Widget updated 03/31/11: Support for ASP added, support for up to 14 custom variables added, support for sending a copy of the email to the student added, fix to allow scaling of Captivate projects with widgets implemented, reformatted the time completed variable to comply with the HH:MM:SS standard, added rounding to two decimals for the score percentage variable.
What does it do?:
The Email Reporting Widget for Adobe Captivate 4 and Adobe Captivate 5 will automatically send an email with quizzing, access and other information to an admin email-address that the developer specifies in the widget parameters. It is also possible to have the widget send a copy of the email to the student. The Widget uses a PHP / ASP script to send the email in the background and the user will not notice or need to take any action in order to send the email.
In addition to sending the variables concerning quiz data from Captivate you also have the possibility to send up to 14 user defined variables / custom variables from Captivate.
How does it work?:
The developer inserts the Email Reporting Widget either on the quiz summary slide or on any slide after the quiz summmary slide. You could also use this widget to record access data and time spent in a project without quizzes. In that case simply insert the widget on your last Captivate slide.
The widget parameters tab contains three required fields:
The Admin email field defines the email address where you want the Widget to send the email.
The Email subject field defines the subject of the email.
The Sender email field defines the from email address that will appear in the email you receive.
The Send copy to student is disabled by default. If this boxed is ticked then the widget will send a copy of the email to the student as well. The student email is retrieved from the custom Captivate variable v_email, so in order for this to work you (the developer) will need to populate this variable. Follow the instruction for setting up a Text Entry Box below.
Once you have set up these parameters and inserted the widget then the final thing you need to do is to add a Text Entry Box in your Captivate project where the user can enter his name / employee number or other type of ID so you can identify the user. The Text Entry Box needs to be associated with a variable called v_userid. If you want to have the student receive a copy of the email then you should also set up a Text Entry Box so the student can enter their email address and associate that with the variable v_email.
This concludes the work you need to do in Adobe Captivate. The next step is to publish your project and then manually copy the sendmail.php or sendmail.asp file to the directory where you published your files to. Upload all files to your webserver / LMS that runs PHP / ASP and you are all set.
Demonstration:
I have added a live demonstration so you can test what the widget outputs. Click below to open the live demonstration.
A screenshot of the output recieved by email can be seen below.
Requirements:
Adobe Captivate 4 or Adobe Captivate 5, minimum Flash Player 9 and PHP or ASP installed on your server. Your Adobe Captivate 4 project needs to be published to AS3.
Specifically about the ASP version: I do not have any means to test the ASP version myself. The ASP Script have been converted from PHP to ASP by Christopher Haigood. The ASP script uses the “System.Web.Mail” namespace so this would need to be enabled and functional on your ASP server. If you have ASP skills yourself then you can easily modify or create a new ASPX script to handle the sending of the email using your preferred method. All the variable names are available in the current sendmail.asp script.
Test package to verify the widget will work for you:
In order to make sure that this widget will work on your system / setup you can download a special test package here. This package contains a Captivate project, some Flash coding and a PHP file. All you need to do is to edit the PHP file and insert your own email address and then upload all the files to the server / LMS where you intend to run your Captivate project from.
Currently there is no test package available for the ASP version. I’m working on figuring out how to provide a test package for the ASP version.
Limitations:
PHP:
As far as I am aware of there are no know limitations of this widget other than the fact that you server needs to run PHP. Most webhosts already have PHP running on the server.
ASP:
Requires “System.Web.Mail” namespace.
In addition – prior to buying the widget you should have (hopefully) used the test package to see if your server would send you an email.
Package contents:
Two widgets for Adobe Captivate 4 and Adobe Captivate 5(One PHP version and one ASP version), two PHP files, one ASP file and a help document.
Buy the Widget:
Prior to buying please make sure that you have used the test package to ensure the widget works for you!
Single User Licence (US$ 35)
The single user licence grants you, the Purchaser, a non-exclusive, non-transferable right to make use of and display the product that you acquire but limited to either your own personal use or for projects within the company where you are employeed.
You are allowed to use the product as many times as you like for personal use or for projects within your company / organization. However, if you use this product in a one of your projects with the intent of resale to a client outside of your company / organization you are required to repurchase the product the appropriate number of times or purchase an enterprise license.
Multiple User Licence (US$ 175)
The multiple user licence grants you and any number of employees of your company / organization, a non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to make use of and display the product that you have acquired to either your own personal use or for projects within your own company.
You are allowed to use the product as many times as you like for personal use or for projects within your own company / organization. However, if you use this product in a one of your projects with the intent of resale to a client outside of your company / organization you are required to repurchase the product the appropriate number of times or purchase an enterprise license.
Enterprise License (US$ 500)
The Enterprise Licence grants you and any number of employees of your company / organization, a non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to make use of and display the product that you have acquired to either your own personal use, for projects within the your company or for projects with the intent of resale to external customers without limitations.
Frequently asked questions:
Question: When I insert the component in Adobe Captivate all I see is a blank box. Is that normal?
Answer: Yes that is perfectly normal. In Edit view in Adobe Captivate all you get is a blank box. It will also be blank when the user runs your project since the widget only affects things in the background.
Question: Can I capture the individual answers to each question in Captivate with this widget?
Answer: No. The widget will capture the overall quiz scores and properties but not the individual answers to each questions.
Question: What’s all this license stuff? I just want to use it in my projects?
Answer: The license stuff is actually pretty simple. If you want to use this component in your projects (personal or professionally) then in 90% of the cases you just need to buy the Single User License. This license can be used by you in any number of projects for any number of users. The projects can be personal or for the company where you work. However, the projects need to be used internally in the company where you work. You cannot add this component to a course / project that you intend to resale to an external client. In that case you would need to re-purchase the Single User License again per external project.
The Multiple User License is just like above, but here all your developers in your company can use it. What if you are only 3 developers? Well then just buy 3 x Single User Licenses. If you are more than 5 people that needs to use it then the Multiple User License is cheaper for you.
The Enterprise License gives you the right to use the component in all your courses – internal or external, resale or giveaways you name it.
Question: Can I use this component together with the TOC in Adobe Captivate 4 and Adobe Captivate 5?
Answer: Yes that is no problem
Question: Can I use this widget in projects that are using the Aggregator.
Answer: Yes that is no problem but the widget will not be able to aggregate scores from multiple quizzes if they are published in separate SWF files.
Question: Can I use this component in a course delivered through an LMS?
Answer: Yes provided that your LMS runs from a PHP enabled server.
Question: I cannot see the Widget Parameters tab when I have inserted the widget in Captivate.
Answer: Chances are that you imported it as an “Animation” by mistake. Try and import the widget again as a widget.
Question: What if I buy it and it doesn’t work. Can I get a refund?
Answer: No if you purchase the product you can’t get a refund since it’s a digital delivery. The component has been tested extensively on all types of systems, browsers etc. without any issues. If you are unsure if the component will work for you or not then use the Test Package provided for download further up in this post to make sure first.
Question: Can you help me install PHP on my server?
Answer: No unfortunately not. There are people way cleverer than me that can do this for you.
Question: I would like to have some modifications done to the widget – is that possible?
Answer: Sure thing – just send me an email through my sites www.cpguru.com contact form and we can work out the details.
Hello,
Is there any way to use this widget on EXE captivate files??
Because I publish my captivate files only as EXE in order to save them on cd-roms (protected with licence codes).
Thanks,
Murilo
Unfortunately I could not get the test file to work. Does the version of PHP matter? I am running PHP5.
I have other PHP files running on my server that work fine.
Thanks.
@ Magda,
The widget and PHP script supports PHP5 so that shouldn’t matter. However, some webhosts might have the “send mail” functionality blocked until specifically requested to open it – that might be worth checking out.
/Michael
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Hi,
Is there any way to put this function in a Button inside an exe captivate file?
Ex: On last slide, the student click on the button and it will report the data by an email.
Thanks!
Not out of the box no. However, you could “fake” it by putting the widget on a blank slide and then have a button in Captivate jump to that slide when pressed.
Alternatively contact me through the Contact section on my site if you want me to modify the widget with a button of your choice.
/Michael
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Does the student/user have to hit the “Continue”button for the email to be sent?
@Curtis. No they don’t have to do that, but it is a good way to ensure that all variables are ready to be sent. However, you could simply add the widget to the result page and set it to start at 1 seconds in the slide timeline and that should work just fine.
/Michael
Is there a way to format the email differently or at least put a label on the custom variables? I am afraid that my users will get confused by custom variable 1, custom variable 2, etc. The widget looks great and with the added ASP support my boss said get it. Thanks for putting this together.
Scott
@Scott. The names of the custom variables (or actually the entire format of the email sent) can be edited in the PHP or ASP file. Therefore you can change the names of the custom variables to whatever you like.
/Michael
Michael, another question for you. What version of ASP does this work with. I have been trying to get the test package to work with my server which has ASP 2.0.50727.0 on it and I can not get a message to go through. After some research it appears that System.Web.Mail is replaced with System.Net.Mail in 2.0. Is it accurate to say that this plugin is supported on ASP 1.x only?
@Scott,
In all honesty I don’t know. I have no ASP skills what-so-ever so the ASP script is created by an ASP developer.
I can send your the full ASP script so you can take a look yourself. Please send me an email through the Contact section on the site and I’ll reply to that Scott.
/Michael
hi there, my host says I need ” smtp auth”, I do not know what he means, but I tried your test files and it does not work. My host has PHP and ASP and ASP.NET
@Scott
hi, you have to contact your provider if he uses “smtp auth”, my provide wrote me a script so the widget can send mails. Maybe you can help me: I do not succeed to let the custom variables work… do you have an example?
I plan to use the ASP functionality. Can I set it so that the users login name is captured, so tehre is no need for the user to enter anything?
@ Roy,
No the widget cannot auto capture this information unless it is present in Captivate already. Therefore if you have another way of “injecting” the info into Captivate it would be possible. Otherwise not.
/Michael
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Can this be used with survey questions. eg Likert scale?
No it can’t because you will not get the individual result for each question but instead an aggregated result for the entire project.
/Michael
Hi I posted my question here this morning but I don’t see it here, so I am posting it here again: I was able to make the test files work on my own server. However, our course design needs to upload the SCORM package to the LMS that we have been using. We have been having problems with this LMS with many issues because this is a locally developed LMS which may not support many functions. Therefore I wonder if you could provide a SCORM package for me to test with the LMS to make sure it works with the LMS?
Thanks you!
Sure I can provide you with a SCORM package but I just need a couple of details from you. Which SCORM version are you using? 1.2 or 2004?
Should the email be sent to the email address that you specified in this comment?
Do you know if your LMS is running on an Apache / PHP enabled server by any chance?
/Michael
Hi Michael, Thank you for getting back to me so quickly.
The LMS support both SCORM 1.2 and 2004. However I just knew from the ppl who developed it that it runs on the Microsoft platform of Windows 2008. Do you think there is still a way to make this work? Thanks.
Rui
Hi Rui,
I do have a version that uses ASP but that is a lot more restrictive. If you can ask the developers if the Windows server runs ASP and if they allow access to “System.Web.Mail” then we can find out if the widget will work for you. If you can confirm this then I can send you the ASP version of the widget so you can test it.
/Michael
Hi Michael, here is the answer that I just got from the LMS developers:
1>Yes Windows server runs ASP, but we are using ASP.NET now ASP pages.
2> LMS allows to access “System.Web.Mail”
Do you think this widget can still be functioning if they are using ASP. NET? I never touched any ASP.NET thing before.
Hi Rui,
I sent you an ASP version of the widget so you can test it.
/Michael
Can this widget be used to e-mail a custom built Certificate of Completion from Captivate? Or, can it only e-mail quiz results? Thanks.
Hi Evan,
Yes – you could modify the PHP file that sends the email so it would be your own custom certificate. You can easily edit the PHP file to add more static information and / or delete information that you do not want to include in the email.
/Michael