What is Mobile Offline Viewing?

Updated February 15, 2024 20:06

Overview

The Brainshark Mobile Offline Viewing feature provides access to Brainshark content when users are disconnected from the Internet. A user can select Brainshark presentations and courses to download to their devices and content is easily accessible while offline. Offline content can be managed from a Downloads tab and viewed anytime regardless of connectivity state. When connectivity is restored, and the app is opened, viewing data and course progress is synchronized with Brainshark.

The ability to download presentations and courses is limited to content that does not require an Internet connection or the Brainshark web application. Content that requires connectivity to the Brainshark application is unavailable for download.

This includes but is not limited to content with viewing restrictions such as prerequisites that have not been met, limits on a number of attempts, registration guestbooks, password-protected content, etc.
Courses within curriculums are also supported.

Please note that Brainshark Coaching requires online access.

Using Brainshark apps when offline is similar to the online experience. Imagine a student or sales rep on an airplane with her tablet, smartphone, or laptop, reviewing product presentations or completing learning tasks while disconnected. Imagine a sales rep in a hospital or casino with limited access to wifi and a need to present content from a tablet.

Highlights

Mobile support for iOS (iPhone, iPad) and Android
Course and presentation support
Ability to manage offline content from a single page (Downloads tab)
Tracking of offline feature usage and synchronization back to Brainshark
Admin mobile offline policy controls (enable/disable mobile offline)
Attachments to presentations and courses are supported
Data is encrypted at rest

Enabling Mobile Offline for a Brainshark Company

Brainshark Company Administrators can enable or disable the Mobile Offline feature company-wide through their Administration tools by navigating to Manage Company > Presentation Settings > General Properties.

If this setting is not visible, a Company Administrator can contact Bigtincan Support to request that this be enabled for their company portal.

Enabling Mobile Offline for a Presentation / Course

By default, when Offline Viewing is enabled for the site all presentations and Brainshark Learning courses are also enabled. The setting is located on:

Presentations: Edit Presentation > Presentation Properties
Learning Courses: Course Details > Edit Presentation > Course Properties

The presentation / course is available for offline viewing:

The presentation / course author would like to have the presentation / course available for offline viewing, but it contains an unsupported feature:

The presentation / course author does not want the presentation / course available for offline viewing:

If the 'Enable offline viewing' setting is not visible when editing properties:

The featured is not enabled for your organization
It's an unsupported presentation / course type (see below)

Mobile App Installation

The Brainshark Mobile App is available for iOS and Android phones and tablet devices. Installation is done through the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.

Download for Apple/iOS devices

Download for Android devices

Using Mobile Offline

Login and Authentication

Note: If someone has logged a mobile device into a company that has Mobile Offline enabled, but does not check the "remember me" button, then downloads something, there is nothing preventing or warning them that they'll be unable to view the content when offline unless they have the app open and running in the background already. If they quit the app, and then open it later when offline, they'll be logged out and unable to do anything. Similarly, if a user tries to log out while offline, they'll get stuck.

Downloading Content

Courses and Presentations that are available for download are indicated by cloud icons on the Content and Learning cards and content details page. Clicking this icon initiates the download. One download can be initiated at a time.

Offline Experience

The Content, Learning, and Coaching tabs are unavailable when the mobile device has no Internet connection.

Brainshark content can be Active, Inactive, Expired, or Archived. The differences between the handling of content with these different statuses are:

Inactive content is handled as follows:

viewable by the author online
downloadable by the author online and viewable by the author offline

Expired content is handled as follows:

not viewable by the author online
downloadable by the author online and viewable by the author offline

Archived content is handled as follows:

viewable by the author when online (presentation will be restored after view)
downloadable by the author when online (download unarchives it, which makes it viewable offline)

Notes:

Once a download is initiated it cannot be canceled. A user may swipe left to delete the download at certain times before the download actually begins. A future update is planned to address this.
Some course details are not available when offline.

Presentation and Course Details

Score and score requirements are snapshots in time from when the course download occurred. Completion status can only change to pending while offline. If a course is enrolled with an "incomplete" status and you view it offline it will show a "pending" status until a definite status can be ascertained after synchronization occurs with Brainshark upon returning online.

Reviewing Courses

Completed courses can be downloaded with a Review button. The course can be taken offline, and then it synchronizes when the user returns online. If the course is considered complete after the sync, the Review button will appear. The Review button shows at all times and the course status is always "Completed" as it was completed before it was downloaded.

Course Completion Status

When online - it will show the most up to date status
When offline - it will show the following:
- Enrolled - downloaded an Enrolled course but never played it
- Incomplete - downloaded an Incomplete course but never played it
- Pending - downloaded an Enrolled/Incomplete course and you've played it
- Complete - downloaded a Complete course and it doesn't matter if you've played it

Playing Downloads

Downloaded content is available through the new Downloads tab both when connected or disconnected. Downloaded content is used from the Content and Learning tabs while online and is augmented with online features such as opening URLs.

Generally speaking, Mobile Offline content behaves similarly to content played online. There are a few caveats:

For example, for randomized test questions and answers, the randomization process occurs once at download time rather than every time a content interaction occurs.
Once a course or presentation has been downloaded for offline use, all views of that content from any tab will be the offline version of the content even when connected online.

Managing Downloads

Content download progress can be monitored from the Downloads tab

Deleting Offline Content
Mobile Offline content can be deleted using a swipe action on the content placeholder on the Downloads tab. When content is deleted any viewing data that has not been synchronized to Brainshark will still be synchronized upon the next connection.

Download Failures
When a download fails due to a network failure, the mobile app will continue to try to download the content. Ten retries are attempted at expanding intervals. Another ten retries are attempted when the app is opened again in the future. If none of these attempts are successful, the download is considered a failure and the failure status icon is displayed on the content card in the Downloads tab.

If you run into these failures, please reach out to Bigtincan Support.
Stale Download Content

Content may be updated by an author after a user has downloaded the content for offline use. Currently, no indication is provided when content is out of date.
A future release will provide a visual indication when content is out of date. When the offline content is not the latest version of the content, users will see an icon that they can click to initiate the download of the new content.

Synchronized Viewing and Submission Data

Offline usage data is automatically synchronized to Brainshark when a device is reconnected to the network.

Unsupported Features and Content

Archived Content is not downloadable.
Author Details: Author Photo is hidden when offline.
Expired Content is not downloadable.
Inactive Content is not downloadable.
IP Restrictions are not supported, and downloads are allowed.
Limit Number of Course Attempts is not supported. Content with this feature enabled is not available for download
Personalized Content - Known issues. However, the feature is not blocked.
Poll results will not be displayed. They will always display 0% for all answers when offline.
Question Branching: to Presentations or Courses - Content is not downloadable.
Question Branching: to URLs Content is not downloadable.
Referral Restrictions Content is not downloadable.
Unenrolled Courses are not downloadable.

Unsupported Content Types

HTML5 Content is not downloadable.
Network Content (content from other companies) is not downloadable.
PPT Slide (embedded video) Embedded video on PowerPoint slides is not supported and content containing this feature is not available for download.
Uploaded SCORM Content (Learning) Content is not downloadable.
URL Slide Content is downloadable but the URL will not load when offline. The voiceover will load and play.

Unsupported Player Controls

Author Photo is not visible.
Completion Branching:
Conditional Redirects (mobile/language) Block content download
Embed Code (desktop) No visible user behavior.
FAQ (content-specific) When viewing FAQs offline, users receive the message “No FAQs available." This is the same message that is shown when an online piece of content has no FAQs.
Guestbook (before/after viewing & external) is not available.
Help is hidden from the triple dot menu.
History is hidden from the triple dot menu.
Link to completion results is hidden from the table of contents completion bar.
Link to completion certificate is hidden from the table of contents completion bar.
Presentation Password enabled content is not downloadable.
Print Slides No visible user behavior.
Require user to refresh player when session times out Session Timeout cadmin property. Mobile app sessions are different than online browser sessions.
Share (Email & Social) Keep this option to be consistent with the Share button on the content details page. The option is there in the menu.
Submit a question to an author is hidden from the triple dot menu.
Supported Languages (device language setting) There is no visible user behavior.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Can I download more than one presentation or course at a time?
No, not yet.
Can I cancel a download once it's in progress?
No. It may be possible to swipe and delete a download before it actually starts transferring. Look for a Cancel feature in a future release.

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