Forum Discussion
Rise not completing & progress not recorded for 5% of learners
The course has been launched for 6 months now and through one call from a learner and then doing an audit of completions and logs, plus talking to users, I've found some sessions are not being recorded. The biggest clue is we have a discussion forum after the eLearning. So no eLearning completion and a discussion comment is a red flag.
Approx. 5% of learners are doing the eLearning, based on their reports to me and the LMS log. However, when I check by logging in as them, I get a fresh Rise course, as if they have never been there (or they've just opened lesson 1). One learner reports they did the course twice and both times it didn't record.
It has me beat. I haven't been able to replicate it and I haven't identified any patterns (e.g a certain browser).
I did update the SCORM in the first 2 weeks after the launch with minor changes and I checked that my test user progress data was unaffected. That's the only anomaly I'm aware of.
Any suggestions? I hear SCORM Cloud mentioned as a baseline test, but not sure how that can help with intermittent problems.
Thanks for your updates, everyone! This is all very helpful.
Our team is having a look at this behavior, and we've seen that making this adjustment in Chrome 83 has helped in some LMS environments:
1. Open Chrome browser
2. Go to chrome://flags/#allow-sync-xhr-in-page-dismissal
3. Change the drop-down selection from "Default" or "Disabled" to "Enabled"I will keep you posted on what our team uncovers!
Hi, Paul. You've done some really great troubleshooting so far, looking for the same indicators that I would.
You mentioned updating the content after it was launched. We don't support resuming content after it's been overwritten with a new version, so handling resume behavior is open to variance in LMS environments. Could affected learners have been in progress during this update?
Another possibility is that the affected learners had connectivity issues that prevented the course from communicating effectively with the LMS. Deciding to work closely with a learner who is having the most problems, you could enable LMS debug mode and collect the resulting log after they reproduce the problem. You can also explore whether they're using a supported browser, or if they have something unique in their environment like a VPN, home network, or other wifi instability.
Keep us posted!I have experienced exactly the same thing: for a very small number of users, Rise does not record their progress data or completion status.
While they are in a training session, Rise indicates what they have completed with the check marks and the completion percentage changes. However, when they exit the course and LMS in the correct manner, none of their data is saved.
Each time they access their course after a previous training session, it is a fresh course showing no previous completion data.
There is no commonality at all between any of these users as they are in different locations/cities and use different devices, operating systems, have good internet connections, etc.
When I log in as them everything works normally.
These problems are also not related to updating courses that were in progress.
Some learners are very irate when they complete a course several times and no progress data is recorded. What makes things worse that our training is required for government certification purposes.
Thanks for the comments Karl and Crystal.
I wished I'd done that Crystal with the person who did the course twice and it reset. We're in different locations around the country, too, making it hard to sit-alongside.
I'll look out for an opportunity to do the LMS debug.
I did check the logs and those people started the course after I did the changes.
Even though Articulate literature shows we can't resume after making changes to the content, we were able to. Our LMS picked where we left off. But I did wonder if I could create some mismatch of identifiers that could in the future not work with updates to the LMS (we haven't had any updates, so far)
We have worked with our LMS vendor to determine the cause.
Our LMS is set up to open the Rise courses in a new browser window over the existing LMS window that stays open in the background.
According to the vendor, the only known instances of this happening is when the window that is running the course loses connectivity with the LMS. This typically happens when the learner inadvertently closes the background window containing the LMS while the course is still in progress. So from the learner perspective everything appears to be normal as they are still able to use the course. However, when they choose to Exit the course (we use the Rise Exit link), there is no longer an active session to send the learner data back to the LMS.
We have not been able to verify if this is what has been happening with the users that have had this problem.
As this happens very infrequently to about 0.5% of our users it is thankfully not a widespread problem. For the few that it does happen to it is extremely frustrating.
I did sit in with a staff member who had twice been unable to complete the course, using a duplicate of the course. However, it completed okay!
Karl, I tested closing the background tabs containing the browser and this was not a problem. The course tab continues to communicate with the LMS. (I could see using the debug option)
Interestingly, I was able to replicate the problem in the LMS by not enrolling the student and then giving 'Guest' access. In this setup, progress and completion data were not recorded. However, searching back through our LMS logs I could find no evidence that this scenario (not enrolled +guest) occurred.
Hey Paul, regarding your test with Guest Access... I'm about 90% sure that Guest Access to a course in Totara will not mark completion by design. I was just reading that in the LMS documentation.
I am also having this issue with some users not able to complete courses. Coincidentally, it happens for me, although I can't figure out why. I'v enacted all the typical recommendations for course completion with Totara, i.e. open course in a second window, add an exit button, I have time to complete set to the maximum,, etc... I still see a small percentage of users that cannot complete the course despite the content being complete.
In my case, it happens with Rise course, but also other scorm content brought into the LMS from OpenSesame.
We should connect offline if possible. I would love to build a Totara PLN for myself. I'd welcome any others to join in. Maybe we can connect on Slack or something with regards to troubleshooting Totara issues. We just launched this year, and I am taking over admin of the LMS.
Hi,
I have a similar issue at hand. Some users of my course too have reported that the course completions are not getting recorded.
My checks say - most of them were using it on a phone. And, instead of closing the course using the 'Exit Course' link, they swiped the window to close the screen. [The exit button is really small to fetch any attention.]
Now, I were thinking of using an exit page after the quiz to solve this issue - however, there's another issue now - and that should fetch your attention - when I swiped the tab while taking the course/quiz, rather than closing it, the bookmarks too didn't get registered.
Hi Team emPower!
Can you tell us more about your course? Specifically...
- Have you seen these problems happen in your own testing?
- What SCORM Standard did you use when publishing?
- Are you viewing the course on a mobile browser or an LMS app?
It's a Rise 360, LMS, Scorm 1.2 course. The tracking is done using quiz results. And, closing the window saves the last chapter/question as bookmark.
Everything's working well over the computer and over the phone, if you click the close screen cross.
The course opens on a mobile browser. I have tested the course on an Android, chrome and an iOS phone. Same results. If you swipe the screen- the data ain't getting registered.
Thanks for that context, Team emPower. I'm going to share all of this with our Support Engineers, and they'll work with you one-on-one to get this resolved. You'll hear from the team soon!
