Upcoming Articulate 360 Training Webinars
Stay ahead of the curve with our free Articulate 360 Training webinars. These weekly sessions are designed to help busy course creators like you enhance your e-learning skills without investing too much time. As an Articulate 360 subscriber, you can grow your expertise through targeted training on the latest techniques and best practices – all at no additional cost. And if you want to view some on-demand training to view at your own time, visit the Articulate 360 training site to see what's available. Check out our upcoming webinars and level up your e-learning game. If you can't attend, that's OK. We record all of the sessions, so just sign up and you'll get a recording emailed to you. Date Title December 17, 2024 ✨ Overview of AI Assistant in Storyline December 17, 2024 ✨ AI Assistant & Rise: Smart Strategies for Efficient E-Learning December 17, 2024 Using Dials to Create Menu Navigation in Storyline 360 December 17, 2024 How to Build Compliance Training in Rise 360 Not yet an Articulate 360 subscriber? Sign up for a 30-day free trial and check out as many as you’d like. And if the live webinar time doesn’t work for you, no worries! Simply sign up anyway and you’ll receive the recording in your inbox so you can watch it whenever you have time. Hope to see you at one of our upcoming webinars!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 them authors 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 video for a brief overview and check out this article for details on managing users, groups, and admins. Manage Team Slides and Block Templates Admins who have user seats can rename and delete all Storyline 360 team slides and Rise 360 shared block templates. This is helpful when the original content owners aren’t available to make changes. Transfer Content 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 our single 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, 22+ million 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!All the Best E-Learning Heroes Content from 2023 in One Place
As we wind down 2023 and look ahead to all the things to come in 2024, now is the perfect time to catch up on the most popular content shared in the E-Learning Heroes Community in 2023. To save you time, we’ve rounded up the best of the best for your review. You’ll also find a comprehensive list of the 102+ new and enhanced features we released to Articulate 360 in 2023, in case you missed any. 7 Most Popular Rise 360 Examples of 2023 7 Most Popular Storyline 360 Examples & Downloads of 2023 Check Out the 102+ Articulate 360 Features We Released in 2023 10 Most Popular E-Learning Heroes Articles of 2023 Best of E-Learning Challenges 2023 10 Most Popular Rise 360 Placeholder Content Templates of 2023 10 Most Popular Rise 360 Real-Content Templates of 2023 All 12 Quick Tips & Tricks Webinars From 2023 And if we missed any of your favorite content, please let us know in the comments below. Subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest e-learning inspiration and insights directly in your inbox. You can also find us on LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter). And if you have questions, please share them in the comments.11 New Articulate 360 Features To Celebrate
We’re adding tons of new or enhanced features to Articulate 360—all inspired by suggestions from you, our community. Divided into three core themes—easier collaboration, enhanced quality, and faster distribution—these Articulate 360 features will make it easier than ever to keep up with your organization’s training demands. Features marked with (Beta) will be or already are available in our brand new beta program. Learn more about the beta program here. Let’s dive in! Collaboration Developers, SMEs, stakeholders, executives—creating effective courses takes a village. The good news is that organizing, sharing, and reviewing content just got easier thanks to these new features. Team Folders: Review 360 (Beta) and Rise 360—Coming Soon Instead of sharing each individual course, authors can now share folders of courses in Review 360—and soon in Rise 360 as well. This allows authors to manage who can see or edit content in each folder. It also means multiple authors can publish a course to the same Review 360 link, so you never lose track of your comments. Request Review (Beta) This feature lets you send and track review requests directly from Review 360. So you and your reviewers can easily see the status and due date for every project. The review process has never been easier! Learn more here: Review 360: Request Review. Integrated Comments (Beta) Now, instead of switching back and forth between your authoring app and Review 360, you can see both at the same time. With the integrated comments panel, you can see and respond to comments directly in Storyline 360 and Rise 360. So handy! Enhanced Rise 360 Dashboard Management (Beta)—Coming Soon Bookmarks, nested folders, and bulk content management are just some of the ways we're improving your Rise 360 dashboard. Whether you have one course or a thousand, you’ll be able to optimize your content organization with these new features. Quality We’re continuing to invest in Storyline 360 performance and quality to boost reliability and efficiency—for a smoother and more enjoyable course creation experience. Storyline 360 Bug Fixes From faster performance to improved support for zoomed images, animated GIFs, background audio, and high-resolution screen recordings, these fixes are sure to make your workflow even easier. For more details, see our full version history. Storyline 360 Cloud Backup (Beta)—Coming Soon With cloud backup, you’ll be able to access your Storyline 360 files anywhere, anytime. You’ll simply upload source files to Review 360 to view earlier versions and help ensure your latest file won’t be lost. New Realistic Illustrated Characters—Coming Soon We’re working on three new realistic characters in casual clothing for Content Library 360. Stay tuned! Distribution Meet your learners wherever they work with these new Reach 360 distribution features. Slack Integration Now you can quickly send your learners enrollment notifications and remind them of due dates using Slack integration. Authors can also share rich previews of their courses and notify admins when they’re submitted for publishing. Check out this article for more details: Connecting Reach 360 and Slack. QR Code Registration—Coming Soon New users will be able to register for your training anywhere thanks to this QR code feature. Direct Content Sharing Users can access content with links and QR codes, making it easy to integrate training into the flow of work. Learn more here: Reach 360: Sharing Training. Separate Admins for Reach 360 (Beta)—Coming Soon This feature will allow users to assign different Reach 360 roles, differentiating between 360-wide admins and Reach 360-only admins. Wrap-Up We hope you’re as excited about these new features and enhancements as we are! And if you have ideas for future features, we want to hear from you. With Articulate’s brand-new beta program, also releasing this quarter, you can share even more feedback with us. We want your help in developing tools that truly fit your needs. Click here to learn more about the beta program. Excited to try these features 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 sent directly to your inbox. If you have questions, please share them in the comments.Check Out the 102+ Articulate 360 Features We Released in 2023
Brand-new features in Articulate 360 can help you create a broader range of exciting learning experiences. And enhancements to existing features can streamline your design and development processes, making course creation even easier. But when apps evolve constantly, it’s not always easy to see just how much has changed over time. That’s why we’ve collected the 102+ new and enhanced features released in 2023 in this one handy article! Take a look at how much our apps have progressed over the past 12 months to see if there are any useful updates you might have missed. Storyline 360 Rise 360 Content Library 360 Review 360 Reach 360 Articulate 360 Desktop App Articulate 360 Teams Storyline 360 64-Bit Version of Storyline Harness the processing power in modern computers with a 64-bit version of Storyline 360. Large, media-rich courses benefit from increased stability and faster performance. Video Playback Speed Let learners explore at their own pace by choosing a course playback speed between 0.25x and 2x. Closed Captioning Boost video accessibility by including closed captions when publishing projects as MP4 video files. Adaptive Streaming Video With streaming video support, deliver video content to all learners, regardless of their internet speed. Accessible Feedback Layers Empower learners with accessible question feedback layers that meet color, contrast, and focus guidelines by default. Publish Storyline 360 Courses to Reach 360 Publish Storyline 360 courses directly to Reach 360—a lightweight distribution tool to deploy your e-learning content to more learners, including deskless workers, contractors, and customers. Video Transcripts Generate synchronized video transcripts from closed captions so visual content is accessible to all learners, including those who rely on screen readers, use braille displays, or prefer to read. Background Audio Create immersive experiences with continuous background audio that sets the tone and keeps learners engaged. Learners can turn off background audio if they prefer. In-App Review Comments Speed the review process and never miss crucial feedback with in-app comments. Review 360 comments appear in context as you’re working in Storyline 360, so you can act on stakeholder feedback immediately. Reply to comments and resolve them in real time as you create content. Add images from comments to training with a single click. Cloud Backup Access your Storyline 360 project files from anywhere and share them with team members by uploading your source files to Review 360. Rest easy knowing your projects are backed up, making previous versions easy to recover. Improved File AutoRecovery Fix project files that won’t open with the help of strengthened Storyline 360 recovery capabilities. Live Caption Support in Google Chrome Make use of Live Captions while taking Storyline 360 courses in Google Chrome. Updated Default Fonts Access the latest versions of several fonts that get installed with Storyline 360. Enhanced Player Properties Enjoy easier access to the modern player controls (play/pause, volume, etc.) and player tabs (menu, glossary, etc.) checkboxes now that they’re all left-aligned. Streaming Video Support for Videos in 360° Images Make use of the streaming video feature for videos in 360° images. Create Time-Based Triggers Create time-based triggers in minutes and seconds instead of having to convert values to seconds only. Feedback Master Quickly apply a feedback master to multiple question slides simultaneously. Upgraded Embedded Version of Chromium Benefit from Chromium 112.0.5615.165 in Storyline 360. Insert Web Videos Insert web videos using relative paths. High-Res Animated GIFs Give learners the best visual experience possible with high-resolution animated GIF support. Wrap Text Ensure text in data-entry fields wraps more easily using the wrap text option instead of having to increase the height to be more than 60 pixels. Optional “Lost Connectivity” Alert Let your learners know when they lose their connection with this optional alert you can turn on in the player properties. Faster Trigger Wizard Performance on Macs Enjoy better trigger wizard performance on M-series Macs. Set Your Cover Photo To Fill the Player Frame Easily set your cover photo to fill the player frame in the player properties. Screen Recording on Primary and Secondary Monitors Record your screen on primary and secondary monitors with DPI settings over 100%. Full-Screen Storyline Block Display Display Storyline blocks in Rise 360 full screen on mobile devices when player controls are turned off. Display Crisp Text and Images Display crisp text and images in embedded web objects by unchecking the scaling option. Background Audio in Video Output Include background audio in published video output. Turn Player Navigation Elements On or Off Control how learners navigate submitted quiz questions by turning player navigation elements on or off. Neural Voices Generate realistic, natural-sounding text-to-speech narration with neural voices. New Neural Voices (US English) Enjoy two new English (US) neural voices options, Danielle and Gregory, for text-to-speech conversion. Icons and Text Displayed in Player For new projects that use the modern player, navigation buttons now display both icons and text by default. You can still switch to just icons or text instead. Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) Support Unlock new possibilities for text-to-speech audio. Use SSML to adjust the speaking rate, modify pronunciation, emphasize words, add pauses, and more. Fixed Positions for Modern Player Controls Make it even easier for learners to interact with your course thanks to fixed control positions at the bottom of the player. Text Wrapping Easier Benefit from an improved user interface for text-entry fields text-wrapping options. Enhanced Button Accessibility Provide learners with a more accessible experience now that the “Back to Top” and “Skip Navigation” buttons and the volume slider meet color contrast guidelines. Control Background Audio with Triggers Control the background audio for each slide using triggers to play, pause, or stop the playlist. Tooltips Available Display tooltips that are accessible to mouse, keyboard, and screen reader users automatically using the built-in player controls and navigation buttons. Fine-Tune Background Audio Customize the background audio experience even further by fine-tuning the volume with a percentage-based variable. Rise 360 Microlearning Deliver bite-size, single-objective content with the Microlearning feature. Turn Off the Cover Page Turn off the cover page when you publish for LMS to improve compatibility, streamline training, and get learners into content faster. Theme Color Contrast Use theme color contrast to instantly ensure training content meets accessible color handling requirements for learners with low vision. Turn Off Lesson Headers Turn off lesson headers to provide a more focused learning experience. Reply To and Resolve Review 360 Comments Reply to and resolve Review 360 comments from within Rise 360 and add suggested images with a single click. Block Contrast Settings Automatically adjust the contrast of text and graphics at the block level or select your own contrast with block contrast settings. Enhanced Block Settings Customize your blocks with distinctive backgrounds and easily adjust padding options with enhanced block settings. Team Folders Create shared team folders to organize your team’s content, assign permissions, and invite collaborators. Enhanced Dashboard Management Organize and keep track of what’s important to you more easily with the enhanced dashboard. New Real Content Course Templates Get even more great content out to learners fast with new additions to our library of real content course templates. In 2023 we added new courses and microlearning experiences on topics like exercise, forming healthy habits, Black History Month, discussing disabilities in the workplace, and more! New Placeholder Content Course Templates Jump-start course creation with even more placeholder content course templates. New additions include course outlines on equity compensation conversations and sales order management processes. Publish Rise 360 Courses to Reach 360 Publish Rise 360 courses directly to Reach 360—an add-on to Articulate 360 that lets you quickly distribute training, enroll learners, and track their progress. Specify an Admin When Publishing to Reach 360 Get the right eyes on your course when publishing it to Reach 360 by selecting a specific admin to notify from a searchable drop-down menu. Quote Block Accessibility Improvements Give all your learners a better experience with accessibility improvements for quote blocks. WCAG 2.1 Conformant Process Blocks Include process blocks in your accessible courses now that they’re WCAG 2.1 conformant with improved keyboard navigation and screen reader support. Translate Labels for Screen Readers Broaden your impact and enhance accessibility by translating screen reader labels into other languages. Added Labels for Sidebar Progress Indicator Enhance localization and accessibility with labels for sidebar progress indicator tooltips. Default Text Color Improve accessibility conformance on new courses without lifting a finger by leaving the default text color, which is now true black. Skip Video Compression Add _NOPROCESS_ to a video file name to skip compression when uploading it to your course. Exported Training Destinations Quickly select a destination for your exported training with the Rise 360 dashboard publish menu. Cover Page Overlay Setting Use the Overlay setting to preserve both image clarity and text readability by choosing a light or dark translucent overlay for your cover photo that automatically maximizes text contrast. Links in Button and Button Stack Blocks Use relative links in button and button stack blocks to link to training within your subdomain. Theme Color Selector Use the Theme setting in the block element color picker to quickly select your training’s theme color. Logo Size Options Crop your logo to decrease white space and increase its size to customize your cover page branding. Quiz and Labeled Graphics No Longer Animate Protect those with motion disorders automatically now that quiz and labeled graphics items no longer animate when learners enable reduced motion settings on their devices. Rise 360 Images Marked as Decorative by Default Mark images as decorative automatically when you leave alt text for an image blank so it’s ignored by screen readers. Block Background Images Randomly Selected Enjoy a wider variety of default block background images now that they’re randomly selected on a block-by-block basis. Progression Arrows Remain Visible on Zoom Give all learners a better experience now that labeled graphic progression arrows remain visible when zoomed in or viewed on a mobile device. Split Block Design Menu Apply design settings to blocks more easily now that we’ve split the block design menu into two new menus: Style and Format. Updated Placeholder Content Templates Enjoy the new and improved placeholder content templates, a makeover where you’ll notice that the “lorem ipsum” text has been replaced with instructional and sample content. To improve accessibility, we’ve removed italicized formatting. We’ve also updated block design throughout the templates to take advantage of recent Rise 360 formatting enhancements. Linked Block Padding Add a custom value for top and bottom block padding at the same time using the linked padding option. 4k Video Support Boost course video quality with the ability to upload 4k videos to Rise 360. Content Library 360 Thousands of New Images Find the perfect royalty-free photos for your online training even more easily with the addition of hundreds of thousands more high-resolution images from Pexels. New Illustrated Characters Represent a greater variety of learners with six new illustrated characters: Eduardo, Camila, Mike, Shanae, Don, and Wren. Review 360 Request Review Keep your team on track without the hassle of spreadsheets or phone calls thanks to the request review feature. 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. Team Folders Create shared team folders in 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. Comments Only Allowed on Current Versions of Courses Keep teams in sync by preventing stakeholders from accidentally adding new comments to old versions of a content item. Enhanced Dashboard Quickly and intuitively organize your Review 360 dashboard with nested folders, subfolder breadcrumbs, an action toolbar, and more project management efficiencies. You can even multi-select items and folders, then move them in bulk. Learn more about the enhanced dashboard. Review Status Labels Allow stakeholders to reset their status after completing a review for more flexibility. Send Bulk Review Requests Send a request to multiple reviewers simultaneously by copying and pasting their email addresses in bulk. Text-Formatting Toolbar in Request Review Send engaging review request messages with the new text-formatting toolbar. Content Privacy Settings Control access to your content by making your Review 360 items private while still allowing invited stakeholders to offer feedback. Reach 360 Reach 360 Launched Reach 360 launched! Reach 360 is a frictionless LMS that integrates with Articulate 360 so you can easily deliver training to more learners. Group Self-Registration Simplify learner management by generating a sign-up link that automatically adds your learners into a group. API Integrations Use the Reach 360 API to build custom integrations with your business systems, giving your team access to valuable training and data where they need it most. Connect Reach 360 and Zapier Automate your work and streamline your productivity by adding Reach 360 to your Zapier workflows (currently in beta). Custom Domain Brand your Reach 360 URL with a custom domain you own. Owner Role The purchaser of your Articulate 360 Teams subscription is now listed as the Owner in Reach 360. Improved Group Member Lists Improve performance with paginated group member lists that display 50 members per page. Bulk Delete Learners Use true “select all” to bulk delete learners, even every learner, from your Reach 360 account. Active Learner Usage Report At a glance, see how many users have logged in to your Reach 360 account with the Active Learner Usage report. Bulk Delete Members Bulk delete members, even every member, from a group with “select all.” Bulk Import Bulk import and delete group members via CSV. Connect with Slack Connect Reach 360 and Slack so you can share course previews and get in-app training notifications. Share Content with QR Code Share specific training items directly with learners via URL or QR code. Learning Path QR Code Allow users to directly access a learning path—and self-register as a new learner if necessary—with a QR code. Self-Registration QR Code Allow users to self-register as new learners or group members using a QR code. Custom Certificates Create and manage custom certificates. SSO for Learners Enable SSO for your Reach 360 learners directly from your Reach 360 settings. Manage Groups and Users with SSO Use SSO to manage learners and groups, allowing them to quickly access training using one set of log-in credentials. Users API Endpoint Delete users from training with this Users API endpoint. Reach 360 API Quiz Data Enhancement Include quiz data in the course.completed event type for Webhook Events in the Reach 360 API. Sortable Activity Report Column Quickly check completion status with a sortable column in the activity report. Separate Admins for Reach 360 Enjoy more organizational options by defining separate admins for Reach 360. Enhanced User Role Management Streamline Reach 360 user management to include learners and admins only. Reporter Access Delegate training analytics by assigning reporters who only have access to detailed reports for specific groups of learners. Custom Certificate Settings Select a custom certificate to be the default certificate for your Reach 360 training. Default Direct Sharing Direct sharing is enabled by default for all new content published to your Reach 360 library. Articulate 360 Desktop App Improved Error Reporting Resolve issues faster with updated error reporting. Articulate 360 Teams Retain Shared Content Maintain control over shared content when a member leaves the team. Wrap-Up As you can see, 2023 was a big year with lots of exciting updates to the Articulate 360 apps. You can see what’s up next by checking out our feature roadmap page. Want to try out some of these features, but don’t have Articulate 360 just yet? Start a free 30-day trial, and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning.Video Highlights of Our Favorite New Articulate 360 Features
We’ve added so many useful features to Articulate 360 in the past quarter. But there are a few we’ve been especially excited to share with you! In this video, check out some of the biggest game-changers that came out in the past few months. Want to do a deeper dive into a feature you saw in the video, 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 sent directly to your inbox. If you have questions, please share them in the comments.Project Management Tools & Techniques
Struggling with managing your e-learning projects? Feeling overwhelmed by the expectations of your training clients? Not sure how to get and stay organized? You’re not alone. The struggle is real, my friends. Thankfully, loads of free tools and techniques exist to help with the daunting task of organizing, planning, and managing e-learning projects. In this article, I’d like to unpack a few of those tools in the context of a typical e-learning project workflow—from kickoff to execution. Along the way, I’ll hook you up with some freebies to save you a little time and help you get your next e-learning project off to a winning start. Let’s dive in! Kickoff Most training projects start with a request—often from the training audience, managers, or executives. And when you get those requests, it might seem like the next logical step is to start formulating a project plan (or maybe just dive into designing a course); but is that really the smartest way to go? One tool that could save you some agony down the line is a project charter. A charter is a tool you can use before you even assemble a project plan. Project Charter A project charter is a document that serves to align expectations and gain authorization from project stakeholders and the organization’s leadership for the project to move forward. A charter also lays out who the stakeholders are, the scope of the work to be performed, and provides some definition around the deliverables, schedule, and budget. In many settings, a project charter is the norm—developed by the person or department paying for the project. But if it’s not the norm in your environment, a charter may be worth asking for. Charters can be especially helpful if you find yourself routinely saddled with projects that are ill-defined or lacking in broad support from your leadership. And while there are many free online project charter templates online, I love this simple but effective E-Learning Course Development Agreement template from Jeanette Brooks. Planning The planning phase of a project is where you’ll start to dig into the crucial details that will help you manage all aspects of your training project—everything from detailed requirements and stakeholder expectations to timelines and budget. You don’t necessarily need to crank up fancy project planning software to create a robust project plan. I find that simple tools generally do the trick, as long as they’re not too time-consuming to keep up-to-date. If you’re looking to streamline your project management duties, here’s a rundown of some free and easy planning tools that can make your life a whole lot easier. Estimating Tools Sometimes, before we even get into the weeds of planning, clients ask us to provide a detailed estimate of how much time or money is needed to create their e-learning course. If you’d like to provide them with something a bit more accurate than an educated guess, check out tools like this E-Learning Project Estimates Worksheet from Richard Watson and this Course Seat Time Estimator from Mike Schwind. I’ve also found it helpful to track my time to get an estimate of how long it takes me to create various types of e-learning courses—from simple, linear courses to highly customized or gamified courses. There a loads of free time-tracking tools online, like MyHours or Toggl. Most offer simple ways to track how much time each task in a project takes you. The great thing about tracking your time is, eventually you'll see trends, giving you insights into your own productivity, ultimately helping you make more accurate estimates. Planning Tools The challenge with project plans is that assembling one isn’t a one-and-done activity. Projects are living and breathing animals, and “the plan” for completing a project, particularly one with a lot of complexity, inevitably evolves over time. In other words, plans change, so put some mechanisms and tools in place to make it easy on yourself to keep everyone in the loop and accountable for their piece of the project. Here are some simple tools I've found helpful: This Basic Project Management Plan is an easy-to-customize Word template that can be used to keep all the moving pieces easily cross-referenced for your project team. This Project Accountability Matrix Template from Holly MacDonald gives you a handy resource for documenting who’s accountable for what and, most important, a clear escalation path when the project hits a snag and needs someone with authority to make a decision to get things moving. Cross-reference it in your project plan. This Project Management Timeline is another easy-to-use tool—an Excel spreadsheet you can cross-reference in your project plan. (And of all the tools you’ll use as a project manager, this one is most apt to change frequently, so why not keep it simple, right?) Break down tasks and use some of Excel’s color fills to show the task duration. Easy-peasy. Execution In the execution phase, you’re putting your project plan into action. This is the portion of the project where you’re expending the most effort, balancing project management work with your course-authoring responsibilities. One of the trickiest aspects of the execution phase, from a project management perspective, is making sure you’ve got the resources you need for each activity in your project. For a project involving the creation of an e-learning course, this may involve making sure you’ve got reviewers lined up to provide feedback on your prototyped interactions, or allocating budget toward custom video if the project warrants it. The execution phase can be tricky (and tiring!) but, at the end of it all, you should have the project deliverables to show for your efforts. Here are some more free tools that can make this phase of the project go more smoothly: Does your course have a lot of interactive content? Storyboarding or prototyping right in your authoring tool can be a timesaver and a wonderful way to show stakeholders your progress. Nicole Legault wrote this nice article to show you how to do it in Storyline 2. When it comes time to get feedback on your deliverables, an E-Learning Course QA Template is one way to make sure your course functions well and fulfills the requirements identified during the kickoff and planning phases. Another tool for capturing feedback is Articulate Review—part of Articulate 360. Articulate Review is a web app that’s included in your Articulate 360 subscription. It lets you easily share published courses with reviewers and see their feedback, all in one spot. To learn more about Articulate Review, check out this quick video tutorial. More Learning Effectively managing e-learning projects doesn’t require a project management certification or a lot of expensive software. You’ll find that resources like E-Learning Heroes offer tons of free advice and support to help you manage your e-learning projects. For instance, check out these project management articles: How to Write Requirements for Your E-learning Project Five Project Management Tips for Creating Online Courses Best Practices for Effective E-Learning Project Management How to Manage E-Learning Project Scope Creep 4 E-Learning Project Management Mistakes and How to Fix Them What tools and techniques do you rely on for managing your e-learning projects? Have any pointers for project management noobs? Share your tips, tricks, and ideas with us in a comment, below. We’d also love for you to follow us on Twitter, where we post the latest and greatest news about everything e-learning. Want to try something you learned here, but don’t have Articulate software? Get a free 30-day trial of Articulate 360 to check out Storyline 360, Review, Content Library, and more. Also, be sure to come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything e-learning.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. Review 360 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 360 is selected by default. Under Properties, click on the hyperlinked text to the right of Publish. Now you can choose to publish 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 less toggling back and forth between Review 360 and my project file. And as I 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. Sometimes I even use Review 360 to leave 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 other parts 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 with Peek 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 for some 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 (...), and follow the 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!
