External Activity

What is an External Activity

You may have a training resource that you want to add to your Sprint, but it does not fit with any of the available activity types (SCORM, Video, Question set...). Maybe a Java presentation, an Office formulary, or any other kind of file hosted in a cloud storage service. You may even want to add a whole external web page into the Sprint as a formative resource.

Any type of external element to the LMS platform that is available online can be incorporated to your training, through an External Activity. It is the easiest to configure, but it offers you the widest range of possibilities.

The External Activity is one of the types of activities that can be gamified. To find out how to do it and what options you have, check this article.

How to create an External Activity

To create this type of activity first access the Learning tab, within the Learning Manager, and look for the Sprint you want to add the external resource to. Click on it to enter the Editor.

Remember that in order to add External Activities to a Sprint, it must not have been published before. If the Sprint is Published and then Unpublished, the Editor will be available, but when trying to create the Activity the system will return the error message It is not possible to change activity related data when the sprint has already been published.

Within the Editor, look for the Mission Block in which you want to include the Activity and click on the + New Activity button under it. The menu with the available types is displayed, click on the External Activity button (globe icon). Two more options are displayed: Create and Explore.

Create a new External Activity

The Create option allows you to add a new URL or online resource that you have not used so far. Clicking on the pencil icon displays a pop-up menu to create an activity, with the following options:

In the upper left corner, as in other types of activities, Set milestone (flag icon) and Gamify the activity (trophy icon).
Edit Image, in the photo icon in the upper-right corner, to select a header image for the Activity.
Name, to assign a title to the Activity.
Description, a brief introduction to the Activity, which will be visible to the student.
Launch URL, click in this box to enter the URL address of the external resource you want to add. Write it with the format "http://www.example.com".
Display, like the rest of the activities, the system allows you to choose how it will be opened when clicking on it:
- In card: the external resource is shown in the small window of the Activity inside the Sprint.
- Full screen: the resource is displayed maximized to full screen, overlaying the Sprint and hiding it. Once you have finished the activity, close the window to return to the Sprint.
- In a new window: the resource is opened in a new browser tab, apart from the Sprint tab itself. This allows you to maximize the content and at the same time being able to jump between the External Activity and the Sprint easily.
Comments, check or uncheck this flag to allow or not students to add comments to the Activity.

Click on the √ SAVE button and the system proceeds to import the link and create the new Activity. If you click on the Activity within the Editor, you will see a thumbnail of the resource with the header image, the web metadata and the URL address.

Browse an existing External Activity

Explore (file-shaped button) is the second option that appears when you try to create an External Activity, and allows you to explore all the External Activities that have been previously imported into the system to select the one you want and create the new activity from it. This option helps you to reuse an External Activity that has been already uploaded to the platform previously.

Clicking on it displays a new side menu with the Library, a list of all External Activities that were previously imported. You can use the Search... bar at the top to enter keywords related to the activity you are looking for. When you find it, click on the flag on its left and press the √ ADD button. You will go to the same window of new activity that you saw in the previous section, but with the URL link already entered.

Netex disclaims its responsibility for publication of all content that is not hosted within the platform. Likewise, we recommend that such content be opened by default in a new window to avoid display problems in the selected iFrame.