Articulate Storyline is a learning content creation platform. It provides prebuilt and customizable content, along with gamification capabilities. Articulate emphasizes user-friendliness, including mobile accessibility. It is offered on a perpetual license.
$1,398
symplr Talent Management Solutions
Score 7.3 out of 10
N/A
symplr acquired HealthcareSource in July, 2021. The former HealthcareSource now forms the foundation fo the symplr talent management suite.
In an office where you're planning to do a large amount of module-based training, Articulate Storyline will prove useful. A consideration to make, however, is whether your team members focused on training design will have the capacity to learn the software enough to create interesting and effective training modules. The basic functions can be simple, but the more advanced capabilities of the software take considerable effort to master and employ to create the more visually appealing presentations/modules you see in much of the promotional materials. If you have a small training team (or even without anyone dedicated specifically to training and development), Storyline is not a wise choice as the cost and effort required to fully make use of the software would be far too much of a commitment to make it worthwhile.
If their HRIS system holds all their data - employees, supervisors, positions then HealthcareSource can really take advantage of that data and save you a lot of time. We looked at a lot of systems and one of our needs was both Applicant Tracking and Performance Management and these systems work very well together. Other systems we looked at didn't have all our most needed features - we needed a vendor that could do both, integrate with our HRIS, report back data in a customizable fashion, and be user friendly. Some systems listed the features but during the demo and product reference calls we found they didn't perform as advertised. Some had reporting but the reporting was missing key data or didn't export in a data friendly manner. We have found HealthcareSource to be not only "pretty" - aka user friendly/non-cluttered but also had the engine under the hood as well that met our data analyst needs.
Storyline integrates with the Canvas LMS fairly seamlessly. There have been a few glitches, but for the most part, the interactions we have created will play directly in the Canvas LMS.
Storyline is great for creating short drag and drop interactions for self-reviews or even graded assignments. Its many options for quizzes such as "answer reveal" or using tabs help the student get a different perspective on the content rather than just an "A, B, or C" answer.
Storyline is great for tutorials or training sessions. There are many options to help guide the learner (or employee) through a process. it is not just linear, but you can branch the slides based on the answers. A great way to engage the learner or employee.
When any company implements a new program they have specific needs that they want customized for them. Healthcare source did a great job providing excellent customer service to our HR and IT professionals working behind the scenes to help us maximize the programs potential at our organization. They did not limit us to any standard uses or prohibit us from reaching our internal goals. Some examples include specialized reports, data uploads of employee data and time frames for our annual reviews.
They provided us with training and retraining and more training on using the system. This included training new members of our team when we had turnover in HR and inviting us to conferences and webcasts regularly.
The presentation of the software was very appealing and that may seem small but it really helps appeal to the employees that use it for their reviews.
I wish that you could customize the UI ribbons to bring features you use frequently to the front and to hide options you rarely use.
It would be great if there was a way for non-technical collaborators (SMEs, management, etc) to be able to open a *.story file directly and provide comments. You currently have to publish the course, load it to the LMS, update the LMS, and then hope that users can find it in the LMS. A Storyline Viewer/Previewer standalone application would be awesome.
The price is too high for freelancers to purchase and use. I no longer contract and work exclusively for the firm, but even with our resources, the high price limits the number of licenses available to use.
We are moving away from the standalone eCourse model, so depending upon when that shift happens, we might choose not to renew since we won't be supporting eCourses built in Articulate Storyline anymore. As long as we are still selling and supporting those eCourses, we will continue to renew the licenses we have.
Looking back we can say that every year we used Performance Manager and other products too like HeathcareSource's Compensation and Position Manager we saw the ease of use for employees and HR staff members increase, we saw employees getting more comfortable with the product and HR Staff getting better at expressing their needs to the HealthcareSource team and this made us want to stay with the same company, when things are getting better each year we know we are in the right place.
The basics are easy to learn but you won't get really robust activities from using just the basics. However, if you can invest the time in learning how to use all of Storyline's features, you'll have tremendous learning development power at your fingertips. I do have to say, though, that there is a beautiful logic to how everything in Storyline works. Once you learn a few of the advanced features, you can learn them all because there's a similar underlying logic. The interface is also very appealing and friendly.
They are support-superstars and the software they use for support is excellent too (I don't know what it is). The model they use for support should be followed by all companies. It is a conversation/discussion forum model that shows everyone's questions in a knowledge base capacity so you can get the help you need in a speedy way.
On the previous rating scale, I kept thinking "it depends". If I know it's an easy question or easy fix, the response is super fast. If I know I am asking something complex, custom or I just know it's not going to be able to be answered by 1st tier, it can take some time. I have worked on these issues with them (they are all very nice) I do now have avenues for finding things out from one person. We had one issue where we had a major problem and it required a software patch and their support team worked throughout the weekend to create, QA, and deliver the patch as promised. I was very impressed
I love the fact that both a demonstration AND text version of the tutorials are available. Our firewall was blocking the demos until I requested my company allow them! Having the text version available still enabled me to learn from the tutorials. They are very well done and informative, and there is a tutorial for just about anything you need to learn to do with Storyline. I have always been more than satisfied with the support and training available to us for all Articulate products and I love the community!
Outside of having to dedicate a powerful enough PC for the installation and having to update Flash in our browsers there really isn't much pain involved in using Articulate. For the most part this is an easy to implement and roll-out product. The installation occurs quickly and smoothly with no additional steps needed.
Articulate Storyline is the only authoring tool we have used with our LMS to date. We are seeing different platforms now, as opposed to LMS platforms. And, many of those have their own content. However, we will always need to create/author our own because of the nature of what we do and how we do it. I'm a big fan!
Both Health Stream and Healthcare Source have to-do lists, completion lists, and tracking. However, the functionality of Healthcare Source is far superior to HealthStream. The notifications are much better and helpful. The tracking on Healthcare Source is easy to use and see. Overall the interface in Healthcare Source is more intuitive.
It is easy to train new users and manage content. Being able to import older projects and PPT files makes it very easy to use for a lot of "moonlighters" in our department.
Allows for on-demand training that is accessible to anyone in the organization instantaneously.
Heavily reduces travel expenses by eliminating the need for in-person training classes.
Gives my department creative liberties in designing content that can be customized to each and every subject/business group in the organization. No two courses are ever the same.
NetLearning has increased our nursing CEU credits with the most efficiency. Now nurses can take courses on NetLearning and have it track their hours.
On a compliance standpoint, NetLearning has benefited us when we are being audited and we have to show what trainings or classes an employee has made. Also, to make sure that their certifications are up to date.
