Learner Name Variable Save Type

Could someone help be understand the choices for Variable Save Type? The choices are concatenate or replace.

What does this REALLY mean?? If I use Concatenate does that mean that if I have 2 people with the same name that it will LINK their completion of a lesson?? If that is the case then does replace mean that if Joe Smith completes a lesson and another Joe Smith comes along it will replace the first one?? (I think my newness is showing in this question LOL)

Hi there!

We’re all new at some time :slight_smile: Welcome.

The variables are only kept within that learner’s session and are related to the content of the course NOT the completion inside the LMS, so it will only be one person’s interactions within the course that it tracks.

Say for example you collect a person’s response to the same question 3 times in the course with different components. If you choose replace, by the time you get to the end the first two will have been overwritten so only the latest answer will be contained in the variable.

If you concatenate, then if the person answers JIM for first name then SMITH for surname and you use the same variable for both fields you will see all answers in the variable as one string so JIM SMITH.

But as noted, these do not pass to the LMS, they stay without that person’s record of the course only, for use or display while they are taking the course.

Hope that helps!

That helps tremendously! Thank you!

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Just to add - if it is a number based variable it will ADD them, so:

One, Two, Three would give you ONETWOTHREE at the end.
but
1, 2, 3 would give you 6 at the end.

As with all use cases, make sure you test things to see you get the desired outcome!

More on Variables: Variables : Intellum

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