Articulate Studio is a PowerPoint plugin used to develop elearning course content. It includes assessment, on-screen recording, and interactions integrations.
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PlanSource
Score 7.2 out of 10
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PlanSource BenefitsOne is an employee benefits engagement platform, from PlanSource headquartered in Orlando, Florida. The solution presents streamlined workflows and real-time integrations, as well as a mobile-friendly enrollment experience that’s designed to maximize HR efficiency and plan adoption.
Articulate Studio is constantly surprising in terms of what it can do. It is like a "Swiss Army Knife" of functionality. I've used it to build portfolios, whole interactive websites, authoring videos and I often discover novel ways to make it useful on a pretty regular basis. What would be a situation where you would not want to use Articulate Studio? Well, even though you can use it to author video and to publish websites, it's not a replacement for a video editing package or a web platform like WordPress, but there are times when it will do certain things in an astoundingly simple way superior to other tools.
They made it very easy to understand how to add new content to the courses, including images, videos or audio, of course, you are still able to do text-based content as well.
Creating quizzes has never been easier. The ability to add controls to each question and what actions each answer creates, whether an additional question or passing to the next section. Customizing these actions are very easy to learn and add to your course.
Being able to use your own scoring mechanism is awesome! I like SCORM but there are many options to use including a custom one of your own. This ability allows you to pass your students over to a proprietary system that enrolls them in the next course, or use the built-in utilities to provide the next course or quiz, the choice is yours!
Puts all of your healthcare selections in one place making changes, drops, and additions are taken care of in one place instead of having to contact every vendor individually.
Keeps an accurate record of real time enrollment which helps when you are in an account manager role and handling client questions concerning their health plans.
Provides tools to keep the client and yourself organized. Several Open Enrollment messaging tools and places to add any educational documents for the different health plans.
The audio editor is awful. Sometimes when you cut a section, it actually takes a different section that you selected. Especially when in zoom mode. You have to then undo the action, and re-do. Also, scrubbing through the audio is difficult. If you're exporting audio, it can glitch during the process. I avoid using the audio editor whenever I can.
After all these years, it's still a buggy program. You can be doing your recordings, and a sudden message appears saying that something went wrong and needs to close. I've done re-installs, contacted support, and I constantly clear the temp folder. Still happens. Also, it's a good idea to export your audio, and there have been times the program freezes up on me, and the audio file (in the .ppta file) gets corrupted and all audio is permanently lost.
The program can get slow when publishing, previewing or opening the audio editor.
The included Engage program is pretty good, but it needs more customization options. And I think they can add more modules that provide a little more engagement.
The more advanced options, such as HCM, could have a slightly more user-friendly dashboard for users who are not daily computer users.
Needs to be easier to customize the homepage. Clients are always interested in adding in their own pictures, colors, welcome message position, etc.
Needs to have a function where the employer can send a document for the employee to sign, open and capture the employee's signature, send back to the employer and save in the employee file.
This is very useable software even for novice eLearning authoring users. People with some PowerPoint experience should be fine with this software and even Excel!
I've never really had any major issues with the product (Other than the registration loop error)and my ten out of ten rating is based on the assistance I got when we initially set up the extension in Power Point. I found the support folks to be professional, helpful and friendly
Articulate Studio is very much a leader in the e-learning space. It stacks up well against other tools designed to quickly and easily build and update CBTs by managers and super-users versus needing to invest time and effort in dedicated e-learning developers. Process improvement initiatives and cross-functional departments are empowered to develop their trainings themselves and identify areas for future development.
I have looked at GoCo, Kronos and Zenefits. I selected PlanSource because I felt it was the most customizable for a variety of clients across the board. The interface seemed functional but slightly professional looking than it competitors. PlanSource also seemed well established and that it was capable of handling my client needs.
I only see positive impact since it is a very easy to use tool for rapid learning. The only point is to know what is possible to develop using this tool to avoid any kind of frustration afterwards.
Another positive impact is that we don't need a diversified development team. There is no need of technical professionals, and a creative instructional designer is enough to develop effective learning content using Studio.
The third positive impact is that Studio makes possible to realize short-term projects, mainly when there's already a PowerPoint presentation.
Positive - Reduces time spent contacting vendors of enrollment changes. When you are dealing with several hundred employees and their dependents across several vendors that time starts to add up.
Positive - Point of value when trying to gain or up sell a client.
Negative - You do need to meet the minimum number of people on the platform as per your contact to avoid having to pay a fee to PlanSource. If one of your larger clients leaves that could be a potential issue.
