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Get a Vendor to Convert Your Adobe Flash Before December 2020

If you’re converting your assets from Flash Player to HTML5, you may be thinking of hiring someone to help. How do you know which vendor to choose? We share some tips on what to look for and how to choose the right fit for your needs, including the advantages and disadvantages of hiring a vendor and how to build a successful, trusting partnership with a vendor during this process. 

The Advantages of Hiring a Vendor

When you’re looking for a vendor to assist in converting your assets from Adobe Flash Player to HTML5, you aren’t just looking for someone with a good track record; you also want to look for a vendor who will be your partner through the process. If you already have a trusted vendor you’ve used to build previous courses and eLearning materials, then this can be a good place to start as they may have many of the source files for your organization’s materials and can help with conversions. 

A good vendor will be able to

  • add multiple resources to the project in order to shorten timelines
  • create new assets like video, graphics, animations, and interactions, not just assist with the technical aspects of the conversion 
  • provide new approaches to old material and give you an opportunity to leverage the experience of eLearning Instructional Designers and production teams that you may not have on your team or may not have used before
  • boost the capacity of your in-house team and allow you to keep your team  moving forward with new projects rather than pulling them off and letting training programs slide while the conversions are taking place. 


The Disadvantages of Hiring a Vendor

There can be drawbacks to hiring a vendor to help with your Flash to HTML5 conversion, particularly if you don’t have a clear conversion strategy in place from the beginning. Without a mapped out strategy, you can experience bottlenecks, confusion, and extra costs. 

There can be other challenges of working with a vendor:

  • Initial costs are not inconsequential and if a conversion was not properly budgeted for or not planned out, this can strain your learning and development or training budgets.
  • If there’s poor communication with the vendor, your timelines can be impacted and it can cause confusion (especially when trying to coordinate with in-house teams), resulting in added stress.
  • In order to support the vendor to meet timelines, you also have to follow the timelines yourself, which may  impact your other work.

If you do decide to hire a vendor, there are some things you can do to help ensure a successful partnership: 


5-Point Checklist for a Successful Vendor Partnership

  1. Be prepared – do a content audit and use a conversion strategy spreadsheet
  2. Be reasonable in your expectations of timelines – depending on course or asset volume and complexity, conversions take time! 
  3. Have a clear communications plan – clarify who’s responsible for what internally vs. externally to ensure the best use of everyone’s time and expertise; ask for regular status reports and schedule regular check ins
  4. Set a process for dealing with out-of-scope surprises – have a plan in place in case new content or assets need to be created that weren’t initially decided on
  5. Ensure that you have a solid Quality Assurance process  – allot time for testing, feedback, and any ongoing support or maintenance you might need.


Do Your Homework

Beyond quality of work and a strong portfolio, look for vendors who already have a clear communications process in place and who provide both technical and creative expertise. A good vendor will offer you only what you need and not what you don’t  – they shouldn’t try to upsell you on unnecessary extras. Finally, look to their portfolio for examples of hands-on, quality work. 

When hiring a vendor, you want the relationship to make the process easier, not more challenging, so the more you do your homework, the better the experience will be.

Interested in knowing more about how PathWise might help you? Contact us to arrange a free 30-minute consultation. 

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