There are some deployment scenarios that SCORM makes difficult. One of them in particular is when you have content on one domain, and an LMS on a different domain. There are several solutions for this with varying merits, and all of them require effort of some sort. Further, cross domain solutions aren’t necessary in most cases. For these reasons, addressing "cross domain" scenarios is specifically excluded in some of our SCORM Engine licenses. Why the cross-domain limitation, and how can you get around it? Basically, SCORM requires that content be served from the same domain as the LMS API. Browsers intentionally prevent the javascript in the content from communicating with the SCORM API if they originate from different domains. This is intentional on the part of the browser makers because it’s a security risk. If you control both domains (content and LMS), then this security risk shouldn’t be a particular concern to you, but that’s not easy to convey to everyone’s browsers. There are several ways to deal with cross-domain situations, all of which have downsides. Alter the settings in every browser that will play content. (This is a bad idea.) Manipulate document.domain in each piece of content. (Also not a good idea, because the content vendors have to be involved. Any solution that requires cooperation on the part of the content and LMS vendors basically defeats the purpose of a standard like SCORM.) Use Tin Can, because it works via web services. (Good idea long term, but it doesn’t solve your current problem of playing SCORM content.) Manipulate this via networking magic. Make each additional machine appear to come from the same domain. You can run multiple SCORM Engine installations in a single domain, essentially behind a load balancer. You could even go so far as to have something like http://scorm.domain.com/customerA and http://scorm.domain.com/customerB if you wanted different content stores for each of them, with each communicating back to http://scorm.domain.com. These would be virtual directories that are housed on different machines (with content in each) but appear to come from the same domain. This requires some skill in proxies. (Note: This wouldn’t work if you asked for http://customerA.domain.com, http://customerB.comain.com communicating with http://engine.domain.com. That would require central/remote, listed below.) You can also do a lot of funny business down in apache with redirect forwards, virtual hosts, etc and make those domains look however you want to the outside browser. Use what we call a central/remote architecture. This is a great solution to the problem, and something we’ve built out well in SCORM Engine. It does, however, carry an extra cost because it requires reintegration and is explicitly excluded in our SCORM Engine contracts. Basically, this allows you to have a single core Engine installation. You then replicate the remote component at each content store, wherever that might be. You would be responsible for replicating the content files to those locations. We would collectively write logic that determines which of the remote locations should play the content for each user. So, there are options. They generally require extra work and extra costs. If you’d like to discuss these options, just get in touch with us. Ask us anything, really. The post Solving the SCORM Cross Domain Issue appeared first on SCORM - .

Three years ago, we started on a journey with ADL to help them come up with the next version of SCORM. We’ve come a long way since then (we just hit Tin Can API 1.0!) and Rustici Software has grown quite a bit. Today we’re excited to welcome our two latest additions to the Rustici Software family: Ervin and Nathan (or Ervin and Skirvin, as we call them). If you haven’t noticed, we like to hire in pairs, and rhyming pairs are even better. Ervin Puškar is joining up with our developers and we are really excited about the things he will be working on. Right now he is focused on making it easier for our sales team to interact with prospects, which has a few people around here smiling (I’m looking at you, Chris & Tammy). Wanna learn a bit more about Ervin? This should help. Nathan, on the other hand, is jumping onto Team Delight to help with supporting our customers. Team Delight’s main goal is to dazzle our customers with great support, and we think Nathan is a wonderful addition to the team. There’s a lot more to Nathan than his way with customers, so head over here to learn more. We are so excited to welcome Nathan and Ervin to our team, and we’re always on the lookout for more awesome folks just like them to join us. Check out this blog post to get an idea of who we are looking for. Who knows, we could be welcoming you next The post A big welcome! appeared first on SCORM - .

Quell [kwel] verb (used with object) 1. to suppress; put an end to; extinguish. We base our work year around quarters, like a lot of companies do. At the end of each quarter, we have a "quell" week. It’s the end of the quarter, and it’s time for us to spend some time and think about what we did and what we’re going to do next. Quell weeks are a mix of meetings, good food, and change. We change a lot around here, but that’s how we get better. Quell weeks make some people nervous, and some excited. As our last quarter ended, some of our developers suggested that we do a "hackathon", and see what we could achieve. We decided to do it. But in the true Rustici Software spirit, we couldn’t call it a "hackathon" — we called it a Quack — half quell, half hack. Mike and Tim (the owners) stayed out of it. They let us come up with our own ideas and organize into groups as we saw fit. …and there were awards. $500 to the team that Mike and Tim saw as the winner, and $500 to the team that the company, as a whole, voted to win. We quacked last week. We built things. We created things to help the company and our customers. I’m not going to list them all here; they’ll be explained in a subsequent blog post. While Mike and Tim retreated to Mike’s office to discuss their "winner", we all voted. It’s important to note that we had to put our names on our ballots, so if you self-voted, everybody would know it. It could be an endless opportunity for your peers to shame you (not that we’d do that). There were too many good quacks for Mike and Tim to decide on one winner, so their award was split between two teams. Winner #1 was "Team John and Andy", with their easy-to-use Tin Can API statement generator that can be deployed to customers that want to let their users capture their experiences. Winner #2 was given Ervin, Nathan, and Brian M. for their work in making our software development process more efficient. The "Mike and Tim" $500 award was split between those two teams. It came from an envelope full of $20 bills, so I’m not sure which team got the extra $20. The company-voted prize was awarded to the team of David, TJ, and me, for giving the SCORM Cloud LRS a real home inside SCORM Cloud. So, my team had to figure out how to split up our $500 between three people. You can’t split up twenty-five $20 evenly, so somebody had to get an extra $20. We left that job up to TJ. TJ’s personal quack vote went to Joe Donnelly. Joe didn’t finish his quack because he got wrapped up in helping our customers with their support issues, but TJ realized the value of Joe taking the time to take a deep dive into our code, the Tin Can API spec, and learn more about code in general. When our customers have issues, Joe is the first person that has contact with them, and by Joe having a better working knowledge of the code, over time, the added value to our customers and our company is priceless. TJ divided the cash award and handed me a folded stack of $20 bills. I didn’t count it. I didn’t know where the extra $20 bill went. Mike made a joke about how it would be funny if TJ gave the extra $20 bill to Joe. TJ: "What else would I have done with it?" I was speechless. Awesome. That mindset is what makes Rustici Software the best place to work. The post At Rustici Software, We Like to Quack appeared first on SCORM - .

If you missed our post about Quack, you should check that out before digesting this post. This post is to tell you about one of the creations that came out of Quack. SCORM Cloud has been the easiest way for you to get your own LRS, but its main use has been for launching Tin Can content packages and for testing Tin Can activities that live outside of the LMS. This is how it used to be.   This is because we hadn’t built a way to provide authentication for an activity provider, which means you had to use your SCORM Cloud root-account credentials in order to send statements from an activity outside of an LMS to your Cloud LRS. Well, using your own SCORM Cloud credentials in a publicly-facing way like that just isn’t practical. It’s fine for testing, but it can’t be used in the "real world." This is what our Quack did.   We fixed it. We gave the LRS a home in SCORM Cloud. Now you can add activity providers to your Cloud LRS, which gives the activity provider a username and a password to use with your LRS. Choose either basic auth or OAuth. This means that now you can use your Cloud LRS to accept statements from anywhere, in a secure and "real-world usable" way. All of the things that couldn’t be done before due to security/authentication issues can be done now. It’s a big step towards having a useful Tin Can LRS implementation in SCORM Cloud. The post The Next Leap for Your Cloud LRS appeared first on SCORM - .

We’re happy to announce we have a new addition here at Rustici Software! When I first heard that we hired someone from Mississippi, I was overjoyed! You see, I get teased a lot around here for my super southern accent. I was thrilled that I would have someone to spread the teasing around with. I mean… he’s from Mississippi, surely he’s got a southern accent, right?! Boy was I WRONG! While Tim Edwards doesn’t have a southern drawl, he has a bunch of other great qualities that made him a perfect fit for our DevOps position. Tim (or Tedwards, as we call him) will be joining Ben, our chief worrier, in the never-ending task of keeping our services available and scalable. If you’d like to learn some more about him, check out his profile! Welcome aboard, Tim! We’re glad to have you, even without a southern accent The post It’s a Boy! appeared first on SCORM - .

You might have heard that we like to take care of our employees by offering them things that most employers wouldn’t ever consider providing, and most employees wouldn’t dream of receiving. Well, we did it again. This young man, Beau, washed and detailed all of our cars this week, courtesy of Rustici Software and Jenafits. Why this week? This is a big week for us here at Rustici Software — it’s Quell Week. Quell week happens once per quarter for us. It’s a time where the entire company gets together and decides how the last quarter went, and what will happen in the following quarter. There’s a lot of food (hence the clean plate part of the blog title), and usually, a lot of change (hence, the clean slate part of the title.) Teams might be rearranged, developers might be assigned to new projects, or new teams could coalesce to meet emerging needs. The change that Quell brings is one of the things that keeps our company fresh, on its toes, and progressing. This is definitely not a place where anyone gets stuck doing the same thing, day after day. "I fear change"…you’ve heard it before. We don’t fear it, because it’s how we keep the company on course with our ever-changing industry, and we do this better and faster than most companies (I speak from experience). Another reason not to fear change? Having a spotless and squeaky clean car is nice, for once. The post Clean Cars, Clean Plates, and Clean Slates. appeared first on SCORM - .

Continuing with the fun of Quell Week, we spent yesterday afternoon at Sky High Sports. We bounced around on a massive trampoline, played dodge ball, and got to dive into large pits full of foam (it was just as entertaining to watch people try to get out of the foam pit as it was to watch them dive into it.) You can see photos here. What was really interesting to me was an interaction that I had with our dodge ball referee. He does this stuff for a living, so believe it or not, he’s seen his fair share of "massive trampoline" dodge ball matches. At one point during our match, he turned to me and said "I’ve never seen anything like this before." Was it the intensity of the competition? The amount of fun we were having (at a work function)? The way that we started making up our own rules to increase the difficulty (and in turn, increase the fun) of the game? I don’t know. But I do know that we get that reaction a lot …usually when someone visits our office for the first time, or when we’re out in public at a company event. "I’ve never seen anything like this" is a really good way to sum up what it’s like to see this company in action. The post I’ve never seen anything like this… appeared first on SCORM - .

"Bravo. You are in the select company of America’s Fastest-Growing Companies".     That’s what was written on the front of the big folder that Mike handed to me last week, the folder that Inc Magazine sent to us, letting us know that we made the INC 5,000 list this year. It’s pretty exciting — even The Tennessean thinks so. We’ve won a lot of awards, many of them we’ve won multiple years in a row, but this is our first time making the INC 5,000 list. We don’t need awards to know that we’re doing great work, but it sure feels nice to get them. The post A first for us appeared first on SCORM - .

When Jeff and I sat down to interview our newest employee, Matt Lefavor, I didn’t know what to expect. You see, Matt has officially taken my title of youngest Rustici Software employee. I held that position proudly for exactly 922 days. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t help but feel a tad replaced. But once Matt started telling us about himself, my feelings were drowned out by the chorus of this Foreigner classic. I really have been waiting for a guy like Matt to come to work here at Rustici Software for so many reasons. He rocks a bowtie almost everyday, hence his nickname- Bowtie. He came to us from NASA. He writes music. He lets me call him Bowtie. And if that wasn’t enough, he’s a rapper. That’s right, people. He raps. I could barely contain my excitement. Want to sample the tracks that Matt’s laying down? Check this out. Matt’s joining our SCORM Engine team, working on everything from integrations to creating new releases, with a side of support here and there. Want to learn a bit more about him, check out his bio. I wish I could write a really awesome rap to welcome Matt to the Rustici family, but I’m lyrically and vocally challenged. Instead, I’ll just say "Welcome, Bowtie, we’re happy to have you here!" The post I’ve been waiting for a guy like you appeared first on SCORM - .

We love it when Brandon Hall announces their Group Excellence Awards winners. Not only do we get to see how innovative our industry has become, but in a few cases, our software plays a role in the projects that have earned the coveted Gold Medal. We even had the honor of winning one ourselves a few years ago for SCORM Cloud. This year, we were excited to see long time SCORM Cloud customer, CA, take home a whopping 5 medals including a Gold Medal for "Best in Learning Technology Implementations" for a solution they built using SCORM Cloud. CA faced a challenge of delivering training for their Global Partners and wanted to explore other delivery platform options for their external partners aside from their primary LMS. SCORM Cloud fit the bill. With the public invite option, CA adds links to their training hosted in Cloud directly on the partner site, making it easy for folks to login and get right to the training in one step. Using tags, CA can easily run reports through the Reportage feature to quickly see training results by each partner. By simplifying access to the training, CA saw a significant increase in training consumption and ultimately sales. Congrats to CA — we are happy to play a supporting role in this great honor! The post SCORM Cloud + CA = GOLD appeared first on SCORM - .