Advanced Actions in a Quiz/Survey

[ChadingtonBear]

I’ve built a survey for work in Captivate 7 (just getting 8 installed).  Its function is to get feedback after an eLearning course.  There are several different instructors that can lead the course and I’ve been tasked with stepping up the survey for the LMS reports.

What’s been requested:
The ability for the students to select their instructor from a list so that the LMS report can be parsed out by instructor(s) for the course.  But we only want the questions answered to show on the report (which will require Branch Awareness, but I need to get the first part functional first).

What I’ve tried:

Making a Multiple Choice question slide with each instructor as an answer.  Upon selection their instructor, a new name is assigned to the variable trainerName (trainerAtest, trainerBtest, etc).  I then created an Advanced Action called trainerSurvey with Conditional Actions.  Each potential variable variation (i.e. each trainerName) has a Condition “IF trainerName is equal to trainerAtest” and an accompanying Action “Jump To Slide 5”.  Back on the slide, the Quiz Properties the After Survey action is set as Execute Advanced Action – Script trainerSurvey.

When I go to preview it, I select a trainer (triggering the variable change) and click Submit (triggering the After Survey action)… and it just sits there.  Can’t change the selected trainer, can’t click Submit again.  Just stuck.

Helps?  Thoughts?  All appreciated!

Been a while since I’ve used Advanced Actions, so it’s very possible I’m overlooking something obvious (or doing it wrong entirely!), but it feels like I’m at least on the right track here.  Once this is resolved I get to ensure it’s branching appropriately, but this first!

[Lilybiri · Accepted solution]

Why do you use a MCQ for such a goal, I don't understand this at all! Quiz slides have very strict rules.

I would choose to use either the dropdown interaction or the radiobuttons interaction to populate a user variable v_trainer (sorry, but that is my way of labeling variables, helps to avoid double use of names if you identify this as a variable). A (shape) button that has to be clicked to confirm the choice will launch a conditional action to make the jump to. However I wonder if this will help at the end, feeling like you should try to use in the first place the functionality of the LMS to get out the report to the proper trainer.

More information about the interactions I am talking about:

Tips - Learning Interactions - Captivate blog

Dropdown Interaction - tips - Captivate blog

[ChadingtonBear]

It's because Quiz slides have such strict rules that I was trying it with the MCQ.  Please correct me if I'm wrong, but there isn't a Quiz slide that has a dropdown interaction, right?  Closest thing I found was on the Sequence question in lieu of drag-and-drop.

The main reason for the attempt at MCQ use was this:  when a report is pulled off the LMS, we want to have a way to quickly parse out instructor-specific data based on their supervisor's request (3 different facilities).  To make this easier, we got down to 2 possibilities.

Report possibility based on MCQ, creating a "header" (by making their name the first answer) at the top of the instructor's section of questions:

Instructor's name?:  Bob Smith

Achieved the goals of the class: Agree

Presented in a professional manner: Somewhat Agree

Etc

Report possibility using a non-Quiz slide, thereby not showing in the report unless we add their name to each version of the subsequent questions:

Bob Smith achieved the goals of the class

Bob Smith presented in a processional manner

Etc

Mostly the second was dismissed because of the aesthetic redundancy for the people taking the survey.  I wonder though...  if I were to make a non-Quiz slide using the drop-down you proposed (that toggles variables), I have an option to report it (Properties:  Include in Quiz), ya?  I don't know if what I'm thinking will work, and I won't have access to my work stuff until Monday, but I think I might be able to incorporate your suggestion with a little twist.

I'll report back after I've tinkered with it Monday and let you know how it pans out!

[Lilybiri]

Sorry, but I don't understand your logic: MCQ is a Quiz slide and you say "because Quiz slides have such strict rules that I was trying it with the MCQ"???

OK, it seems I cannot help you because those two links I posted didn't ring a 'bell'.

User variables can be reported to most LMS's, not to all.

[ChadingtonBear]

My apologies, I completely overlooked the 2 links you provided (I thought it was a Signature), I will definitely take a look and see if they can point me in the right direction. 

A bit on my train of thought - I just meant the quiz slides in general are very strict, meaning you usually can't add or remove most of the elements.  But the assignment of variables is an option on the individual answers on the MCQ, so I thought I was working in the confines of those strict rules.  Technically I am, but probably not quite in the right way.

I do think you may have already helped me in a big way, assuming I can make a non-Quiz slide with a drop-down menu that sets variables, and that will also report to the LMS.  It won't be the variable itself reporting to the LMS, but more it directing the survey taker to the question specific to the instructor.

**Having given the first link you sent a quick once-over, I think that it might have another possible solution/variation that will meet the same goal, so thank you!

[ChadingtonBear]

First, the drop-down was a great idea, thank you!  I'm shaking the rust and re-familiarizing myself with Captivate, so that was a great reminder.  It worked great, until it didn't.  I had each drop-down selection targeting an individualized Likert survey slide for each of the 26 instructors (which required an equal number of associations in an Advanced Action).  This was going well until I had to create a second round of the same (for when there's more than 1 trainer for a class, so they can each have their own feedback).  Because of the excessive number of checks the file has to do because of the number of associations, and the now 119 slides... the file would freeze when run (or at least operate so slow it might as well have frozen).

I also tried a drop-down -> single target Likert with variables customizing the survey slide, but when I would try to add the $$v_trainer$$ manually (it wouldn't do it with the function), it would create a large gap between the questions on the page containing 6 or so Likert questions to rank.  I've had a few things almost work, but I'm not getting it to quite cooperate.

You were a big help and it's much appreciated.  If there's anything else that you can recommend, I'm all about learning.  Hopefully my descriptions weren't too arduous and nonsensical!

[Lilybiri]

I can only advice to rethink the whole situation, try getting out of the box.  Do you need a separate Likert slide for each trainer? Why? It should always be possible to add a variable using the X button, something went wrong there. Maybe, sorry for the repetition, you shouldn't use a Likert question slide, that has very strict rules like all question slides, but create your custom likert slide with the radiobuttons interaction?