change; again, contact your support team for assistance.

General Best Practices and Steps to Save You Headaches

Always ensure latest version. Storyline 3.20 still works as of the date of this comment. If using S360 or any authoring tool, always use the latest version to ensure it works with current browser technology. What files get published, how they are structured, and where they go can change over time.

Always Publish Clean. I can't stress this enough; overwriting an output folder only updates the files that it's set to publish. Any other files remain, and they may include obsolete tech or cause issues with your output in general. 

Restart your system if not daily, every other day. In the age of cloud storage, federation, and other single sign-on options, this can impact what you do as a Storyline user and as a SharePoint Admin.

Reset your browser. Both Edge and Chrome are Chromium based so they are similar. This is the new "clear cache" and "allow popups" for those of us who've been around longer than Storyline. It can resolve a wide range of seemingly random issues. 

Ensure Browser(s) are current version. Just like Storyline, outdated browsers can impact the things associated with it.

All of these can not only help avoid issues, it helps with troubleshooting and isolating root causes of issues. For example, I spent a year trying to identify causes of issues with migrating an LMS from IE11 to Edge and the root cause was Storyline build versions were not verified, and the output folders had a lot of obsolete files that were blocked. It took going into hundreds of Storyline modules on our LMS to look at all the output to discover this after working with multiple teams including Articulate (thanks, Taylor, I still remember all your help). 

About Me

Currently an LMS Admin and SharePoint Site Collection Owner. I've worked with Articulate Products since Articulate was a premium add-in for PowerPoint. My background includes system administration, technical support, technical documentation, Instructional design and Instructional development. I'm often a person pulled in when folks are experiencing the sticky issues. The SharePoint Administrators in my organization use me as a Subject Matter Expert for publishing this kind of content to SharePoint. 

Unfortunately it doesn't look like this solution will work for some people based on the SharePoint configurations.  It is not possible to open a converted HTML / ASPX file on SharePoint.   

Hoping someone can help. My company does not have an LMS and SharePoint is my only option. I have published my course as Web for Articulate Storyline. 

I think I have followed all the steps but when I link to the story.aspx file it only shows a blank page and wants to download. I have my library and all the files and am using sharepoint.com. 

Any ideas? This will be my first course and I really need to be able to get this one out there!

Question for those of you who are having issues putting Storyline published to Web on SharePoint; what type of site are you using?

SharePoint comes in different flavors, and current, modern SharePoint is either a Communications site, or a Teams site.

I use a communications site and have no issues. But someone in our organization reached out about issues, and we realized that were trying to publish to a teams site.  

On a communications site, I create a regular library and drop the output folder contents in after changing the two .HTML file extensions to .ASPX. It works correctly. If I put the same content in a folder in a library, it behaves differently, and downloads the story.aspx file, which is the behavior I currently see on a teams site.  I'll keep researching, but that may be why some are experiencing issues. 

Sadly, the fix doesn't work for me either, but thank you for sharing what worked for you Jennifer! The .aspx file only downloads and doesn't launch anything...same behavior as the .html. I just really wish Articulate hadn't disabled the ability to embed a course in an iframe using the Share link! I have a Rise "course" that isn't actually a course, it's guidelines for creating training, and I thought I'd create interactive guidelines with videos and dynamic content embedded to underscore the importance of interactivity and demonstrate microlearning, etc., but I have to either host it on our LMS, which I will not do...the guidelines shouldn't feel like I'm tracking the user's progress...or just post a pdf version of the Rise course, which defeats the whole purpose. BOO!! Sharepoint is such a common intranet platform; I really wish Articulate would work with us on a solution that would work in Sharepoint. The iframe "share" embed was such a great solution. I'm very sad Articulate took that ability away. :(