How does RISE store attached pdf files when exported for web or LMS?

Hi there, John! That's a great question!

When you upload a file to an attachment block in Rise 360, that file is stored on our servers. The direct link to the attached file that begins with https://articulateusercontent.com/rise/courses/... is pointing to the file stored on the server, so the link will continue to work even after you publish the file and host it on your LMS or web server. The link will only be broken if you permanently delete the course from Rise 360. 

We also mentioned a similar solution for PDF storage in this article: Make Your PDF Pop in Rise 360

Please let me know if that answers your question! 

Oh wow! That was an eye-opener! Thanks. I LOVE the idea of creating a RISE module that has the pdf template in and then referencing it from another module!

The reason we have been experimenting with the 'pdf-lib' JavaScript library rather than using 'jsPdf' is it's ability to fill out pdf 'forms'. So when creating a pdf for download in Storyline - like a certificate - rather than having to create the pdf in JavaScript and work out where on the page the course title or name or date goes, we can just say - open the form template and fill out the course title, name and date fields - wherever they are in the document. This means we can use the same short segment of JavaScript code to create a whole range of different certificates. 

In Storyline we just reference the pdf template from the root directory and copy the template to that directory after we have published. Re-designing the certificate is a breeze - just edit the template and replace it in the course files.

Now, this gives us the ability to use this approach through Storyline blocks within RISE... OK, editing the template might mean we have to re-link the file to the code - but that's no big deal...

Oh, we have so many ideas on how we can use this to spice up our RISE courses!

An afterthought.... If you could give us the ability to store just a few variables on your RISE server as well...

I know that's being greedy... but it would make our year!

Hi John!

Thanks for sharing these details, and for your request to store variables in Rise.

Variables aren't supported in RIse 360 yet, but can you tell me a bit more about why you’d like to have that feature?

Would you like to use variables to collect data from learners (such as their names), or would you like to pass variables between the Rise course and a Storyline block? I would love to hear your thoughts so I can share them with the team!

Thanks Gren

If there were a few 'global' variables like the Learner's Name and maybe a dozen text and numeric variables that could be set within a new interactive block type that allowed for text or numeric input - and these variables could be displayed in a text block using some special characters - as is the case in Storyline - then that would add a LOT of extra functionality to Rise developers.

The variable names could be fixed if that would be easier e.g. "RiseTVar1", "RiseTVar2"... etc. 

If those same  variables could then also be made available through a "GetVar" and "SetVar" API in JavaScript from a Storyline module the possibilities would be limitless!

I could create a 10 question Likert scale survey in a Storyline block and pass the results back to Rise to display them - or pick them up again in a later Storyline block and give the learner specific feedback based on their input...

I could create a learning journal allowing the learner to input notes at various points in the course and then pick the notes up in a Storyline block at the end of the course and email or print a pdf version of the journal...

I could build a multi-scene scenario in Storyline where what happened in part 2 was dependent on part 1....

I could...     You get the idea. I would be very excited!!

Thanks for sharing these details, John! These features involving variables in Rise sound amazing! I'll definitely share these feature requests with our team, and keep you posted on any updates on these requests.

Have a lovely day! :) 

Thanks Gren...

incidentally as per the post above that Allysa directed me to, we recently created a Likert-style slider based survey using a Storyline block within a Rise course  for a client. The JavaScript code used the 'pdf-lib' JavaScript library and the output of the survey was created using a pdf 'form' template.

Rather than include the pdf template as an attachment in the Rise course with the survey we created a second Rise course and put the template as an attachment there so it was 'hidden' from our client's learners. It worked perfectly. Once we had the URL of the attachment template we found we could use it in any of our Rise courses - Who knew eh!