Forum Discussion
We're Ending Support for Storyline 3 on December 30, 2024
At Articulate, we prioritize the evolving online training needs of our customers. That's why we'll end support for Storyline 3 on December 30, 2024. We want to focus our resources on Articulate 360—the industry-leading creator platform for workplace learning—and continue adding value with new features, including powerful AI capabilities.
Although the end of support for Storyline 3 is nearly a year away, we wanted to inform you and share this transition article on everything you need to know.
Over the next year, you'll hear from us periodically with email reminders about what's happening. We're here to help you along the way, and we'll continue to fully support Storyline 3 until December 30, 2024.
This would be a good time to finally offer a reasonable monthly subscription to Articulate 360 that only includes Storyline, Rise, Content Library, and Review. The other items are fossilized and never used.
Even if the exported HTML5 file does not work well with browsers, such as an upgrade of the Chrome browser, we get no support at all and have to trash this software after investing a small fortune in it just a few years ago? This business move turned me off. Understandable, but unethical.
Hello Tony!
Our goal with this announcement is to ensure that everyone can ask questions in advance, so I appreciate you thinking in advance, too!
That is a great question. At this point, we don’t anticipate browser updates will make Storyline 3 published output obsolete. However, since Storyline 3 files can be opened in Storyline 360, the solution would be to open your Storyline 3 file in Storyline 360 and publish from there.
Thankfully we started to migrate all SCORM based courses developed with Storyline over to a in-house developed HTML delivery system around 2017/18. When SL 2 came out, we migrated all our courses over to the new version; it broke all our courses. It took 3-months to figure out that there was a very obscure (but not communicated) change done in the SL2 navigation programming that wasn't compatible with how we dealt with course navigation (we developed to work around the short cummings of SL1 lack of restricted navigation). This was the last straw that caused us make the final decision to migrate our material. We have only 1 course left in the cue to be converted and we've been having issues with this one course since upgrading to the latest version of our LMS. Now our copy of SL3 is just to edit this one course, so I guess with support ending, this sets our deadline for converting this last course.
When we first started using Articulate around 2013 or so, it was great, all-be-it a pile of work creating courses. The learning curve was acceptable and the courses looked slick and one could do much with the programming to make a professional looking course. The forum added much value as assistance was just a forum post away and the staff at Articulate were responsive (and still are). However, we were plagued by bug after bug and were constantly fixing the courses and devising work arounds (browser issues, flash, html5 migration...). The decision to migrate away from Storyline was a difficult and costly one. I had hoped that Articulate could fix/stabilize the software one day to the point where bugs were minimized and perhaps we could return to Articulate developed SCORM courses one day.
With the demise of Storyline eminent (as per the above post), what a masterful decision migrating away was. It has taken years to migrate our courses and we're still not done. Had that decision not been made when it was we'd be hostage to the ongoing costs for years while we migrated.
I do have to hand it to Articulate, the original Storyline based on Flash was a complex software and it must have been a nightmare to deal with the EOL of Flash; striking at the very foundation of the company and flagship software.
I understand that this pay forever model is seemingly the new way of software, but when the annual price is the same as the one time price I would have paid in the past, it's too much, and causes me to loose my benefit-of-the-doubt good will. As soon as your monthly payment stops, your access to 'your material' that you spent 1000's of hours developing is gone. Thus the material you are developing, is not truly yours in the pay forever model. In the future, you won't be able to open your own files.
I wish Articulate luck moving forward.
Vaughan,
I appreciate you taking the time to share this feedback. I am sorry it wasn't the right fit and resulted in such a hassle. It really is valuable to hear your journey as a user, and feedback that I will pass along.
First time I read this I thought you said support ended 2 weeks ago!
Whew!
I'm 1/2 way through building my first course in storyline.
After research I picked articulate as software for its reputation and quality support
Now I have no choice but to finish in storyline and now don't know what to plan for in the future
Will you be able to port your storyline course over to Rise?
I had this course 1/2 built in Rise before switching to storyline
In Rise you must scroll down to find the continue button which was a deal breaker for us. They want navigation like the player or just controls on the screen without having to scroll down not know where to go next
Otherwise I could have finished this course in Rise over a month ago
Do you still plan on building AI into storyline?
JA
Hello John!
This announcement is specifically for Storyline 3 and not Storyline 360. If you have an active Articulate 360 subscription, then you're using Storyline 360, a product we will continue supporting.
Our team is currently discussing what AI looks like in Storyline 360. I don't have any details to share yet.
Thanks for clarifying
Hi - could we have some clarification please.
Our SL3 licences run out in Feb this year. We also now have Articulate 360. Our plan, as you have suggested above is "to open your Storyline 3 file in Storyline 360 and publish from there".
The question is, will we have to do this before the licences run out - or can we plan to do this gradually over the next few months?
Thank you, Jackie
Hello Jackie,
Storyline 3 will continue to be usable after December 30, 2024, it just won't receive any more updates and support beyond that period.
Additionally, Storyline 3 projects don't need to be upgraded. They're compatible with Storyline 360. You can open them directly in Storyline 360 and then edit and publish them as needed. This means that when support for Storyline 3 ends, you and your projects won't be directly affected since you already have access to Storyline 360.
Hope this helps!
Thank you for the clarification. 🙂
