When Revisiting: Reset to Initial State

If the interaction works in Preview, Review, the SCORM CLOUD, and for most users of the LMS, but doesn't work the first time for some users, there may be something in their browser or security settings interfering with the course.  

From what I've seen, a common issue with learners getting stuck when revisiting interactive slides is that the slides have a "when the timeline starts on this slide" trigger. A “when timeline starts” triggers runs every time the user reaches the slide—even if the Slide Properties are set to “Resume saved state.” If you don’t want the trigger to run in some situations, you need to add conditions to the trigger.

A can't-proceed problem might also occur if an important trigger's "when" might happen the first time the user visits the slide and completes the interaction, but it doesn't happen when revisiting. One example: something happens when a T/F variable changes. Another trigger changes the variable to True. But once that variable is True, rerunning a trigger that changes it to True doesn't actually change the value. 

In short, an interaction's might work the first time but not on subsequent visits.

Here's what I recommend for the “When revisiting” setting in Slide Properties:

Keep "Automatically decide" for graded-question slides. Storyline will know whether to reset the slide (when the user needs to answer the question) or resume it (when reviewing).

For other slides, change the setting to ensure it does what you want. 

• Use "Reset to Initial State" if you want all the objects to revert to their Initial state and to replay the Timeline from the beginning.

• Use "Resume Saved State" if you want the objects to maintain their last state and to resume the Timeline where it left off. If the Timeline ended during the last visit, nothing replays.  As noted above, though, a "when timeline starts on this slide" trigger will still run. 

FYI: According to the User Guide, this is how Storyline "automatically decides" what to do when revisiting:

• If the slide has only simple objects—text, images, audio, video, etc—but no interactivity, Storyline 360 resets the slide to the beginning of its timeline.
• If the slide contains interactive elements, such as buttons or other objects that have a visited/selected state, Storyline 360 resumes the slide where it left off previously.