QA checklist for a Captivate project?

Does anyone have a list of things to check for when reviewing
a Captivate project that someone else created, in other words, a
Quality Assurance checklist?

Written down? No. But that is an awesome idea. Here's some things I check for:
Are all the captions the same color, same font, same alignment (Captivate likes to throw curve balls sometimes. Not sure why.)
Do all the buttons, click boxes work how they are supposed to? (Test everything. Back and forth again and again)
Does each slide just look nice, symmetrical, plenty of white space, not to cluttered?
Does the audio sync up with the captions or graphics being used?
Can you think of any way to spice up the module by adding graphics, animations, or audio, voice or music?
Are the hightlight boxes and other pointers noticeable? (You'd be surprised what the designer sees compared to what the user sees.)
Does it flow? Does it feel like you are just going through it or are there random thoughts or tangents thown in that need deleted or reorganized?
Hope that gets you started.

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Cutover checklist for SAP BI project

Hi All,
Please share the cutover checklist for SAP BI project.
Thanks
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sandeep,
please give us details of ...
where you are on the upgrade
landscape you are trying to upgrade
nature of systems ....
cutover depends on :
1. criticality of systems and their availability
2. Nature of upgrade - if you are upgrading your sandbox - then cutover is just a formality
3. Ensuring that no data loss happens...
Please be more specific - also search the forums on the same ..... this has been discussed a lot many times...
since you have not given details - I expect that you will be adding more details to your post and am not locking your post....
Arun

What is the largest "manageable" size for a captivate project? (I think I've passed it)

Problem:
It used to take perhaps 5 minutes for the Captivate software to open and the project to actually load. Now, Captivate loads (menu screen) but the project does not open - it just sits there. When I close the software it asks if I want to save changes to my project, as if it had opened.
Background:
The captivate project that is roughly 260MB. This is after having copied and pasted all the slides to a new project to reduce the file size (several times) -- because of unexplainable ballooning of the file size. I am using a computer with an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.35 GHZ processor with 4GB or RAM.
Questions:
What is the largest manageable file size for a project?
Is there a limit to the number of slides a project can contain (i.e., 200)?
What can I do to get my project to actually open?
Thanks!
Dan

Hi there
Normally we advise that a Captivate project should fall into somewhere between 50-65 slides as a general upper limit. Occasionally reaching as high as 100 to *MAYBE* 120 slides. Depending on a number of factors.
Cheers... Rick
Helpful and Handy Links
Captivate Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form
Adobe Certified Captivate Training
SorcerStone Blog
Captivate eBooks

How can I create a new skin (other than the default skins) for my Captivate Project?

Hi everyone,
I am working on a project where my client wants me to create a player skin which is completely different from the default themes that captivate has already. The design which client has shared with me contains in this way:
1. TOC - should be truncated and can be expanded by pressing "+" button against the Navigation Text. Its like opening and closing the menu bar using + and - buttons
2. Playback controls required by him are also not in the default skins.
I dont know, if there is any way to customize the skins to this level inside captivate.
Please help me out.
Thanks & Regards
Vikas Sharma

Unlikely, I'm afraid.
The LMS has no control over the playbar that pauses or plays the Captivate content.
In a Multi SCORM package, the LMS also may be showing a TOC in the SCORM player with links to launch the lesson modules. This TOC is in addition to the TOC inside the Captivate project file which gives access to sections of the module by jumping to slides that begin those sections. But the LMS doesn't usually give you any control over the look and feel or functionality of that TOC either.
If your client is adamant that they want complete control over these areas, then your best option may be NOT to build this course with Captivate but build it from the ground up with another tool. E.g. Flash, or Dreamweaver. Either way, that will add a lot more time and expense to the project. But if the client has the budget and is unwilling to budge on their requirement, then that's what I would be telling them to do.

Creating audio for another Captivate project

I am using Captivate v5.5
I have been asked to create the audio for a project that is being created by another person in our organisation.
They will send me a word document with the script - slide by slide.
As I do not have any other means of recording audio on my pc, my initial thought was to create a blank project in Captivate v5.5 and name and export each slide audio to a folder and then pass these on in order that they can import them to their project.
I am in UK and the project owner is in Switzerland - just FYI.
Does that sound like the best way or is there a smarter way?
Thanks in advance
Noel

Hi katwebwitch and welcome to our community
I know this doesn't really help your situation, but when you
choose to import slides from one project to another, the optimal
results are achieved when both are sized identically.
One possible way to try it differently is to open two
different instances of Captivate. Each has a different project
open. Then copy the desired slide from one and paste into the
other.
Beyond that, you may wish to resize one of them so it matches
the other. (Project > Resize Project) Then try the import or the
copy/paste. And if you need to keep the project the same size and
not resize, you would first click File > Save As... and save a
"throwaway" copy of the project. Resize it long enough to get the
slide(s) you need, import or copy, then trash the resized project.
Hopefully something here was helpful... Rick

Setting up Version Management (Git, SVN) for Captivate Projects

I'm guessing the answer is No, but I thought I would ask:
Is there any way to set up some kind of Version Management/Source Code management for a Captivate project?
Currently, I just have a bunch of nearly identical cptx files with some kind of naming convention so that I can tell which one is which. If I need to revert something, I have to hope that I made a "Save As" at the right point in time. If I need to work with a colleague, there is no straight-forward way to review the changes that she made.
Adobe Captivate is basically a speciallized IDE with some additional graphical stuff. Having some kind of version control tool, especially if it were Git, would be very helpful both for my personal productivity as well as for managing collaboration with my colleagues.

So far the only WOW version control i have found is AlienBrain but i have a better chance of being struck by lightning on a clear summer day than ever owning it.
http://www.alienbrain.com/features
A promising solution is Razuna http://razuna.org/whatisrazuna but I havent "project tested" it yet to see how well it will work while developing in a team enviroment.
Something i doubt i will ever find is a solution to "show the difference" in a file similar to how WinMerge http://winmerge.org/ shows the difference in files or compairison of folder directories.
It would be nice to be able to compare two (or more) captivate files slide by slide with syncronised scrolling to note differences.
Seems like most people are pretty quiet about what they use for version management.

I am an MBA student , doing a research project on e-learning authoring tools, would like to find out no. of licences sold/active to date for adobe captivate. how many get sold every year. any pointers/help is appreciated. cheers.

I am an MBA student , doing a research project on e-learning authoring tools, would like to find out no. of licences sold/active to date for adobe captivate. how many get sold every year. any pointers/help is appreciated. cheers.

I doubt you'll get an answer in a user forum, sorry. This forum is meant for users to help other users when they have problems that have to be solved. You should contact Adobe itself.

Best Practices for Publishing your Captivate Project

Come join RealEyes tomorrow for a session on publishing Captivate projects. We will be discussing each method of publishing, and the benefits and drawbacks of publishing that way. We will also cover some of the common things missed that can make a better experience for your viewers when accessing your project.
Come here to join us: http://cyourteam.com/realeyesconnect/ev … te-project
The session is from 11A-12P Mountain Time.

Ok, we finally have a version of this session to post up here.
Enjoy! http://cyourteam.com/realeyesconnect/ev … and-tricks

Best Practice tips for publishing Captivate 8 project?

Does anyone have any Best Practice Tips for publishing Captivate 8 projects? Is HTML5/Flash the most universal?
We will begin testing/training before our LMS is functional.
We have no shared network capability or SharePoint type platform. Project is too large for e-mail even when zipped.
I am thinking that we will have to use thumb drive/CD along those lines.

Hi There ,
Please refer to the below links :-
Adobe Captivate Help | Preview and publish Responsive projects
Adobe Captivate Help | Publish projects as HTML5 files
Adobe Captivate * Publishing Projects
Regards ,
Ajit

Need urgent help in listing out checklist from DBA prespective for BI Implementation Project

Hello Guys,
We are in Designing phase Data Modeling of PDW/APS Implementation Project.
I need urgent help in making a checklist from a DBA perspective.
Like what are things ill be needing at a time of implementation/Deployment.
Your expert comments and help will be highly appreciated.
Thank you,
Anish.S
Asandeen

You can get good summary of checklist from this article about
DBA checklist for data warehousing.
Which highlights on below pointers:
New system or old. (I.e. Up-gradation vs starting from scratch)
Complexity of SQL Server architecture
SQL Server storage
Determining SQL Server processing power
SQL Server installation consideration
SQL Server configuration parameter
SQL Server security
SQL Server Database property
SQL Server jobs and automation
Protecting SQL Server data
SQL Server health monitoring and check ups
SQL Server ownership and control
based on my real time experience, I will suggest you to keep an eye on
Load performance (It will be useful when your database(Warehouse) will have huge amount of data)
System availability (Check for Windows update and up time configuration)
Deployment methodology should be planned in advance. Development of packages and respective objects should be done systematically.
Source control mechanism
Disk space and memory usage
You might or might not have full rights on production environment, so be prepared to analyze production environment via Select statements [I guess you got my point]
Proper implementation of Landing , Staging and Mart tables.
Column size (this can drastically decrease your database size)
Usage of indexes (Index are good, but at what cost?)
I hope this will assist you in building your check list.

Free hosting for Captivate projects

I am a student in instructional design and I want to create an online portfolio to showcase some of my e-learning modules. Does anyone know of a free hosting service where I can upload Captivate project (HTML or SWF)?
thanks

You can try to use Scorm Cloud where you can upload published zipped output from Captivate, In order to do that you have to enable the reporting of your module within Captivate.
Visit the link to create your account for free - SCORM Cloud
Click on sign up and create your account. Maximum upload size may be around 100 mb.
techPreceptor

Environment Readiness Checklist for Application Test in an SAP CRM project

Hello Experts,
I am working for a very large SAP CRM implementation project at my firm. I am part of Application Test team responsible for carrying out all due dilligence before test begins. I need your help to prepare a detailed checklist for Environment Readyness covering below items like
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- Checking and ensuring that code and config is moved successfully
- Number Range Set Up
- Manual Configurations ( partner profile creation, initial ALE config
- Initial Master Data creation ( reference customer,register groups,enter values in some custom Z-Tables ,service providers etc etc..)
- Any other item which you I should take into account
Regards
Rohit

Hello Sumanth,
By going to System -> Status -> SAP System Data -> View Components, you should be able to see the soft components which are installed in your system, I guess.
These soft components corresponds to the business suite applications which are installed.
This is what you wanted ?
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Publish a Captivate project for screen in movie theater

Hi,
I was asked to develop a software demo animation (approximately 3min) that will eventually be viewed on a big screen in a movie theater.
Of course the aim is to have a perfect image quality as possible.
Is Captivate a good medium to create such a project?
The output I would like to use is an .mp4 video format. But are there any important settings I should activate with that output?
I have already noticed that the maximum Captivate project size is 1280x720. When I go beyond that, it all goes wrong.
What should be the screenshot resolution and the dpi value to use so that the image quality of the screenshots when viewed on the movie screen is flawless?
Thanx!

Hi,
You can publish to either as .mp4 (Go to publish >Media >Mp4 ) or .swf from Captivate 7. In presenter 9 you do have an option to either import .swf or .mp4 files. See the image below to import these two formats in presenter:
Regards,
Mayank

Captivate project takes long time to load on LMS

So I developed a bunch of Captivate 7 modules for a course I'd been working on for some time. When I finally loaded these up on the LMS, I notice that when the modules are launched, a pop-up window opens with a grey background and just stays like that for up to 3-4 mins. I figured grey, because that's what I had set as the HTML page color in the skin editor. However the actual module contents take really long (3-4 mins) to load up. When I tried running all these modules locally from my computer, the grey screen fades into the splash animation within a second.
I figured that this was either due to a bandwidth issue or the LMS causing problems. So I then had these modules tested from our India and US offices (different internet connecttions, multiple LMSs). Same thing happened, takes up to 3-4 mins to transition from the grey screen to the splash animation (but loads up instantly when run locally). We then tried this on multiple LMSs like SABA, Moodle, and even tried this on SCORM Cloud and the same issue. The modules takes a long time to load up, so I kind of ruled out the LMS/bandwidth being an issue.
I'm speculating here, but what I think is happening is that the SCO is trying to download the entire module (about 10MB) to the users machine before it plays the splash animation -- if that's the case then is there a way to avoid that? I mean I don't want a 200 slide Captivate published project to be downloaded right from clicking the launch button -- it could stream through as the user advances through the module. Also, I've seen some pre-loader and Start/End options but not sure how those work.
Important to note here, the 3-4 min wait time from when the module is launched, is only for the first launch. If I were to close the browser popup (in which the SCO opened), and click launch again from the LMS, it's loads up almost instantly -- so I'm pretty sure something's happening in my Captivate project's loading settings which I can't put my finger on.
Can anyone help me figure out why this is happening and also what are some possible fixes to this. I can assure you that it's not an internet bandwidth issue because we've tested it on multiple internet connections and on several LMSs (even the client's LMS that this was tested on says that the initial load up takes too long).

All the symptoms you quote sure sounds like a bandwidth issue to me.
Obviously when you load a project directly from your hard drive then there's no issue with bandwidth. But if you're pulling down 10 megs from a web server and it takes a while to start then bandwidth is the obvious issue. I agree that 3-4 minutes sounds excessive for a 10 meg file but that depends entirely on how many users are sharing your bandwidth. Try getting your people in these different locations to visit one of those websites that allows you to test your actual bandwidth. It might not be as much as you think.
On another note...What do you have your preloader set to? The default is 100% but you can usually set it to something like 25% without too much trouble. That should cut the start time down appreciably but nothing is going to eliminate it completely because there'll always be some initial lag the first time your learners view the content.

How can I make multiple quizzes within one Captivate project?

Hi guys! Really liking Captivate 5.5, especially the way random question slides can lift questions out of a question pool...very elegant!
Sadly though, I've come up against a bit of a wall. In my project, I want to have 3 separate quizzes that all use the same question pool; a 10, 30 and 50 question-long quiz. Each one needs to have its own results page.
It's easy enough to see what I mean by looking at the screenshot below:
The idea was to have about 105 slides in total, with slides 10 - 20 being the 10 quiz slide, 21 - 51 being the 30 question quiz and 52 - 102 being the 50 question quiz.
There are three invisible buttons placed over those 10, 30, 50 text boxes. In the picture, the '10 question' button would jump to slide 10, the '30 question' button would jump to slide 21, and the '50 question' button would jump to slide 52, jumping the user to the start of their designated tests.
Though I can create the 10 random question "block" easy enough, when it comes to adding the 30 question "block" it just adds the new random questions to the existing random questions. I want three separate quizzes, each with their own results screens please. (I don't want to daisy-chain to external projects, because the results of each test need to be used within the homepage.)
It just adds them on to the existing block!! Argh!!
Little bit ticked off with Adobe...the reason their products are so incredible is because they put no constraints on the user, and you can use their tools to create things even the developers never dreamed of. Like in Photoshop for example, I bet when the dropshadow fx was created, the developers never realised that it would be used to give a metallic 'stamped' look to text by turning it to white and applying it just inside the text.
Captivate, though amazing most of the time, has a nasty habit of stomping on my toes. You can't set grade boundaries and have quizzes give out grades A+ to F- for example. You can only have 'pass' and 'fail', thus making it rather pointless for use in schools, contrary to how the program is advertised. Another example would be when I wanted to create a replay button. I thought that a button that jumped to the slide it was on would be a simple, no-BS replay button, but for some reason you can't make a button jump to its current slide. I downloaded a widget that worked in the end, but I wish Adobe would get off my back and let me do what I want!
Anyway, if you could help me out here it would be grand

I must say I have a little sympathy for the Captivate developers on this occasion. As you say, they've created an application that does so much, that when you eventually run into a hard boundary of some kind, the effect is somewhat jarring. However, every application, no matter how good, has limits. I'm probably one of the worst offenders when it comes to asking the Adobe Captivate Development Team for enhancements (I think I've logged over 70 enhancement requests for Captivate 6 alone).
In your case, you want to have three different quizzes in one project file, each with it's own separate Quiz Results page. Lilybiri's blog explains how to set up your own faux Quiz Results pages using system variables and custom user variables, but you're going to find this to be quite a lot of trouble. Even if YOU want to consider these as three separate quizzes, as far as Captivate is concerned they're just one big quiz with 50 questions. So Captivate will calculate it's internal results based on a 50 question quiz, even if your users select the 10 question version. So achieving a final Pass/Fail result is going to be problematic at best.
As Lilybiri suggested, your better strategy would be to break this up into separate modules so that you can get your three separate quiz results (all done in standard Captivate) as well as correct results based on the actual number of questions done by the user.
As far as grades A-F is concerned, there's nothing to stop you from using Advanced Actions and User Variables to calculate the user's score as a grade. You need a user variable that stores the user's grade (e.g. var_Grade). And you need a fairly complex Conditional Advanced Action (e.g. caa_CalculateGrade) with several clauses each of which goes something like:
If
cpQuizInfoPointsscored is lesser or equal to [highest score for a particular grade]
AND
greater or equal to [lowest score for a particular grade]
Actions
Assign var_Grade with [the appropriate grade for that range of scores]
Your conditional action will need one of these clauses for each separate grade. Once your variable has been assigned a grade based on the user's score, you can display it in a text caption somewhere on the quiz results page or on a slide thereafter with suitable commendations/ commiserations.

QA checklist for a Captivate project?

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