Email Reporting Widget for Adobe Captivate 4

Sorry – This Adobe Captivate 4 widget has retired. If you are looking for Adobe Captivate widgets for newer versions follow this link. If you are still using Adobe Captivate 4 then it might be time to consider an update – click here to read more about the current version of Adobe Captivate.

What does it do?:

The Email Reporting Widget for Adobe Captivate 4 will automatically send an email with quizzing, access and other information to an email-address that the developer specifies in the widget parameters. The Widget uses a PHP 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.

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 Adobe Captivate Widget parameters tab contains three required fields:

The Recipient 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.

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_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 file to the directory where you published your files to. Upload all files to your webserver / LMS that runs PHP and you are all set.

Demonstration:

Since the widget sends email I cannot provide a live demonstration. However here you can see the output recieved by email after the widget is inserted in a project.

Requirements:

Adobe Captivate 4, minimum Flash Player 8 and PHP installed on your server.  Your Adobe Captivate project needs to be published to AS2.

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.

Limitations:

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.

In addition to this – 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:

One Adobe Captivate 4 Widget, two PHP files and help document.

Buy the Widget:

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 use this component together with the TOC in Adobe Captivate 4?
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.