Captivate course timing out of LMS

I'm having the same issue. Did you find a better solution?

Thanks,

John

@ RodWard:

Thanks for the reply.  I can see what it is you are saying and your solution would work.  The reason I would like to avoid that route is because my goal is to create this course so that it is similar to all the previous courses my audience has been taking for years... where they don't time out as long as they are active.  With my audience size, the fewer the changes to their methods of operations will mean exponentially less troubleshooting I'll have to do with them.

My optimal solution would be to keep the course alive as long as my user is active within the course.  If they aren't active and the LMS times them out, then I want them to have some sort of alert that tells them to close the window and log back in.

I have spent the day trying out different solutions and here is my most recent attempt.  I am adding JS code every few slides that would call the Captivate_DoFSCommand() function (is this the right one?) in the published htm file.  Something like:

          var active = Captivate_DoFSCommand("LMSCommit");

          if(active == "false"){

               alert("Due to inactivity, you have been logged out of the Learning System.

               To ensure continued progress is recorded, please close this window and

                log back in to the LMS before continuing.");

          }

          //at this point, could I add some code that closes the window... force them to leave?

This solution seems to be working except for one big glitch.  When the course launches from the LMS, another new browser window opens up and displays all the communications the Captivate file is having with the LMS.  If that window didn't appear, then I think this would work.  Is the problem stemming from the fact that I am using Captivate_DoFSCommand()?  Would Captivate_DoExternalInterface() work better.  I've tried it, but it didn't seem to work.  Perhaps I have used it wrong.

Another less than optimal solution would be to just have some code set up to run on an interval (every 5 minutes or so) that would just keep the course "awake" as long as the browser window is open.  This is kind of cheating, but it would still meet my main requirement of not having a confused audience.

At this point, either solution will keep my audience happy, but I definitely prefer the first solution.  I don't want them to ever be faced with a timeout situation as long as they are actively in the course.

If this has become a major issue, perhaps you could add a timer widget (there's a couple on the Captivate/Exchange) to your projects so that users can see the total time that has elapsed.  They should be advised in the early slides of the course that they are time limited.

Also, if you are using SCORM to communicate with your LMS, try setting the timeout period for the SCO to say 45 minutes or something, so that the user gets a timeout message.