Forum Discussion
New in Labs: Connected Packages
Connected packages is still in development and will receive updates as part of Labs. Functionality will change over time. Some options could be modified, while others may be removed based on feedback and feature stability. There is no guarantee that Labs experiments will become production features.
The Connected packages feature solves the ages-old headache of keeping your training up to date in your LMS. Now, instead of having to download a fresh package from Rise 360, then uploading it to your LMS every time you make a change, you can deliver updates to your content across LMS environments with just a few clicks.
Connected packages fulfills the dream of publishing once, then dynamically updating your content without re-uploading to your LMS!
Note: Currently, connected packages can only be exported from Rise 360 as SCORM 1.2 and 2004 files.
How to Use Connected Packages
Unlike with standard packages, connected packages let you quickly update your training and notify your learners of changes.
Publishing a Connected Package
Creating a connected package for training content is as simple as creating a standard LMS package.
- Open the content you want to publish from your Rise 360 dashboard. Then click Publish in the upper-right corner of the screen and select LMS.
- Choose an LMS standard. For connected packages, you must select SCORM 2004 or SCORM 1.2 (any edition).
- Select Connected package.
- Toggle the Notify learners option to display a banner to learners when you update the training.
- After selecting any tracking, reporting, and advanced options, click Download.
- Upload the package to your LMS as usual.
Updating a Connected Package
After you’ve published your connected package to your LMS, all future updates happen right in Rise 360.
- When you make changes to your content, an indicator displays on the Publish menu.
- Click either the View Updates button or you can select Connected package from the Publish menu to jump to step 4.
- Select Connected package. If you’ve published your content to Reach 360 or shared with Quick Share, you’ll be able to select those as well.
- Click Update now. Rise handles the rest!
If you toggle or have previously activated the Notify learners option, your learners will see an update banner the next time they refresh or log in to the training.
Note: You can also download a copy of the last-deployed LMS package by clicking Download again.
Notifying Learners of Changes and Resetting Learner Progress
If you update your content and want to notify learners but didn't select the option when you initially published your package, you can enable it when you publish changes.
- In your updated content, click Publish in the upper-right corner of the screen and select LMS.
- Toggle the Notify learners option.
- Click Update now.
With this option enabled, a banner displays for active learners whenever you update the training. Learners who've already completed the training don't receive any notification.
Sometimes, after making updates, you also need to reset learner progress so that active learners don't end up in a blank state when they resume the training. This functionality can now easily be enabled at any time when using connected packages.
- In your updated content, click Publish in the upper-right corner of the screen and select LMS.
- Toggle the Reset progress after updates option.
- Click Update now.
This operates the same as the Reset Learner Progress option in standard packages and does not reset the progress or cancel quiz scores for learners who've already completed the training.
Connected Packages FAQs
When I deploy training to my LMS via Connected Packages, is Articulate the host for my content?
Training deployed to LMS via Connected Packages is hosted on Articulate's systems and is subject to the same security and data policies as other data hosted on the platform, as outlined in our Terms of Service. For additional resources on Articulate's security and data protection, visit our Trust Center.
What content is best suited to connected packages? Is there content I shouldn’t use with connected packages?
Connected packages is best used to deploy content that’s updated frequently or that you plan to iterate on once it’s live.
Since the feature doesn't provide automatic version tracking, we don’t recommend using connected packages with content that requires strict audit trails or enhanced compliance procedures.
Are connected package updates in Rise considered new versions by my LMS?
No, only the files you manually upload to your LMS are considered new versions of the content. Updates you make in Rise are sent to whatever version of the file is currently uploaded to your LMS.
In which regional data center does my content reside?
While regional hosting isn't a consideration at this stage of development, Connected Packages should be available in your regional hosting location when launched for general availability.
What happens when I delete training in Rise that's been deployed using connected packages? Will training work in my LMS if I turn off the Labs feature?
Content deleted from your Rise dashboard will still function in your LMS until you permanently delete the source training. You’ll be able to restore it from the trash and continue to update via Connected Packages without manually uploading a new package to your LMS. When permanently deleted, the connected package is also deleted.
If you disable the Labs feature, all connected packages are deactivated and deleted, but the source content remains untouched.
Permanently deleting associated Rise content or disabling Labs, will cause the training in your LMS to stop functioning. To restore, manually upload a standard package as a new version of the same training.
Can I use the same troubleshooting steps with Connected Packages as I do with Standard Packages?
Yes, while your content is hosted by Articulate, the same troubleshooting steps, such as resetting learner progress and hiding the LMS interface, can still be applied as detailed in the Rise 360 user guide.
Do Connected Packages send information to Articulate from my LMS?
While the Connected Packages feature is in Labs, we use a third-party data subprocessor, Datadog, to track certain information in order to identify and debug issues as they arise. In particular: Course ID, Learner ID (based on the Subscription ID plus an LMS Learner ID, if one is returned by the LMS), and your subscription ID. This information is not captured for every Connected Package.
Additionally, Allow usage data collection is enabled by default for all content exported to an LMS. This option provides Articulate with the course ID launched and non-identifiable learner usage data, as shown in our data collection details. It can be disabled on a per-package basis.
If I collaborate with other creators, can they update training deployed to my LMS?
Only content owners and collaborator managers with the feature enabled can send training updates via Connected Packages.
Can I download packages after initially publishing via connected packages?
Yes. There’s a Download button at the top of the LMS publish screen. Keep in mind that you have access only to the last-deployed version of the package.
Will connected packages be available for other LMS export standards? Is it coming to Storyline 360?
We would love to hear your feedback on what export format you’d like to see next for Connected Packages! And while Storyline support isn’t planned at this time, if it’s something you’d like to see, please let us know.
Share Your Feedback
For this initial Labs release, we want to hear how connected packages perform across real LMS environments and whether the experience feels as intuitive. Your feedback will directly influence development, so consider sharing your thoughts on the following topics:
- Uses: Does the "publish once, update anytime" workflow sync with how you manage training content?
- Bugs. Is anything not working as expected? Do the updates behave as you’d expect with your specific LMS setup?
- Improvements. How could this feature be better? What changes, if any, would you like to see?
- Insights. How does this new publish-to-update workflow fit into your day-to-day?
You can enable and disable this feature from the Labs page in account settings. Share your thoughts in this Labs forum or use the feedback form directly within the feature.
237 Replies
Sorry if this has already been asked, but are there plans to expand to xAPI, and if so, do you have a timeline? This would be awesome for my organization, but we use xAPI course packages.
Hello Leetea,
You’re right that Connected Packages currently support SCORM 1.2 and SCORM 2004 only.
We don’t have a timeline to share for xAPI support, but this is exactly the kind of feedback our team is looking for while Connected Packages are in Labs. I’ll make sure your need for xAPI is captured.
If you’re open to sharing, I’d also be interested to know which LMS or LRS you’re using and how xAPI fits into your organization’s current publishing workflow.
Can someone please summarize the risks with this? It seems like the Articulate server's are a big dependency of the course(s) working, and this may only be a good option for translated material if you do the multi-language publishing of the course using Articulate's own AI translation capabilities?
Hi ChelseaBoccardo,
That’s a good consideration. With Connected Packages, the training itself is hosted on Articulate’s systems, so learners do need access to Articulate-hosted content when launching the course from your LMS.
Because updates happen directly from Rise rather than by uploading a new package to the LMS each time, we don’t recommend Connected Packages for courses that require strict audit trails, enhanced compliance procedures, or LMS version-history tracking.
This isn’t limited to translated content or courses using Articulate’s translation features, though. Connected Packages can be useful for any Rise course that you update regularly and where being able to push those updates without repeatedly replacing the LMS package fits your workflow.
If you have specific requirements around availability, auditing, or version control, I’d be happy to dig into those with you.Thanks, LucianaPiazza. I should clarify, it seems that if I currently have courses made in Rise in my LMS that we completed multi-language SCORM packaging/wrapping outside of Rise, we would need to redevelop the course using Articulate AI Translation > Course Stack to benefit from Connected Packages in the same way learners currently experience our course.
Their business model demands Rise be available for authoring and content delivery, so them ceasing to operate is an existing risk for your authoring and content delivery that you will need to risk manage.
The likely risk I anticipate is internal authoring process management of a team, so similar business process to manage this as already.
The big win is an option to keep version control and testing responsibility within the Rise 360 authoring team, removing updates burden from a separate LMS admin role/team.
The best use cases they've outlined, where audit trail of content is not required automatically through the system. Although you can meet that need by archiving published versions within your document repository version control. Again, this is already the case I do for various non-LMS formats as part of contingency workflows where it's a snapshot related to snapshots from other systems used in the larger training and assessment product. That ensures offline digital, offline paper, online localisation, offline digital translated, offline paper translated, all have a version bill of materials.
For information delivery awareness courses where formal assessment is not tied to the course outcome, you can now have a live Rise 360 document delivered via your LMS catalogue, own and maintain it, only one-time bothering with the LMS course creation, testing and comms processes your org or 3rd party provider may have.
Have your cake and eat it to, as many times as you want, quietly making it better each time :)
This is fantastic! I spent the morning testing this with my team and it works incredibly well!! We did not encounter any bugs or issues during testing.
The elimination of reuploading files over and over again is a huge time saver and helps for pushing critical updates for broken links/misspellings etc.
Using this feature also appears to fix the issue we would have with Rise files where when we reuploaded a new file, we would always have to turn on "reset learner progress" to avoid learners receiving an error screen, which was really unideal.
The option to display the banner to the learner is the cherry on top. It's so helpful and allows our learners to see just how often we are putting time and effort into content updates!We really hope this is kept and then also explored for Storyline. To have this capability would save so much time. Our Storyline files are massive and take awhile to load into our LXP.
Hi AnnikaDellert! This is great feedback, and I’m glad to hear Connected Packages is already making updates easier for your team!
I’m curious about your experience with updating Storyline courses. What part of updating those larger Storyline files takes the most time today? And how often are you re-uploading them to your LXP?
Thanks again for testing this and sharing your experience!
Hi there.
We are running SuccessFactors LMS that lives offline on our intranet. Is this feature possible with an LMS setup like ours? The LMS cannot be accessed unless you are on our server or a VPN that the company hosts.Hello IsaacSpedding-b
Connected Packages work with any LMS that supports SCORM. The key consideration is network access since the content is hosted on Articulate’s servers and requires outbound internet access when a learner launches the course.
Even on a VPN, your IT team may need to allowlist packages.articulateusercontent.com in your firewall or DNS filtering. You can also review our full list of Articulate 360 network endpoints.
If your environment is fully air-gapped with no outbound access, Connected Packages won’t work. In that case, a standard SCORM package would be the better option.
If outbound access is available, I’d recommend testing with a non-production course first. Let us know if you run into any issues!
I am so going to try this out!
That seems like a phantastic feature to me. Need to check with my IT if it will be OK to use (from what I read here, it should be), but I am certainly going to play with it to test it...
Productive work will only be possible once it is out of the lab stage (company rules...)Hello FelixFranke,
Glad to hear you’re going to give Connected Packages a try!
You’re right that testing is exactly what Labs is for. Connected Packages content is hosted on Articulate’s systems under our existing security and data policies, so you can share our Terms of Service with your IT team for additional context.
It makes sense to hold off on production use based on your company’s policies.
We’d love to hear how testing goes through the Connected Packages feedback form!
This feature is great!! What will happen with the SCORMs that you have uploaded to LMS if the feature goes away? We would like to do this to our trainings but is afraid that we will have to do more work if the feature is no longer available for us.
Hello HannaEinebrant! We're so glad you're enjoying this Labs Experiment! We will be making Connected Packages a permanent capability, so no need to worry about it disappearing. We're hopeful our timeline puts this into everyone's hands by the end of October, though that timeline may change.
Full screen for videos (both Storyline embedded and Rise mp4) isn't working with this - can you confirm when it will be?
Thanks for flagging this! Both of these are known issues we're tracking:
Storyline blocks: The fullscreen button doesn't work in Connected Packages.
Rise video blocks (and embed blocks): Fullscreen also doesn't work — videos play inline only.
Both are on the roadmap for our broader release. In the meantime, if fullscreen is essential for the learner experience, a standard SCORM export is the workaround for now.
We have been noticing that when you are updating a connected package it sometimes doesn't 'update'. Depending on which method you use to update the package if you don't receive a 'notification' we advise doing it again until you get a successful confirmation notification. (See notification images below)
Thanks for sharing this, we have a small number of reports of updates not confirming on the first attempt, and we're investigating, but we haven't pinned down the root cause yet, so we don't have a fix to share right now.
Your workaround is the right call for now: if you don't receive a confirmation notification, retry the update. Once you see the confirmation, the update has gone through.
If you're able to share details about which update method you're using (the in-editor prompt vs. going through Publish → LMS → Connected Package), that context would be helpful as we dig into this.
Hi we only use the *Publish → LMS → Connected Package* method to update connected packages. This method remembers the previous update settings so this helps with consistency. Plus the full screen confirmation that the update has been successful is very helpful.
When using connected packages. The native exit course link in rise throws an error when clicked:
Thanks for the screenshot. We've shipped a fix for the exit link error. I've emailed you the steps, and here they are for anyone else who hits this:
- Make a small change to your course
- Click Update on the existing connected package
- Then Download Package again and re-upload it to your LMS
Let us know if the exit link works after that!
it works and it's awesome!
