15 Ways to Collaborate on Projects and Manage Your Team with Articulate 360 Teams
If you have a team of e-learning developers, you probably have two basic goals: to create beautiful, effective courses and to manage your team as efficiently as possible. And we want to help you do just that! That’s why we’re always adding new features to Articulate 360 Teams. Check out the following 15 features that’ll have you collaborating on projects and managing your team with ease, no matter how big your team grows. Collaboration Features Collaborative Authoring in Rise 360 Work together on Rise 360 courses with members of any Articulate 360 team. Create and edit different lessons simultaneously or take turns fine-tuning the same one. Changes happen in real time, so everyone always works on the most recent version. You can even give collaborators different levels of access by making themauthors or admins. Learn more about collaborative authoring. Question Banks in Rise 360 Create repositories of questions that can be used in any course you create. Share them with your team so everyone can quickly create quizzes with consistent questions, answers, feedback, and media. Knowledge checks and quizzes draw from these banks rather than displaying the same static questions whenever a learner takes the course. When you share a question bank, team members can use your questions and, with the proper permissions, modify them or add their own. Learn more about question banks. Shared Block Templates in Rise 360 Build Rise 360 courses faster by saving existing blocks and their content as templates. Share those templates with your team, then everyone can reuse them in other Rise 360 courses. Learn more about block templates. Shared Team Slides in Storyline 360 Easily collaborate on Storyline 360 projects with a library of shared team slides. Team members upload and download slides, scenes, and entire projects right within Storyline 360. It’s perfect for sharing project templates, slides that need to be in every course, and reusable slide content, such as interactions and quiz questions. Learn more about team slides. Shared Team Folders in Rise 360 and Review 360 Create shared team folders in Rise 360 and Review 360 to organize your content, assign permissions, and invite collaborators. You can even allow multiple authors to publish new versions of a course to the same Review 360 project. Project Reviews in Review 360 Speed up project reviews. Publish e-learning projects from Storyline 360 , Rise 360, and your other Articulate 360 apps to Review 360 to gather feedback from stakeholders. Collect in-context feedback, follow threaded discussions, and resolve comments in one easy-to-use web app. Learn more about Review 360. Request Reviews in Review 360 Keep your team on track without the hassle of spreadsheets or phone calls. Send and track requests for specific stakeholders to review a content item right from Review 360. With email notifications, due dates, visible statuses, and completion buttons, you’ll never miss another deadline. Learn more about requesting reviews. Integrated Comments in Rise 360 and Storyline 360 Streamline review processes even further. Get Review 360 comments in context as you work in Rise 360 and Storyline 360, eliminating back-and-forth toggling between apps. Browse through feedback from various stakeholders, see comments for multiple Review 360 items, reply to and resolve comments, and add suggested images in real time—all in one place. Cloud Backup in Storyline 360 and Review 360 Work with confidence, knowing your files are safe and easy to access anywhere, anytime. Access your Storyline 360 project files from anywhere and share them with team members by uploading your source files to Review 360. Learn more about cloud backup. Admin Features Consolidated Billing Management Articulate 360 Teams makes billing management simple. You get one annual bill that covers all your team seats. You have the flexibility to pay via credit card or purchase order. And as your team grows, you can add more seats using your account management console. Learn more about account management. Easy User Management Easily add and remove users as your team evolves. For example, when users leave the company or their roles change, remove them from your team and assign the seats to new users. You can even upload all your users at once using a simple CSV file. And you can add as many admins as you’d like to manage your team. Learn more about managing your team. Group Admins Manage your team with ease. Organize users in groups, such as departments or locations, and assign admins to manage each group.Watch this videofor a brief overview andcheck out this articlefor details on managing users, groups, and admins. Manage Team Slides and Block Templates Admins who have user seatscan rename and delete all Storyline 360team slides and Rise 360shared block templates. This is helpful when the original content owners aren’t available to make changes. TransferContent Maintain control of your content and intellectual property. When someone leaves your team, keep shared content within the subscription and choose what happens to their personal content. Content includes Rise 360 courses, microlearning, label sets, and block templates; Review 360 items and request reviews; and Storyline 360 team slides. Single Sign-On Don’t worry about remembering (or forgetting!) another password.Control authentication for your Articulate 360 team using your own identity provider and oursingle sign-on (SSO) solution. Start a Free Trial Experience these Articulate 360 Teams features for yourself! Sign up for a 30-day free trial of Articulate 360. You can invite up to 10 users to join your team during the trial period. You’ll get the exclusive collaboration and admin features described above, as well as award-winning authoring apps, 20+ million royalty-free course assets, as well as live and on-demand online training. See these FAQs to learn more about free trials and let us know if you need help!Still Publishing to Word for Your SME Reviews? Here’s How & Why to Transition to Review 360
Back when I was a project manager in an e-learning company, the review process was a real headache for everyone involved. We tried various methods to make it as easy as possible, but in the end we published our courses as Word documents and sent them to our clients alongside a Web version of the course. The client would open the Word document and the Web version of the course simultaneously, and make notes in the Word document as they were going through the course. This solution was not ideal for several reasons: It was time-consuming. Depending on the length of the course, the Word document would sometimes be over a 100 pages. Scrolling through and leaving comments was tedious for clients and applying those comments sometimes felt endless. Not to mention that every time we updated the course, we’d have to republish it and replace it on our Web server—what a time-suck! It was complicated. Clients often struggled to look at the Web version of the course and annotate it in a separate Word document. Sometimes they would leave their feedback in the wrong spot or their comments would be unclear because they were left out of context— next to a static image—so we wouldn’t know what they were referencing. It was a version-control nightmare. If there was more than one reviewer, we would often end up with multiple versions of the Word document that we would have to cross-reference. And since reviewers couldn’t see each others’ comments, they were sometimes contradictory, which led to more back-and-forth to reach a consensus. Luckily, today’s e-learning project managers have a much better solution: Review 360. With Review 360, all it takes is one click to publish your course for review. Then, simply share the link with your reviewers and they can leave their comments in context. Review360 makes it faster and easier than ever to collaborate during the review process. But what do you do if your coworkers or clients are hesitant to make the switch even after hearing about all the advantages of Review 360? Here are some tips for getting change-resistant folks to buy into this new tool. Show, Don’t Tell You can explain why it’s better until you’re blue in the face, but sometimes the only way to convince people is to actually show them why it’s better. Set up a short meeting with the project team to show them how Review 360 works. Show them how easy it is to leave and reply to comments in context, making them easier to interpret. And don’t forget to mention that Review 360 supports versioning and allows you to export comments. When they see how fast, easy, and powerful it is, my guess is they’ll be sold. If you don’t have a subscription yet, no problem! Just start a free trial so you can show them how it works. Do a Test Run If they’re still not convinced, ask them to try it out for just one project as a test run. Tell them that if they’re still on the fence after using it for that project, you’ll go back to the old method. Chances are, once they try it for themselves, they’ll be hooked. Time Yourself Try timing yourself reviewing the same course using both methods. Then, tell them how much time you saved using Review 360. They can’t argue with facts! More Resources Hopefully these techniques will help you get your team on board with using Review 360, so you can say goodbye to long, drawn-out review processes and hello to smooth sailing. Here are some more resources to help you get up and running on Review 360 and optimize your review process: Getting Started with Review 360 Tutorials 5 Steps to an Easier E-Learning Course Review Process Follow These 3 Tips to Put the “Pro” Back In Your Review Process 3 Ways Review 360 Is a Big Gift for Course Developers Who Should Review Your E-Learning Course Before Launch? Want to try Review 360, but don’t have Articulate 360? Start a free 30-day trial. And subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest product updates, e-learning examples, and expert advice directly in your inbox.4 Time-Saving Ways to Use Review 360
Review 360, the web-based project review app that’s included with a subscription to Articulate 360, is one of my favorite apps—period. That’s because it saves me loads of time when I’m working with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) since all my reviewers can see my course and leave their comments right from their web browser. Even better, they can see each other’s comments, so when there are disagreements about changes the experts can debate and reach a compromise without involving me. But there are loads of brilliant little ways e-learning pros get the most out of Review 360—many of which might not even be on your radar. What follows are four of my favorite ways to use Review 360 to save time. Keep reading and I’ll fill you in on all the details! 1. Use Review 360 When You're Doing Rapid Prototyping Following an agile or iterative development process to build custom e-learning in Storyline 360? If so you’ve probably found that rapid prototyping is the key to building alignment between you and your project team. One approach many e-learning pros take with rapid prototyping is to give their project teams a series of unpolished but functional interactions to react to quickly, so critical pieces of the course can be nailed down early on and the rest of the course built around them. If this approach to rapid prototyping sounds like a good idea to you, here’s how you can direct your reviewer’s attention to only that interaction with the publishing options in Storyline 360. Click on Publish on the Home tab. On the Publish pop-up, you'll see that Review 360is selected by default. Under Properties, click onthe hyperlinked text to the right of Publish. Now you can choose topublish the entire project, a single scene, or even just a single slide. Once your interaction is published, send your review team a link to your prototype and ask for their feedback. Since you’re just showing them one interaction at a time, instead of an entire course, your reviewers can stay focused and not get too distracted by other screens. And because reviewers can see each other’s feedback, any differences in opinion on how an interaction should function can be worked out early on. Getting meaningful feedback about a critical interaction early on in the process can also save you time by informing your designs for the next interaction you’ll prototype. 2. Use Review 360 for Kickstarting New E-Learning Projects When I’m trying to get a new e-learning project off the ground, I find it’s helpful to show examples of other projects I’ve created. This gives the project team some concrete ideas to inspire their thinking, helps build trust in my skills and abilities, and removes some of the mystery from the process of transforming static content into interactive e-learning. By providing your project team with links to an assortment of handpicked past projects published to Review 360, you can give them a chance to click through relevant interactions and actually experience different visual and functional design treatments for themselves. You can even encourage your clients to use the comments field to note their preferences or vote on their favorites. All of this adds up to a lightweight and collaborative approach for exploring creative ideas with your project team! 3. Use Review 360 to Streamline the Work of Applying Changes I don’t know about you, but I find using two monitors is a huge timesaver when I’m creating courses. That’s because I can have my source material displayed on my smaller laptop screen while my authoring app is open on my big monitor. It might seem obvious, but using two monitors is also a great way to boost your productivity when you’re editing your courses. I like to have Review 360 up on my smaller monitor so I can see my reviewer’s comments and cross-reference their feedback with the project file, open in my authoring app on my big monitor. That way, there's lesstoggling back and forth between Review 360 and my project file. And asI make changes to my project file, I can click on the little checkmark next to the comment to resolve it in Review 360 and get it off my fix-it list. SometimesI even use Review 360 toleave notes to myself in the comments about items I need to revisit, later. 4. Use Review 360 for Capturing Edits to Video I find Review 360 especially helpful when I’m working on projects that include video. That’s because Review 360 takes a snapshot of the screen as soon as my reviewer starts to leave a comment, making it way easier for me to put their comments into context. In fact, I find this feature so helpful that I often publish just my videos to Review 360 and circulate them for feedback while I’m working on otherparts of the course. That way I can keep my reviewers engaged in the development process throughout the project. I find this also gives them more visibility into the work I’m doing and helps me get out in front of any big changes to my video content that could be time-consuming or labor-intensive to resolve. Even if you don’t have a lot of video in your e-learning projects, you’ll still find that using Review 360 withPeek 360 (the lightweight screen capture app included with a subscription to Articulate 360) is a super-smart way to share tips and tricks or quick changes to almost anything. For example, let’s say you need a change made to a graphic in your course.Make a quick Peek 360 video to walk the graphic designer through your changes. In turn,your graphic designer can leave you questions and attach revised versions to the image right in Review 360, since you can attach files to comments. It’s so much easier than going back and forth over email! You can learn more about using this powerful app duo in this article, One Cool Peek Trick You Might Not Know About. There’s More to Learn So those were just four of my favorite timesaving ways to use Review 360. I’m sure there are lots more because I’m constantly learning new tricks for using all the apps in Articulate 360! If you want to learn more about using Review 360, check out the following resources forsome great tips, tricks, and timesavers. Review 360 User Guide 3 Ways Review 360 Is a Big Gift to Course Developers 5 Steps to an Easier Course Review Process Are you using Review 360 in a clever, timesaving way? Share your pro tips with the community and leave me a comment, below. Want to try something you learned here, but don’t have Articulate 360? Start a free 30-day trial, and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning. If you have any questions, please share them in the comments.The Secret to Simplifying Your Video Training Workflow
When it comes to creating engaging, relevant e-learning, video is a great way to capture content and your learners’ attention. Whether it’s an instructional video on how to use your company’s new time-tracking software or converting an instructor-led training session into a video-based training gives you an impactful way to share ideas with learners. And it’s an easy-to-consume format. Articulate 360 has everything you need to create e-learning videos—including an easy way to share them with stakeholders for review and export them to your LMS. Wondering how it works? Let me walk you through the steps below. Step 1: Publish or upload your video to Review 360 If you created your video using Replay 360 or Peek 360, you can seamlessly publish your video to Review 360. Just navigate to Publish and choose the Review 360 option. If you created your video outside of Articulate 360 apps, don’t worry! From the Review 360 dashboard, you can simply upload the video file using the blue Upload a File hyperlink. Step 2: Gather feedback and approval With your video uploaded to Review 360, it’s time to send it to your stakeholders for feedback. Simply click Share and then copy the link into an email. Anyone with the link can view and comment on your video—even if they don’t have an Articulate 360 subscription. All they need is an email address and they’re all set! One great thing about Review 360 is how it simplifies the video review and approval process. That’s because it timestamps all feedback—which means you’ll know exactly what part of the video your reviewers were watching when they started commenting. Not only does this make your life easier, but it also streamlines the review process for your stakeholders! Step 3: Export your video for LMS distribution Once you’ve made any necessary changes and re-published your video to Review 360—or uploaded a new version—it’s time to export! Open your project in Review 360 and click on the More ellipsis (...) in the upper right corner and choose Export to LMS. From there, select the output standard used by your LMS and choose a completion percentage. Then, click Export. And that’s all there is to it! You’ll get a .zip file that includes the video and any LMS-required files that you can upload to your LMS, just as you would any other course. If you’re looking for an even faster way to do this, simply find your project on your Review 360 dashboard, choose the More ellipsis (...), andfollowthe same steps. Wrap-Up Now that you know how to upload, share, and export your videos using Review 360, you’re well on your way to optimizing your video creation process. If you’re looking for more resources on creating video-based courses, check out these articles: A Complete Guide to Creating Videos for E-Learning 6 Types of Video You Can Include in E-Learning Record and Edit Videos Like a Pro with Peek 360 and Replay 360 New in Storyline 360: Publish to Video Want to try using Review 360 for your video training, but don’t have Articulate 360? Start a free 30-day trial, and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning. Do you have any other little-known tips or tricks for using Review 360? Share them below!7 Reasons Stakeholders Love Review 360
As a course creator, you want to make sure the e-learning you create hits the mark—that’s why getting feedback from subject matter experts (SMEs) and stakeholders is an essential part of the course development process. But without the right tools, providing feedback can be time-consuming and complicated for reviewers. In many cases, reviewers receive a copy of the course as a file—like a PDF or Word document—and add comments in the file before sending it back to the course creator via email. By the time they’re done, there are multiple versions of the file and a lot of back and forth. If they want to interact with the content, they have to install an app or sign into a Learning Management System (LMS)—adding another layer of complexity if they don’t already have an account. And each time there’s a new version of the course to review, they have to track down the updated file. With all those potential obstacles, it’s no wonder getting timely feedback from reviewers can be such a struggle! Luckily, there’s an Articulate 360 app that removes all those barriers and makes the project review process easier and faster for everyone involved. Review 360 was specifically designed to collect feedback on e-learning—which is what makes it so handy. Let’s explore a few of the top reasons reviewers love using it! 1. It gives them easy access to course content. Nowadays, there’s an app for everything. And while that’s great, it often means there’s yet another thing to download, install, and manage. Thankfully, Review 360 is web-based, which means reviewers can access courses and provide feedback directly in their web browser. There’s no app to download, install, or run past an IT department—all reviewers need is the link to a project to access the content. And they don’t even need to have an account to provide feedback. To leave a comment in Review 360, reviewers simply need to provide an email address. 2. They get to experience the course like a learner. Reviewing a course without interacting with it—like in the case of a Word document version of a project—leaves room for confusion and misunderstanding. If reviewers can’t click, tap, and swipe through the course, how can they get a feel for the course flow? And if there are multimedia elements included—like audio or video—how can reviewers preview them? Review 360 solves those issues by allowing reviewers to go through courses just as a learner would, so nothing gets missed. They can take quizzes, run through scenarios, and watch videos—giving them a clearer picture of the learning experience. 3. It clarifies their feedback by adding context. Instead of reviewing a project in an LMS and providing feedback in a document or via email, Review 360 lets stakeholders do everything in one spot. And what’s even better, screenshots accompany all comments, so course creators know exactly what reviewers were seeing at that exact moment in time. This means that instead of toggling between screens or spending time trying to explain which part of the course their feedback relates to, reviewers can focus on the course content. 4. It makes it easy to provide course creators with additional resources. Reviewers can also add attachments to any comments they make. This makes it easy to point course creators to other resources and files—like a replacement image—to save time and reduce confusion. 5. It removes extra steps from the review process. Thanks to built-in notifications, the course creator receives an alert when a reviewer leaves a comment. That way reviewers don’t have to worry about letting them know there’s feedback to check out. And because reviewers receive notifications when someone replies, it’s easy to know when others react to comments or provide updates. 6. They can easily loop in other team members. Sometimes reviewers need a second pair of eyes—or even a third—to take a look at something. Thanks to the ability to tag others in comments by @ mentioning them, it’s easy to loop folx into a conversation in Review 360. By tagging other reviewers or course creators in a comment, everyone can collaborate and brainstorm in one spot—and Review 360 documents their ideas for future reference. 7. They can view every version of a course in one spot. As you incorporate feedback into a project, you can publish new versions of the project to the same review link. This saves reviewers from having to track down a new URL each time there’s a new version to check out. Instead, they can bookmark a single Review 360 link and refer to it whenever there’s an update to the course. But the old versions and their comments aren’t deleted—Review 360 keeps track of the version history. Thanks to this feature, reviewers can compare prior versions of the course to the current version and see how the content has evolved. Wrap-Up Next time you have a project that needs reviewing, publish it to Review 360! Without downloading an app or logging into an LMS, reviewers get the full course experience and can focus their time and energy on providing feedback rather than tracking down links or sending countless emails. And as a course creator, you’ll benefit from quick and contextual feedback—freeing you up to focus on all the other things on your to-do list! What are your favorite things about Review 360? Share your thoughts in a comment below. And to learn even more about collecting and providing feedback on e-learning, check out these helpful articles: How Stakeholders Review Projects in Review 360 Still Publishing to Word for Your SME Reviews? Here’s How and Why to Transition to Review 360 Who Should Review Your E-Learning Course Before Launch? 5 Steps to an Easier E-Learning Course Review Process Want to try Review 360, but don’t have Articulate 360? Start a free 30-day trial.And subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest product updates, e-learning examples, and expert advice directly in your inbox.4 Things You’ll Love About the Enhanced Review 360 Dashboard
As a former e-learning designer and project manager, I know how hard it can be to stay on top of things when you’re working on many different courses at once. And that’s why I’m so excited about the enhanced Review 360 dashboard —because it makes managing projects faster and easier than ever. Let me walk you through some of my favorite things about it. 1. Organize Your Dashboard You’ve always been able to organize your review items into folders. But with this enhancement, you have more control over what your dashboard looks like. That’s because now when you move a project to a custom folder, it disappears from the top level folder (called Personal). This gives you more options for making the dashboard your own. For example, if you want easy access to courses currently in stakeholder review, you can leave them in the main folder while moving other projects to specific folders. Or, you can organize all your courses into folders from the get-go so you’re left with the Review 360 equivalent of inbox zero. So satisfying! Whatever you decide, I’m sure you’ll enjoy having the power to make this dashboard your own. 2. Create Subfolders Another helpful feature of the enhanced dashboard is the ability to create subfolders. It allows you to get more granular when organizing your projects, so it’s easy to find what you’re looking for. For example, you can organize your review items by topic and subtopic. Or by topic and audience, if you’re creating multiple versions of a course. Or even by client and project, as shown below: It’s up to you to decide what makes the most sense! But no matter what you choose, having this level of control over the way you organize your review items will help you easily find what you’re looking for—even months or years later when your memory might not be as fresh. 3. Move Multiple Courses at Once Speaking of getting organized, you might be wondering how much time it’ll take to sort all your existing Review 360 content into these new subfolders. Thanks to this feature, the answer is not much! That’s because now you can select and move multiple courses at once. To do that, simply hover over each course tile, check the box on the top left, select the Move icon from the menu next to the search field, and choose the folder you want to organize them into. Easy-peasy! 4. Share Content Without Opening a Course When you’re busy, every click counts. That’s why I love that I can now grab a link to share with my stakeholders directly from the dashboard—without having to open the course. And you can too! Simply select the ellipsis on the dashboard and choose Share Settings to edit who can view your item and to easily copy the URL to your clipboard. So handy! Especially if you need to grab multiple course links at once. Wrap-Up I hope you’re as excited as I am about the new and improved Review 360 dashboard. Eager to try these enhancements yourself? If you’re an Articulate 360 subscriber, simply log into your account to explore them further. Don’t have a subscription? You can sign up for a free 30-day trial to try out the updates that just launched and those that are coming soon. Want to hear more about the latest Articulate 360 features? Check out the articles below: Don’t Miss These New Articulate 360 Features 4 New Accessibility Features to Better Serve Your Learners Create the E-Learning Courses of Your Dreams With These New Customization Features And if this update made you curious about what other features are currently in the works, be sure to bookmark the Articulate 360 Feature Roadmap and check it regularly.4 Best Practices to Ensure a Smooth Review Process
Having a second set of eyes on your e-learning content can go a long way toward helping to ensure you’re putting out quality content. However, the review process can quickly become complicated, drawn-out, and tedious if you don’t follow some core best practices. Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) who leave conflicting comments and reviewers who take weeks to provide their feedback are just some of the headaches you might have to contend with. Here are a few things to remember the next time you embark on an e-learning project that will include reviews. Settle On a Review Process Up Front One key thing you can do is identify what the review process will be up front, during the project planning phase. You want to get an idea of what the process will involve, who the reviewers are, and how many rounds of feedback and edits you will be expected to carry out. You want to make sure everyone is on board and understands their role in the review cycle. For a typical project, you can expect to include at least one to three rounds of review. Minimize Amount of Reviewers You’ve probably heard the expression “too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the broth.” It means too many people adding their input to one thing can ruin it. The same can happen when you have too many reviewers. When your list of reviewers is lengthy, you’re more likely to get conflicting input from various reviewers that you’ll have to sort out. It can also affect your timelines: the more reviewers you add to the mix, the longer it will likely take for you to get the feedback. Additionally, some reviewers feel they need to leave their “two cents” even if they don’t have any particularly useful feedback to share, which leaves you to sift through unhelpful comments. When you’re choosing reviewers, make sure you choose the right people who will provide the valuable feedback you need. Provide Guidance to Reviewers “I don’t like the color of the shirt that the man in the stock image is wearing.” This is real feedback I’ve seen before. One way to minimize useless or unimportant feedback is to provide guidance to your reviewers on what they should be looking for while they review your content. If they’re only reviewing content for factual errors or inconsistencies, let them know. If they’re supposed to be on the lookout for typos and spelling mistakes, spell that out (pun intended!) for them. Give Reviewers a Deadline Have you ever sent a course to someone for review and they say “Yeah, I’ll get to it!”... then you still haven’t heard back two weeks later? We’ve all been there. When you send a course over to a reviewer, include a clear due date by which you need to receive the feedback. Give reviewers a fair amount of time—this could be anything from a few days to a few weeks, depending on the reviewer and their workload. Following these simple best practices will help you streamline your review process and help you succeed on your next project. Do you have any tips of your own related to the review process? Let me know in the comments! Follow us on Twitter and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning. If you have any questions, please share them in the comments.
