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Adobe Captivate 2019: Beyond the Essentials. October. 2018.

by Ann Crane

Defining expectations is crucial because those expectations are the scaffolding that binds the learning program goals to measurable business goals,” said Ramaswamy.

 

Ramaswamy went on to say that “one must review the business strategies which motivated the purchase of the LMS in the first place, identify the overall business objectives, identify the key stakeholders and draft a plan with an intent to illustrate how the learning plan objectives match with and contribute to the business objectives.” 

 

“This will determine your definition of success,” exclaimed Ramaswamy. “If you want to be considered a partner in the business, and not just seen as part of a support function, it is crucial to tie your learning program goals as tightly as possible to the pre-defined business goals.” 

 

Business goals can be vast in scope. Perhaps your company plans to double its annual profits worldwide by leveraging a fast-growing innovation in the industry. How do you, as a member of the Learning and Development team, take a large corporate goal and break it down? For starters, identify the stakeholders and understand what, exactly, they have defined as success. 

 

For example, a manager has a business goal of adding new products to the corporate portfolio. One appropriately mapped learning program goal would be to offer role-based certifications on the new products. 

 

Here’s another example: The head of Global Sales has a goal to sell into new markets. The learning program goal would be to ensure an online learning model supports a globally-distributed workforce and offers localized training

 

Another crucial pre-implementation strategy is to identify organizational roadblocks that have hindered learning in the past and develop supportive strategies offset them. For example, if a known obstacle to learning has been “no time,” ensure that short eLearning modules are used in the course (lessons that don’t play for more than a few minutes). If the criticism “no communication” was voiced, define an internal marketing plan and a communication strategy in advance of the roll-out.

 

Next time: Learn how to build exactly the right team for your implementation, who to choose, and why! 

 

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Note: Join Ann on Thursday, September 25, 2018, 2 p.m. Eastern live online and see the power, flexibility, and ease of use of Adobe Captivate Prime. Ann will also be showcasing some of the assets in the new Content Library (where you can find courses on Business Skills, Workplace Compliance, and more).

 

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Ann Crane, Engage Systems, LLC., is an Adobe Captivate Prime and Adobe Connect expert. Based in San Francisco, California, Ann serves as an eLearning consultant and virtual experience guide, quickly transitioning clients to digital collaboration concepts and technologies.

 

See also: Part 2 of this series.

 

 

From Kevin: I've been teaching live online classes for years. And while I’ve had all sorts of technology challenges during that time, I’ve never had my main machine go down along with my backup–until yesterday! Even though I rebooted my machine in time for class, it froze again, and I couldn’t click anything.

Panic? Not me. As a certified online training professional, you’re taught to handle these kinds of bumps in the training road. In this instance, other students in the class were using Captivate (it was a hands-on session) and I simply made a participant the presenter (or leader). Class went off without a hitch after that. Check out my smooth maneuvers in the video below.

If you’re curious about the kinds of things we cover during our live, hands-on online classes, check out this snippet from a recent TechSmith Camtasia class. During this portion of the class, I taught attendees how to ensure they won’t mistakenly trim more from a project than expected.

by Kevin Siegel, COTP, CTT+

As a publisher of popular step-by-step workbooks such as “Adobe Captivate: The Essentials,” “Articulate Storyline: The Essentials,” and more, we know first-hand how frustrating it can be when assets mentioned in our books are moved or removed by the software vendors.

by Kevin Siegel, COTP

I recently received an email from a fellow Captivate developer. She was hoping there was an elegant way to hide the playbar on specific slides.

Certainly you can use the Skin Editor to remove the playbar completely from a project. Alternatively, if you don't want the playbar to be available during a quiz, there are Quiz Preferences for that.

This particular project did not contain a quiz and while the developer wanted the playbar to be available in most instances, there were a few slides where she simply didn't want the playbar.

The process for hiding the playbar on select slides is very simple. First, keep in mind that the playbar is visible by default unless you tell it to go away. But how? To hide the playbar on the fly, select a slide on the Filmstrip. Then, on the Properties Inspector, Actions tab, On Enter drop-down menu, choose Assign. From the Assign drop-down menu, choose the variable named cpCmndShowPlaybar. (The variable comes with Captivate and will always be available in the Assign drop-down men.) Lastly, type 0 into the With field. (The zero is the same as telling Captivate not to do something… or false… or no… in this instance, it's telling Captivate that you don't want the playbar.)

Kevin Siegel, CTT, COTP, is the founder and president of IconLogic. Following a career in Public Affairs with the US Coast Guard and in private industry, Kevin has spent decades as a technical communicator, classroom and online trainer, public speaker, and has written hundreds of computer training books for adult learners. He has been recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide.

by Kal Hadi, COTP

Kal Hadi is a Certified Technical Trainer (CTT) and Certified Online Training Professional (COTP) with more than 20 years of experience in computer graphics, imaging, and electronic publishing. Kal is a graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology Electronic Publishing graduate program. He is also the author of many books and papers in graphics and web publishing including multiple books on Articulate Storyline.