Storyline 360: Publishing a Course for LMS/LRS Distribution

If you’re using a learning management system (LMS), a learning record store (LRS), or both to distribute and track e-learning content, you’ll want to use the LMS/LRS publishing option in Storyline 360. Here’s how.

1. Enter Title, Description, and Folder Location
2. Enter Additional Project Info (Optional)
3. Adjust the Player Properties and Quality Settings
4. Choose to Publish a Slide, a Scene, or the Entire Course
5. Choose Reporting and Tracking Options
6. Publish
7. Distribute Your Published Course

Step 1: Enter Title, Description, and Folder Location

1. Go to the Home tab on the ribbon and click Publish.
2. When the Publish window appears, select the LMS / LRS tab on the left.
   
   
3. Enter the Title the way you want it to appear in your published output. (If you have a title placeholder on the first slide, the title defaults to the text entered in that title placeholder. If you don’t have a title placeholder on the first slide, the title defaults to the name of your project file. You can change the title of your published course here without affecting the name of your project file or the title placeholder on the first slide.) The maximum length for a project title is 80 characters; the maximum length for each output folder name is eight words.
4. Use the Description field to define the purpose of your course. It won’t appear in your published output.
5. Use the Folder field to choose where you want to publish your course—for example, your computer desktop. Click the ellipsis button (...) to browse to a location. Storyline 360 will create a new folder in that spot with all the files needed to operate your course.
   
   Tips:
   • Always publish to your local hard drive. Publishing to a network drive or a USB drive can cause problems with your published output. After publishing to your local hard drive, upload the output to your LMS, LRS, or both for testing and distribution.
   • Install the November 2021 update or later for Storyline 360 to send results to an LRS. Learn more.

Step 2: Enter Additional Project Info (Optional)

Click the ellipsis button (...) next to the Title field to define additional project information. Currently, this information is for your reference only. It won’t be visible in your published output.

1. The Title and Description fields are the same as those on the Publish window (see the previous step).
2. The image below the Title field is the course thumbnail. By default, Storyline 360 uses an image of the first slide in your course, but you can choose a different image. Just click the hyperlinked text below the image, then select a different slide or click Picture from File to choose an image on your hard drive.
3. You can enter values for the Author, Email, Website, Duration, Date, Version, and Keywords (separated by commas) fields.
4. The Identifier is a unique string of characters assigned by Storyline 360 that your LMS/LRS uses to identify your course. If you’re republishing a course that’s already in your LMS/LRS, don’t change the value in this field.

When you’re finished customizing the project information, click OK to return to the Publish window.

Step 3: Adjust the Player Properties and Quality Settings

Use the Properties section of the Publish window to make last-minute changes to your course player and quality settings.

1. The Player property shows the name of the player currently assigned to your project. (The player is the frame around your slide content.) To make adjustments to your player, click the player name to open the player editor.
2. The Quality property lets you choose adaptive or static video quality and control the compression settings for audio clips, static videos, and JPG images. The quality settings default to whatever you used the last time you published a course. To change them, click the Quality property, make your adjustments, and click OK.
   • There are now two video quality options. Select Adaptive to automatically adjust the video quality (high, medium, or low) to the learner’s internet speed and prevent buffering. Learn more. Choose Static to deliver videos with the same quality to all learners, which could cause buffering. Drag the Static slider to change the video compression.
     
     Note that higher values give you higher-quality output but also larger file sizes (which means longer download times for learners with slow connections). Lower values give you smaller file sizes and faster download times, but the quality will be lower as well.
   • Drag the Audio Quality slider to adjust the compression settings Storyline 360 uses for audio.
   • Mark the Optimize audio volume box to normalize audio throughout your course for consistent volume across all slides.
     
     Tip: If your course audio already has consistent volume, you can speed up the publishing process by unchecking this option.
   • Drag the JPG Quality slider to adjust the compression settings Storyline 360 uses for JPG images.
   • Click Reset to standard optimization to use the default settings: adaptive video quality, audio bitrate of 56 kbps, and JPG image quality of 100%.

Step 4: Choose to Publish a Slide, a Scene, or the Entire Course

By default, Storyline 360 will publish your entire course. However, you can now choose to publish a specific scene from your course or even just a single slide. This is helpful when you want to publish multiple courses from the same project file.

Just click the Publish property, then choose the entire project, a single scene, or a single slide.

Step 5: Choose Reporting and Tracking Options

Click the Reporting and Tracking button to open the following window, where you can choose how your LMS/LRS reports and tracks learners’ progress.

1. Click the LMS tab in the upper left corner, then choose a standard from the Report to an LMS drop-down. Ask your LMS administrator if you’re not sure which standard to use. Storyline 360 supports cmi5, xAPI (Tin Can API), SCORM 2004, SCORM 1.2, and AICC.
2. Complete the fields in the LMS Course Information section with these tips in mind:
   
   • The course Identifier is a unique string of characters assigned by Storyline 360 that your LMS/LRS uses to identify your course. If you’re republishing a course that’s already in your LMS/LRS, don’t change the value in this field. If you choose xAPI and need to change this value, avoid special characters and spaces.
   • For SCORM, the LMS Lesson SCORM Information section displays in addition to the LMS Course Information section. The values in the Title and Identifier fields default to the course title. If you have a title placeholder on the first slide, the Title and Identifier fields default to the text entered in that title placeholder instead. This Identifier appears in the imsmanifest.xml file for your course. The file uses a digestible name for the course Identifier, the unique string of characters assigned by Storyline 360. If you’re republishing a course that’s already in your LMS/LRS, don’t change the values in these fields.
   • For xAPI, the following fields display:
     • Activity ID: Your LMS and LRS use this value to identify activities in a course. The unique string of characters in the reference is the same as the value for the course’s Identifier (see above). If you need to change this value, use a valid URN (Uniform Resource Name), then upload the published course to your LMS/LRS for proper testing.
     • Launch URL: If you plan to host the content on a server that’s separate from your LMS, you must enter the full URL for the story.html file.
     • Language Code: This field isn’t mandatory, but you can enter a supported language code to change the language of the tincan.xml file. If you’re unsure, leave this field blank to set the language value in the tincan.xml file to und (undetermined).
3. For SCORM and AICC content, choose your LMS Reporting option. This is the wording you want your LMS to display for learners’ statuses in reports. (This option isn’t available or necessary for cmi5 or xAPI content.)
4. If you plan on reporting to an LRS as well, click the LRS tab on the left side of the window. Mark the box to Report to an external LRS, then choose one of the following options in the section called LRS Configuration. Learn more about LRS support.
   • Supplied at launch: Select this option when you don’t want to store authentication credentials in your Storyline 360 project file or when you need the option to update the LRS endpoint or credentials without republishing the project. Learn more about supplying credentials at launch.
   • Manual: Select this option to enter the LRS endpoint and credentials right in Storyline 360. The configuration details will be stored in your project file, and you’ll need to republish the project if you change them later. Learn more about the manual option.
5. Click the Tracking tab on the left side of the window and choose any combination of the following options. You can choose one, two, or even all three tracking options. Whichever option a learner completes first is the one that gets reported to your LMS/LRS. Learn more about tracking multiple completion criteria.
   • When the learner has viewed # slides: Mark this option to trigger course completion when learners view a certain number of slides. You can choose a percentage or a fixed number. Then decide which slides get counted—all slides or just those with slide numbers. Learn more about tracking slides viewed.
   • When the learner completes a quiz: Mark this option to track learners based on their quiz results. You can let Storyline 360 keep track of multiple quizzes and send results to your LMS/LRS for the first quiz each learner completes. Learn more about tracking quizzes. (This option will be grayed-out if your course doesn’t have any result slides.)
   • Using triggers: Mark this option to track learners based on course completion triggers you added to your course. (This option is grayed-out if your course doesn’t have any completion triggers.)
6. Click OK to save your changes.

Step 6: Publish

When you’re finished making selections, click the Publish button. When the publishing process is complete, you’ll see the Publish Successful window with several follow-up options.

View Project	This launches the published course in your default web browser. However, it’s best to upload the published course to your LMS/LRS for proper testing.
Email	This opens a new email message with a zipped file of your published course attached. This option is helpful if you need to send your course to an LMS/LRS administrator for deployment.
FTP	This opens a window where you can enter your FTP credentials and transfer your output to a server.
Zip	This creates a zipped version of your course files in the same location where your course was published. This is the most common choice when you publish for LMS/LRS. Upload the zipped course to your LMS/LRS.
Open	This opens a file viewer where you can see the files Storyline 360 just created. There will be multiple files and folders for a published course. Tip:  If your LMS requires you to identify the file that launches your course, point to index_lms.html.

 

Step 7: Distribute Your Published Course

Now that you’ve published your course, it’s time to upload it to your LMS/LRS. The steps for this are different for each LMS/LRS. Contact your LMS/LRS administrator if you need help uploading, launching, or tracking content.