Storyline 360: More Quizzing and Tracking Options

With the September 2020 update for Storyline 360, you get more ways to track learners’ progress and results. Check out these powerful new features.

• Expanded Quiz Tracking
• Track Multiple Completion Criteria
• Score Only Viewed Questions

Expanded Quiz Tracking

Let Storyline 360 keep track of every quiz in your course, then send results to your LMS/LRS for the first quiz each learner completes. Expanded quiz tracking is especially valuable when you want to create branches with different quizzes or allow learners to test out of courses by passing a pre-check assessment.

• Branching Courses: Create a branching course with a different quiz for each path. Even though you don’t know which path the learner will take, Storyline 360 will send results to your LMS/LRS for the quiz that the learner completes. For example, you might use the same course for doctors and nurses with a different quiz for each role.
• Pre-Checks: Give learners the opportunity to test out of a course. Offer a pre-check assessment at the beginning of the course. If the learner passes, their score gets reported to your LMS/LRS, and they don’t have to take the rest of the course. If the learner fails the pre-check, their score doesn’t get reported to your LMS/LRS, and the learner must take the course and a final quiz, which gets reported to your LMS/LRS.

While Storyline 360 only sends one quiz result to your LMS/LRS, you now have the freedom to make more than one quiz reportable. Here’s the key: The quiz result slide that executes its “submit results” trigger first is the one that gets tracked and scored in your LMS/LRS. This is what makes branching assessments and pre-checks possible.

About “Submit Results” Triggers

Previously, Storyline 360 generated a “submit results” trigger on every result slide. However, these triggers didn’t actually submit results to an LMS/LRS unless they were on the specific result slide that you chose to track when you published the course.

Now, Storyline 360 only generates “submit results” triggers on pre-checks and final assessments. And quizzes with “submit results” triggers are automatically added to your LMS/LRS tracking options, allowing Storyline 360 to send results to your LMS/LRS for the first quiz each learner completes.

Why are my “submit results” triggers disabled?

In existing project files, untracked quizzes and combined result slides have disabled "submit results" triggers, since the triggers are unnecessary. To re-enable the triggers on untracked quizzes (knowledge checks), simply change the quiz type to Final Assessment or Pre-Check. Another option is to click the lightning bolt icon in your LMS/LRS tracking options or in the triggers panel.

In new project files, untracked quizzes and combined result slides don’t have “submit results” triggers at all.

Choose a Quiz Type

To take advantage of expanded quiz tracking, select a quiz type for each result slide in your course. Here’s how. Open a result slide, go to the Result Tools—Design tab on the ribbon, and choose one of these quiz types:

• Final Assessment: This is the default quiz type. It creates a standard “submit results” trigger on the result slide. A final assessment can be scored and tracked by your LMS/LRS, and it’s automatically added to your LMS/LRS tracking options.
• Pre-Check: This quiz type creates a conditional “submit results” trigger, which depends on the learner passing the quiz. A pre-check quiz can be scored and tracked by your LMS/LRS only if the learner passes. If they fail, the quiz won’t get reported to your LMS/LRS, and the learner has an opportunity to pass a final assessment later in the course. Pre-checks are automatically added to your LMS/LRS tracking options. (Even though a failed pre-check doesn’t get reported, the question data still gets submitted to the LMS/LRS. Depending on your LMS/LRS, you might be able to see how a learner responded to a failed pre-check.)
• Knowledge Check: This quiz type isn’t scored or tracked by your LMS/LRS. Therefore, a “submit results” trigger isn’t created. A knowledge check simply gives the learner an opportunity to test their knowledge and reinforce what they learned.

Why does the ribbon show a quiz type of Custom or Combined?

If you manually add multiple “submit results” triggers to the same result slide or add conditions to a “submit results” trigger, the quiz type on the ribbon changes to Custom. Custom quizzes can be scored and tracked by your LMS/LRS, and they’re automatically added to your LMS/LRS tracking options.

If you combine two or more result slides into a final result slide, the quiz type changes to Combined for each of the child quizzes. Combined quizzes don’t have “submit results” triggers. However, they can be scored and tracked by your LMS/LRS using the final, combined result slide.

Track Multiple Completion Criteria

You’ve always been able to track one completion method for each Storyline 360 course. Now you can give learners more than one way to complete a course. Let your LMS/LRS mark the course complete as soon as learners view a certain number of slides, finish a quiz, or reach a completion trigger. 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. (Only one option gets sent to the LMS/LRS, even if a learner completes multiple criteria.)

For example, you might track a pre-check assessment at the beginning of the course and a completion trigger at the end. If the learner passes the pre-check, their result gets sent to your LMS/LRS, and they can skip the rest of the course. If they fail the pre-check, their result doesn’t get sent to your LMS/LRS, they have to go through all the course content, and the completion trigger at the end will be sent to your LMS/LRS instead.

We made several improvements to the Storyline 360 tracking options (shown above), including the ability to choose multiple completion criteria. Read on for details.

A New Way to Access Tracking Options

In the past, you could only access tracking options when you published a project. Now, you can access tracking options at any time during course development right from the ribbon. On any result slide, go to the Result Tools—Design tab on the ribbon and click LMS / LRS Tracking.

Select Your Tracking Options

You can choose any combination of tracking options, including slides viewed, quizzes, and completion triggers. Simply mark the boxes for the options you want and customize them to your liking, as described in the following sections. Note that:

• You must select at least one tracking option to publish for LMS/LRS distribution.

If a learner completes multiple criteria, do they all get sent to the LMS/LRS?

No. Only one option gets sent to the LMS/LRS, even if a learner completes multiple criteria. The first tracking option that the learner completes is the one that gets sent to the LMS/LRS.

Tracking Slides Viewed

Previously, you had to choose a specific number of slides that you wanted to track. Now, you can track a percentage or a fixed number of slides.

You also get to choose which slides get tracked:

• All the slides in your project (this is the default)
• Only the slides listed in the player menu minus any slides you excluded from slide numbers
• All the slides in your project minus any slides you excluded from slide numbers

Tracking Quizzes

Before September 2020, you could only track a single quiz in a project. Now, you can track multiple quizzes, allowing Storyline 360 to send results to your LMS/LRS for the first quiz each learner completes. It’s perfect for a branching course with different quizzes when you don’t know ahead of time which path or quiz the learner will take. Another use case is when you want to allow learners to test out of a course by passing a pre-check or require them to take a final assessment if they fail the pre-check.

Add Quizzes to Be Tracked

Quiz tracking is based on the “submit results” triggers in your project. If a result slide has a “submit results” trigger, that quiz automatically gets added to your tracking options. Pre-checks, final assessments, and custom quizzes all have “submit results” triggers, and they all get tracked.

Knowledge checks don’t have “submit results” triggers and aren’t tracked. However, you can easily make them trackable by adding them to your tracking options. Here’s how:

1. In your tracking options, click Add tracked quiz. (If it’s grayed-out, there aren’t any knowledge checks to add.)
2. Mark the boxes for the quizzes you want to add.
3. Click away from the drop-down list or press Enter to accept your changes.

Disable and Enable “Submit Results” Triggers

You can disable “submit results” triggers in your tracking options by clicking the lightning bolt icon in front of a quiz. The quiz remains in your tracking options but doesn’t get tracked. Click the lightning bolt again to re-enable “submit results” triggers and resume tracking the quiz.

Change a Quiz Type

Want to change a quiz type without closing the Reporting and Tracking Options window? Use the drop-down list for the quiz to choose Pre-Check or Final Assessment. You’ll also see a Custom quiz type if the result slide has multiple “submit results” triggers or if a “submit results” trigger has conditions.

Stop Tracking a Quiz

Click the garbage bin icon next to a quiz to remove it from your tracking options and delete the “submit results” triggers from the result slide.

Quiz Tracking Options Stay in Sync with “Submit Results” Triggers

Storyline 360 keeps your quiz tracking options in sync with your “submit results” triggers.

For example, if you disable or re-enable a quiz in your tracking options, the “submit results” trigger on that result slide also gets disabled or re-enabled. Likewise, if you add or remove a quiz in your tracking options, the “submit results” trigger on that result slide gets added or removed. And if you change a quiz type in your tracking options, the “submit results” trigger on that result slide gets updated accordingly.

The same is also true in reverse. Changes you make to your “submit results” triggers update your tracking options too.

Tracking Completion Triggers

There are no changes around tracking completion triggers. Triggers allow you to control precisely when a course is marked complete. You can add as many completion triggers as you want to slides and layers throughout your project.

Score Only Viewed Questions

Allow learners to skip quiz questions without negatively affecting their score by grading only the questions they view. Now it’s even easier to create branching quizzes without needing extra variables or triggers to track which questions the learner visited.

For example, you might branch learners to different questions based on their answers to previous questions, which means they could skip some questions along the way. No problem. Just score the ones they viewed. Here’s how:

1. On your result slide, go to the Result Tools—Design tab on the ribbon and click Quiz Settings.
2. Mark the box to Only score viewed questions.
3. Click OK.

Unviewed Questions vs. Unanswered Questions

Unviewed questions and unanswered questions are treated differently. When you score only the questions learners view, they won’t be penalized for questions they don't see. However, if learners visit questions and then skip them without answering, those questions will count against their quiz score.

Bonus: We also redesigned the Quiz Settings window (shown above) so you can create quizzes faster. Now you can select and deselect all the questions in a scene at the same time. You can also change your quiz type.