How to export SCORM from Storyline 360 so completion tracks

To export SCORM from Storyline 360, click Publish on the Home tab, select the LMS / LRS tab, open Reporting and Tracking, pick SCORM 1.2 or SCORM 2004 from Report to an LMS, choose an LMS Reporting option, mark a tracking option, then publish and click Zip. LMS Reporting is the setting that matters most: Articulate recommends Passed/Incomplete or Passed/Failed, the two most likely to record both a completion status and a success status in your LMS. If your course is already in the LMS, leave the Identifier exactly as it is.

Where is the SCORM export in Storyline 360?

In the Publish window: "Go to the Home tab on the ribbon and click Publish", then "select the LMS / LRS tab on the left".

Fill in 3 fields. Title is what learners see; it defaults to the title placeholder on your first slide, or to the project file name, and allows up to 80 characters. Description "won’t appear in your published output".

Folder is where Storyline 360 creates the course folder, and Articulate's tip is "Always publish to your local hard drive."

The Articulate article names 3 Properties, Player, Quality and Publish, and describes no output format choice; Publish sends the entire project, one scene or one slide. Your reporting and tracking choices sit behind one button, Reporting and Tracking.

Which publish settings decide tracking?

Which SCORM version goes in Report to an LMS?

The standard your LMS administrator names. Storyline 360 supports cmi5, xAPI (Tin Can API), SCORM 2004, SCORM 1.2 and AICC in Report to an LMS, and Articulate's advice is "Ask your LMS administrator if you’re not sure which standard to use." Articulate's troubleshooting article adds a tiebreaker: "the newest spec supported by your LMS".

For SCORM 2004, Articulate says Storyline 360 supports the 2nd, 3rd and 4th editions and recommends the 4th.

The SCORM standards give a suspend data length of 4,096 for SCORM 1.2 and 4,000 for 2004 2nd Edition, against 64,000 for 3rd and 4th. Storyline compresses that data, so you probably won't hit the limit. If your course seems to resume only up to a certain point, Articulate says to try SCORM 2004 3rd or 4th edition, xAPI or cmi5, if your LMS supports them.

SCORM 1.2 vs SCORM 2004 compares the versions in full. If your LMS takes xAPI or cmi5, Articulate rates those highest and there is no reporting choice to make; xAPI vs SCORM covers that switch.

Which LMS Reporting option should you pick?

Passed/Incomplete or Passed/Failed, unless your LMS requires a specific pair. The 4 options are Passed/Incomplete, Passed/Failed, Completed/Incomplete and Completed/Failed, and the setting is "the wording you want your LMS to display for learners’ statuses in reports". LMS Reporting appears for SCORM and AICC only.

The Passed pairs win because an LMS can track 2 statuses: completion, which is Complete or Incomplete, and success, which is usually Passed or Failed and sometimes Unknown.

SCORM 1.2 is also an aging standard, established in 2001. It only reports one status value, so LMSs must judge what that value means in order to record a completion status and a success status.

Articulate, "Storyline and Studio: How to Report Completion and Success Statuses to an LMS"

SCORM 2004 reports 2 values. With SCORM 2004 4th Edition you may see an Unknown success status until the learner completes the course, and Articulate says the status then changes to Passed or Failed.

Your reporting pair also sets what a completion trigger sends: "either Completed or Passed" for a positive trigger and "either Incomplete or Failed" for a negative one, "depending on the reporting status you select when you publish the course". Read from the pair names, a negative trigger under Passed/Incomplete would send Incomplete, and under Passed/Failed it would send Failed. Articulate does not spell the pairing out.

No Articulate page read for this article lists the exact SCORM values each pair writes, and "Each LMS, however, can interpret statuses differently (especially for SCORM 1.2 courses)".

The settings that decide what reaches your LMS:

The third column is this article's judgment, except the Report to an LMS rule, the Passed pairs, the 4th Edition, the Identifier rule and the launch window rule, which are Articulate's advice. "SCORM 2004 editions" is this article's label: the Articulate articles read name the editions but not where you choose one.

Which tracking option should you mark?

The one that matches how your course defines done. You can mark all three on the Tracking tab, but "Whichever option a learner completes first is the one that gets reported to your LMS/LRS". You must mark at least one to publish for LMS/LRS distribution.

• When the learner has viewed # slides. A percentage or a fixed number. You choose which slides count: all the slides in your project (the default), only the slides in the player menu minus any you excluded from slide numbers, or all the slides in your project minus any you excluded from slide numbers.
• When the learner completes a quiz. Grayed out until your course has a result slide. A Final Assessment, the default quiz type, is tracked; a Pre-Check is reported only if the learner passes; a Knowledge Check counts only if you add it with Add tracked quiz.
• Using triggers. Grayed out until your course has a completion trigger, which you build with the Complete course action. Add at least one positive trigger so learners can finish.

Storyline 360 still sends one result, "even if a learner completes multiple criteria". If your LMS accepts one status update per course, the first completion trigger the learner hits is recorded and the rest ignored.

If your course branches, check the slides viewed option: by default it counts all the slides in your project, and you set the target as a percentage or a fixed number. A learner on one branch may not open the other branch's slides.

Articulate does not spell out what that does to completion, so take this as a reading: a target the shortest path cannot reach would stop completion from firing on that path. Articulate's own branching examples use a different quiz on each path, with results sent for whichever one the learner completes, and completion triggers at the end of each path.

Write that definition down with your client before you publish. On a US home care course we built, it came from the client's own rules: a quiz mid-lesson and at the end of every lesson, and video that learners could speed up but never skip.

What are the Identifier and the title for?

The Identifier is "a unique string of characters assigned by Storyline 360 that your LMS/LRS uses to identify your course". You find it in 3 places: the project information behind the ellipsis button next to Title, the LMS Course Information section, and, for SCORM, the LMS Lesson SCORM Information section, whose Title and Identifier default to the course title. "This Identifier appears in the imsmanifest.xml file for your course."

On an update, leave the lesson Title and the Identifier alone: "If you’re republishing a course that’s already in your LMS/LRS, don’t change the values in these fields."

Articulate does not say what breaks if you change the Identifier, or which manifest element it fills. Moodle's SCORM FAQ documents a related cost: when the item identifier in a new manifest differs from the one it overwrites, "the tracking data for that SCORM package in Moodle is deleted". Neither page says whether Storyline's Identifier is that item identifier.

The Moodle steps are in How to upload a SCORM package to Moodle. Other LMSs were not checked, so ask yours before you replace a live package.

Which player settings break LMS playback?

Launch player in new window (creates launch page), under Home > Player > Other. The option adds a launcher.html file, and Articulate says it might be necessary if your course has exit triggers, since browsers stop a window from closing itself unless another page opened it.

The same Articulate article notes that "many LMSs automatically open courses in new windows". For that case the troubleshooting article says to disable the option: "Otherwise, your course won’t be able to communicate with your LMS and won’t work as expected." A saved player carries the setting into other projects, so check it on every LMS build.

Articulate calls an exit button optional but says "SCORM 2004 requires learners to fully exit the course for completion data to show in LMS reports", and to ask your LMS provider to be sure. In Storyline you add an "exit course" trigger to any slide, or place it on the player frame as a custom tab.

If your course fails in one browser only, start with How to fix a SCORM package blocked in Safari or Chrome.

What is inside the Storyline zip?

Multiple files and folders, two of which matter to the LMS. imsmanifest.xml carries the Identifier for SCORM. index_lms.html is the file to name if your LMS asks which one launches the course, and Articulate lists the same file for SCORM 1.2, SCORM 2004, AICC, cmi5 and xAPI.

The Publish Successful window offers View Project, Email, FTP, Zip and Open. Zip saves a zipped copy where you published the course, and Articulate calls it "the most common choice when you publish for LMS/LRS". If you unzip the output to look inside, zip it again with care: "zip only the course files, not the folder that contains them".

View Project is not a proper test. It runs the course from your own drive, where security restrictions in your computer, browser and network can interfere, and Articulate says "it’s best to upload the published course to your LMS/LRS for proper testing".

How do you publish and test a Storyline SCORM package?

You need Storyline 360 and your project file, a free SCORM Cloud account, a test learner login in the client's LMS, and one answer from its administrator.

1. Ask the LMS administrator which standard to use (and which edition, for SCORM 2004), and whether the LMS requires specific reporting values.
2. Check the player. In Home > Player > Other, leave Launch player in new window off if the LMS opens courses in its own window.
3. Open Publish, LMS / LRS. Set Title, Description and a Folder on your local hard drive, with Publish set to the entire project.
4. Open Reporting and Tracking, LMS tab. Pick the standard, leave the Identifier fields alone on a republish, and set LMS Reporting to a Passed pair.
5. Open the Tracking tab and mark at least one option. Click OK, Publish, then Zip.
6. Open the zip. The course files, imsmanifest.xml and index_lms.html among them, should sit at the zip's root, not in a subfolder.
7. Run it in SCORM Cloud. Import, launch, finish and exit, then read the completion, pass/fail status, score and time. Do it once passing and once failing. The routine and free test packages are in Free sample SCORM packages to download and test an LMS.
8. Run it in the client's LMS as the test learner, and exit fully if it is SCORM 2004.

SCORM Cloud is free to test with, and Articulate uses it as its baseline for LMS output, though it is not a conformance check. If your course works there and not in your LMS, Articulate says to open a support case with your LMS provider, who may ask for a debug log; if it fails in both, Articulate asks for the project file.

Working estimates for one short course, not Articulate figures.

Which Storyline export mistakes cost the most?

1. A Completed pair when the LMS tracks pass and fail. Articulate recommends the Passed pairs.
2. Slides viewed on a branching course. All the slides in your project is the default count, and Articulate's branching examples use a quiz on each path or a completion trigger on each path.
3. A new Identifier on an update. Articulate says not to change it; in Moodle a different item identifier deletes the tracking data.
4. Launch player in new window inside an LMS window. Articulate says the course won’t be able to communicate with the LMS.
5. Testing with View Project only.
6. Zipping the folder instead of its contents. Articulate warns that a zip made the wrong way is one your LMS won’t accept.

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Other questions about Storyline SCORM exports

Does Storyline 360 export SCORM 2004 4th Edition?

Yes. It supports the 2nd, 3rd and 4th editions, and Articulate recommends 4th.

Why is "When the learner completes a quiz" grayed out?

Your course has no result slide yet.

Can a Storyline course report both a quiz score and completion?

You can track several criteria, such as completion triggers and quiz scores, but Storyline 360 sends only the first one the learner completes.

Why does a SCORM 2004 course stay incomplete after the learner finishes?

Check the exit first: Articulate says SCORM 2004 requires learners to fully exit the course for completion data to show in LMS reports. The success status can also read Unknown until the learner completes the course.