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Guided Tour

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1 Initial Problem

  • Some users actively explore learning plattforms.  Some other users feel anxious and want guidance. They feel insecure about their options.
  • Complex software requires complex navigation. We have been discussing and implementing improvements for a long time, but ILIAS will likely never be completely self-explanatory.
  • The current Online Help supports users, but makes it hard to refer to concrete navigational controls. It is much easier to show these things in person by pointing at the screen. 
A software version of "pointing at the screen" would be a guided tour!

It could be used for classic Help contexts, onboarding of new users and even for a new and shiny ILIAS demo!
Mockup based on BootstrapDemo
Example of guided tours:

2 Conceptual Summary

The Guided Tour complements the work instructions and the tool tips.

  • Guided Tours can be defined in the help administration. They consist of multiple steps that can point to various user interface elements.
  • Guided tours can be triggered on specific screens.  
  • Guided Tours cannot open or click elements, they merely draw attention to the existence of element.
  • The content of explanation texts can be edited using the page editor.
  • The content is displayed within a KS popover element.

Starting Guided Tours 

  • Guided Tours are presented once a users opens a screen.
  • She is presented with popovers pointing to important controls. The steps are presented in a predefined sequence.
  • There is no manual starting of a Guided Tour.
  • In order to present the Tour only once, ILIAS must save that somebody has never seen the tour, refused to see it, completed it. 

Ending Tours

  • User can only end the Guided Tour by clicking on [End Tour]. 
  • Any Tour that was ended will never be shown again. Users can not call upon the Guided Tour again. 
  • Unless the Tour was ended it will be presented again if user revisits the context. 

Adressability of controls 

The following UI elements can be addressed:

  • Top main bar elements
  • Tab elements
  • Metabar elements
  • The (first) toolbar of the main content
  • The (first) form of the main content
  • The (first) table of the main content
  • The (first) primary button of the main content

Note: Usually screens should only contain one toolbar, form, table or primary button. If the main content contains multiple of these elements, the first one will be adressed.

Managing Guided Tours 

  • Guided Tours are added and managed in a new tab at Administration > System Setting and Maintenance > Help System > Guided Tours
  • Tours can be activated for specific screens, identified by screen IDs
  • Tours can be activated depending on permission. Requests on screens must contain a ref id. "Read", "Edit Settings" and "Create" (Any creation permission) can be selected.
  • Steps can be added to Tours. Each steps refers to an UI element type (see list above). Mainbar, tab and metabar elements need an additional ID.
  • ID presentation can be activated for specified accounts. Similar to the general help, tooltips will provide the IDs, once activated.

3 User Interface Modifications

3.1 List of Affected Views

  • potenially all screens
  • Administration > System Setting and Maintenance > Help System > Guided Tours (new)

3.2 User Interface Details

3.2.1 Creating guided tours

Main Tour List for adding, importing, editing and deleting tours.

Activating ID presentation for single accounts in tour administration.

Tour Settings

  • Title
  • Description
  • Active (Checkbox)
  • Screen IDs (comma separated)
  • Permission (optional)
  • Language (Dropdown, missing in mockup)

List of steps for a single tour.

Step Properties

Editing content of a step. Since the presentation space in the popovers will be limited, only the following content types are supported:

  • Text (incl. simple lists)
  • Media
  • Sections

3.2.2 Presenting Guided Tours 

Each step will be presented in a KS popover.

If multiple tours are active on the same screen, they will be presented subsequently. The first tour must be ended before the second will be presented.

If the user requests a different screen, tour presentation will stop.

We would like to use the Kitchensink-Element Popover for presenting the Guided Tour. 

3.3 New User Interface Concepts

No new Interface elements. 

4 Technical Information

The IDs being used depend on screen and element IDs as being provided through the global screen or the legacy tab service, similar to the help system.

These IDs may change with ILIAS versions, in extreme cases also with minor releases, e.g. if features are added/removed or refactored in minor releases (which should usually not be the case).

There will be no automatic migration for these changes. Guided tour authors might need to adopt changed IDs for new ILIAS releases.

5 Privacy Information

It will be stored whether or not a user has shut down the tour / taken the tour. A table including User ID and Tour ID will store this information. Records will be deleted, if users or tours are being deleted.

6 Security Implications

No security implications.

7 Contact

8 Funding

If you are interest in funding this feature, please add your name and institution to this list.

  • ILIAS.nrw (Heinrich Heine Universität Düsseldorf)

9 Discussion

Kruse, Fabian [Fabian], 23.11.2020: This would be a great way to contribute to better user adaptation of ILIAS. It could be used not just as part of the help, but also in our new demo and in other places.

I would consider using existing software to implement this, like the tools linked above.

Samüle Content for Tours gathered in the Editorial Team

Kunkel, Matthias [mkunkel], 30 JUL 2025: I read this article multiple times but do not really understand how I would create a guided tour for the Dashboard for example.

  1. I understand how to start (screenshots 1 and 2 in chap. 3.2). The Screen ID defines the screen where my guided tour takes place. (BTW: it is not explicitly mentioned but a guided tour is always restricted to one screen, right?). I get the screen ID when I activate the related personal setting on my installation, right? Is there anything else to do?
  2. After having created a new guided tour I am redirected to screenshot 1 where all existing guided tours are shown, right? (BTW: how about showing the related Screen ID in an additional column as a good additional information for each guided tour?)
  3. Next step I assume is to ‘edit’ a guided tour. I can imagine that there is a related action behind the dropdown on screen 2, right?
  4. Now I am on screen 3, right? Here the toolbar offers me the option  ‘Add Step’ – which brings me to screen 4, right?
  5. Now I have to define the place on the screen where the ‘guided tour step’ should be attached to and shown by adding a UI-ID. But how do I get the UI-ID (or UI ID?) of an element for which I would like to add a ‘blobb’ (or popover) with some information for a user? Example: For my Dashboard tour I would like to have a guided tour step for the block ‘Kalender’ or for ‘To-Do’.
  6. After having saved this ID I get back to screen 3 with all existing steps of my tour. But how do I get to screen 5 where I enter the content of my tour step? The ‘Edit’ action brings me back to the form where I entered the UI ID, right? Shoudn't there be an additional action ‘Edit Content’?

Additional questions:

  • In the chapter ‘New User Interface Concepts’ is written ‘We would like to use the Kitchensink-Element Popover.’ Has this been inserted here by mistake and belongs to cha 3.2? Or do you want to change/extend the existing popover element?
  • Wouldn't it make sense to be able to activate and deactivate entire Guided Tours or individual steps? According to the current description, you would have to create a Guided Tour on a running installation and could not prepare it in a calm manner. And importing a finished Guided Tour seems not be part of this feature request.

Tödt, Alexandra [atoedt], 30 JUL 2025: on Matthias's questions 

  1. A Guided tour is restricted to one screen / tab / view. Screen IDs are activeted in the set up as with the help Learning module. The editorial team assumes some basic guided tours will be created on help.ilias.de and then published to the community for re-use.  
  2. Yes, you are placed at the Tab guided Tour Mock up 1. I am not sure about the column Screen ID. To most people a Screen ID is ghibberish.  
  3. Your newly created guided Tour has an edit action in Mock up 1.
  4. Clicking the Edit action of a guided Tour (mock up 1) opens the underworld with the Guided Tour TITLE table of mock up 3. Clicking on ‘Add Step’ –button brings you to mock up 4.  
  5. The UI-ID was prepared by Fabian Schmid and is switched on with the Screen IDs can be harvested from the respective tool tip. Only come clickable elements have UI-IDs so far. Secondry Panels do not have UI-ID. 
  6. Mock-Up 3 is missing an Edit Content action, my bad. 

Additional questions:

  • We will use the existing Pop-over. I moved the text to 3.2. 
  • Guided Tours can be exported an imported. I will add Mock ups. 

Lowe, Simon [simon.lowe], 13 AUG 2025: Are the content types at the IPE restricted or is it possible to add all exisiting content types for a Guided Tour Step?

Killing, Alexander [alex], 14 Aug 2025: I updated the mockups reflecting the ongoing implementation. I added some additional information, too. a) The ID presentation can be activated in the administration. b) It should be possible to (de-)activate complete tours. c) From my side it would be ok to activate a tour for multiple screen IDs, however screen requests will always reset a tour. d) Yes, I would restrict content types to a minimal set of element types, see list above.

JourFixe, ILIAS [jourfixe], 18 AUG 2025: We highly appreciate this suggestion and accept the feature for trunk. In addition to the feature request Alexander notified us that

  • the content style used by the Guided Tour is the default content style of an installation. There is no specific content style for Guided Tours.
  • the 'Edit Settings' permission within the Help administration is needed to create a Guided Tour and edit it while ‘Read’ permission shows only which tours exist and does allow any changes.

10 Implementation

{The maintainer has to give a description of the final implementation and add screenshots if possible.}

Test Cases

Test cases completed at {date} by {user}
  • {Test case number linked to Testrail} : {test case title}

Approval

Approved at {date} by {user}.

Last edited: 18. Aug 2025, 14:11, Kunkel, Matthias [mkunkel]