Set Up Talkthrough Mode
Talkthrough guides Learners through a workflow with spoken narration and on-screen captions, and it can also introduce a Lesson or explain why a workflow has to be performed accurately. This article shows Content Developers and Instructional Designers how to set the mode up on a new Lesson, how to add it to a Lesson built before August 2026, what the five Talkthrough actions do, and how to word the narration, choose the voice, and preview the result in Skyllful Studio.
What is Talkthrough mode for?
Talkthrough gives the Learner the most support of any Lesson mode. The Learner watches the full workflow while spoken narration and on-screen captions explain each action, one action at a time.
Use Talkthrough when Learners need to see a whole workflow before they try it themselves. It is the mode to reach for when you want Learners to watch a workflow end to end.
Note: A Talkthrough does not have to reproduce the Walkthrough, Practice and Knowledge Check steps action for action. It also works as an introduction to the Lesson, or as the place to explain why the workflow matters and what it costs when it is not performed accurately.
How is Talkthrough different from Walkthrough?
Talkthrough guides the Learner with spoken narration and captions, and the actions play automatically. Walkthrough guides the Learner with on-screen prompts in a dialog, and the Learner performs the action. Both support the Learner through the workflow, and Talkthrough gives more support.
What is built on the General tab, and what is built on the Talkthrough tab?
The foundation of every mode is built on the step's General tab. That is where the step's name, description, and the control the Learner acts on are set. Every mode starts from them.
Talkthrough is then set up and built out on the step's Talkthrough tab. That is where you decide what the Learner hears and sees while the step runs: the narration, the actions that play, and the order they play in.
The step's description is a good example. Talkthrough, Walkthrough and Practice all start from it, and each mode words it to suit without changing the original.
If the foundation is wrong, such as the wrong control on the step, fix it on the General tab. Everything else belongs on the Talkthrough tab.
How do you set up Talkthrough mode?
This is the path for a Lesson you are building for the first time, where you add each action yourself. To add Talkthrough to a Lesson that already exists, use the procedure in the next section instead.
Step |
Action |
|---|---|
| 1 | Open the Lesson in Lesson Builder. |
| 2 | In the View Steps row, choose Talkthrough. The Talkthrough Lesson Mode Settings panel opens, and every step switches to its Talkthrough tab. |
| 3 | Complete the Talkthrough Lesson Mode Settings for the whole mode. Set the estimated time, and include the background image Learners see in Skyllful Simulator and a description written for Talkthrough, such as "In this Talkthrough, you will learn how to check and accept your schedule." |
| 4 | On each step's Talkthrough tab, build the step's actions. Include in lesson mode is already checked on a new Lesson, so clear it only on a step you do not want to play in Talkthrough. |
| 5 | Select Update to save your changes. |
Note: Update stays unavailable until you change something, and your work is saved only when you select it. Leaving Lesson Builder without selecting Update discards your changes.
How do you add Talkthrough to an existing Lesson?
Talkthrough is a new mode, so a Lesson built before August 2026 does not have one. Those Lessons keep working exactly as they are, and Talkthrough is added only where you decide it is worth having, Lesson by Lesson. Once you decide a Lesson should have one, adding it is a content change like any other, so the Lesson has to be updated and published again before Learners get it.
Step |
Action |
|---|---|
| 1 | Open the Lesson in Lesson Builder. If you opened an earlier version, select Unlock in the bottom bar to make it editable. Unlock is unavailable while the Lesson is processing, or while the version you opened is in an error state. |
| 2 | In the View Steps row, choose Talkthrough. The Talkthrough Lesson Mode Settings panel opens, and every step switches to its Talkthrough tab. |
| 3 | Complete the Talkthrough Lesson Mode Settings. Set the estimated time rather than leaving it at 60 seconds, and add the background image and a description written for Talkthrough. |
| 4 | Decide which steps play in Talkthrough. Include in lesson mode on a step's Talkthrough tab sets one step, and Include All Steps, in the Lesson's ... menu under Step Actions, sets them all. Both act only on Talkthrough. |
| 5 | Build the actions. For one step, select Generate Talkthrough at the bottom of its Talkthrough tab. For the whole Lesson at once, open the Lesson's ... menu, then Step Actions, then Generate Talkthrough for all Steps. |
| 6 | Review every step. Check the VO Script wording, that the actions play in the order you want, and the settings on each action. |
| 7 | Select Update to save. |
| 8 | Publish the version. Learners see the Talkthrough only once a version carrying it is published and their Assignment is active. |
Note: Generate Talkthrough replaces the actions already on a step. It runs the moment you select it, with no confirmation and no undo, so narration you have reworded and actions you added by hand are lost. Generate first, then refine by hand. Generate Talkthrough for all Steps does the same thing to every step in the Lesson at once.
What is in Talkthrough Lesson Mode Settings?
These settings apply to Talkthrough across the whole Lesson.
Setting |
What it does |
|---|---|
| Estimated time | The time in seconds you expect a Learner to need for Talkthrough. It feeds progress tracking in Skyllful IQ and is required before you can publish. The field arrives set to 60 seconds, which is a starting value rather than an estimate, so evaluate it against the Talkthrough you built and adjust it. |
| Skills Covered | The skills this mode builds. |
| Background image | The image Learners see behind Talkthrough in Skyllful Simulator. Choose or upload an image, or select Generate Thumbnail to create one. Images cannot exceed 5 MB. |
| Mode Name Override | Renames Talkthrough for Learners. |
| Title Override | Replaces the title Learners see for Talkthrough. |
| Description Override | The description Learners see for Talkthrough. Write it for this mode rather than reusing the Lesson description, for example "In this Talkthrough, you will learn how to check and accept your schedule." |
What can you add to a step?
A Talkthrough step is a list of actions that play in order, from the top down. There are five action types.
Action |
What it does |
|---|---|
| Narration | Speaks the step's description to the Learner and shows it as a caption. |
| Tap | Taps a control on the screen. |
| Scroll | Scrolls the screen to a control. |
| Input | Enters text on the screen. |
| Delay | Pauses before the next action runs. |
What can you set on each action?
Select the caret beside an action to expand it. Required fields are marked with an asterisk.
Action |
Settings |
|---|---|
| Narration | VO Script for the words, the narration voice, and Closed Captioning Location, which places the caption at the Bottom or the Top of the screen. |
| Tap | Control, Style, Duration, and Color. |
| Scroll | Control, Indicator Style, Position, Color, Scroll Duration, and Indicator Travel Distance. |
| Input | Field, the control the text is typed into, Text, the words the action types, Highlight Style, Typing Duration, and Color. |
| Delay | Delay, the length of the pause. |
Note: Tap, Input and Scroll actions carry Copy Style and Paste Style, so you can match one action's look to another without setting every field again. A style can only be pasted onto an action of the same type, so a Tap style cannot be pasted onto an Input or Scroll action.
Note: The tap, input and scroll styles also have Learning Program wide defaults, set under Talkthrough Defaults on the Lesson Defaults tab of Learning Program Settings. Changing them there changes the starting point for every Talkthrough in the program.
The Text on an Input action is the only place the typed text is set for Talkthrough. It is not the accepted answer a Learner has to type in Practice or Knowledge Check, which is set on the step's General tab. In Talkthrough the Learner watches the text being entered, so the wording only has to read correctly on screen.
How do you build a step's actions?
Step |
Action |
|---|---|
| 1 | Confirm Include in lesson mode is checked. On a new Lesson it is checked already, and clearing it keeps the step out of Talkthrough. |
| 2 | In the Actions list at the top right of the tab, choose the action type you want. |
| 3 | Select Add action, the plus beside the list. The action is added to the step. |
| 4 | Select the caret beside the new action to expand it, then complete its settings. |
| 5 | Repeat for each action the step needs. |
| 6 | Drag an action by its handle on the left to change the order actions play in. |
| 7 | To remove an action, select the trash icon at the right of its row. |
Note: Generate Talkthrough, at the bottom of the tab, builds the step's actions for you instead of adding each one by hand. To do the same for every step at once, open the Lesson's ... menu, then Step Actions, then Generate Talkthrough for all Steps. Because it replaces whatever actions the step already has, run it before you start editing rather than after, then review what it produced.
Where does the narration text come from?
Narration starts from the description written on the step's General tab, and Talkthrough reads that text aloud.
That description is usually written as an instruction, because the General tab describes what the Learner has to do. In Talkthrough the Learner is watching rather than doing, so the wording often needs a light edit. Expand the Narration action and reword the VO Script so it makes sense to a Learner who is listening.
Editing the VO Script does not change the description on the General tab. The same description also feeds the Walkthrough prompt and the Practice feedback, so it stays as written and each mode words it to suit.
How do you fix a word the voice says wrong?
Select the word in the VO Script, then use the Sounds Like option and type how the word should sound. The voice uses your spelling instead of the real one.
Use it for product names, abbreviations, and any word the voice gets wrong. Select the speaker icon to hear the result before you move on.
Which voice reads the narration?
You can set the voice on a single Narration action and then reuse it, or set a default for the whole Learning Program.
To set the voice from a step:
Step |
Action |
|---|---|
| 1 | Expand the Narration action. |
| 2 | Beside VO Script, choose the country, the gender, and the voice. |
| 3 | Select the speaker icon in the script box to hear how it sounds. |
| 4 | Select Set As Lesson Default to use that voice for the rest of the Lesson. |
Note: To keep every Lesson in a Learning Program on the same voice, set the default there instead. On the Lesson Defaults tab of Learning Program Settings, find the Default Voice Over section for the language and choose the country, gender, and voice. That saves choosing a voice inside each Lesson.
How do you know a step is included?
Each step carries a tab for every mode. A tab with a crossed out eye means that step is excluded from that mode, so it will not play for Learners.
Include in lesson mode, on a step's Talkthrough tab, controls that one step. On a new Lesson it is already checked, so clearing it is what keeps a step out of Talkthrough.
To set every step at once, open the Lesson's ... menu, then Step Actions, then Include All Steps or Exclude All Steps. Both act only on the mode selected in View Steps, so using them while you are on Talkthrough leaves Walkthrough, Practice, Knowledge Check and Video as they were.
How do you preview your work?
Control |
What it previews |
|---|---|
| The speaker icon in the script box | The narration for that one action. |
| Play preview | The whole step, from the first action to the last. |
| Restart preview | The step again from the beginning. |
| Toggle Preview | That one step, as the Learner sees it. |
| Preview in the bottom bar | The whole mode. |
Listen for narration that sounds right for a Learner who is watching, check that the actions play in the order you intended, and confirm the caption does not cover anything the Learner needs to see.
What if Talkthrough mode does not work as expected?
Symptom |
What to do |
|---|---|
| A step does not play in Talkthrough | The step is excluded. Its Talkthrough tab shows a crossed out eye. Open that tab and select Include in lesson mode. |
| You cannot publish the Lesson | The estimated time in Talkthrough Lesson Mode Settings is required before you can publish. Enter a value in seconds. |
| An action will not save | Expand the action and fill in every field marked with an asterisk. |
| The narration reads like an instruction instead of an explanation | The text starts from the step's description on the General tab, which is written as an instruction. Reword the VO Script on the Narration action to suit a Learner who is watching. |
| The voice mispronounces a word | Select the word in the VO Script, use Sounds Like, and type how the word should sound. |
| The narration uses the wrong voice | Expand a Narration action, choose the voice you want, then select Set As Lesson Default. For every Lesson in the program, change the Default Voice Over in Learning Program Settings instead. |
| The caption covers something the Learner needs to see | Expand the Narration action and change Closed Captioning Location from Bottom to Top, or from Top to Bottom. |
| The Tap or Scroll action has no control to choose | Controls are set on the step's General tab, under Selected Controls. Fix it there, then return to the Talkthrough tab. |
| Generate Talkthrough replaced narration or actions you had built by hand | There is no confirmation step and no undo. If you have not selected Update, leave Lesson Builder without saving and the step returns to its last saved state. Once you select Update, the change is saved. |
| The Input action has no field to choose | Field offers only the input controls on that screen, so it reads "No input controls on this screen" when the Replica has no text field for the action to type into. Fix the Replica, then return to the Talkthrough tab. |
| The actions play in the wrong order | Drag the action rows by the handle on the left. Actions play from the top down. |
| A mode tab is red | Something on that tab is missing or needs fixing before the Lesson can be updated or published, such as a Narration action with no VO Script. Open the tab and complete what is flagged. |
| Your changes disappear | Changes are saved only when you select Update. |
Where can you get help?
If you need help, start with your manager, then your Local Administrator. If additional assistance is needed, your Local Administrator can submit a support ticket to Skyllful.
Skyllful Knowledge Base | Content Developers, Instructional Designers