We are looking for ways to integrate external LMS SkillSoft SkillPort with Totara, so the external licensed courses can be launched in our single Totara LMS for licensed user, or be bundled with courses setup in Totara as program, and with results to be be tracked in single Totara platform.
I am keen to hear from anyone here that have explored or done the integration before and interested to find out what the experience/solution is like?
Best practice forum (Archived)
Skillsoft integration with Totara
Skillsoft integration with Totara
Re: Skillsoft integration with Totara
We just completed a Skillsoft integration with Totara for a client. Skillsoft has a method they call OLSA that allows for the passage of the Skillsoft data into Totara through setting the course(s) up as AICC and loading the zip files they send for each course into Totara.
The good news is that Skillsoft is converting all their courses to HTML5, meaning there will be no need to load a Java Applet any longer. You can talk to a Skillsoft representative about OLSA and Moodle/Totara and they can send you samples to try. Once we learned their method, everything works as expected and all the completion information for the Skillsoft courses are captured into Totara as if it was a SCORM course.
The experience was painless for us and our client and only took a little bit of learning from the Skillsoft technical folks to implement successfully. Good luck on your integration.
Cheers,
Alan
Re: Skillsoft integration with Totara
We've also done a similar integration with Skillsoft using the skillsoft moodle plugin and OLSA protocol. It basically works like a SCORM course.
There were some customisations required to get activity completion etc. working, but that was with an earlier version of the plugin. I'm hoping to have time to integrate our changes with the latest version.
As an extension we have also built a Skillsoft activity catalogue for Totara, with a slick drag and drop interface. It allows courses to be quickly added to Totara with the Skillsoft module as the main activity. Attached is an example.
Re: Skillsoft integration with Totara
Thank you for your sharing Chris and Alan. It certainly helps!
Thanks Chris about the catalog administration screenshot. This is somsething I was hoping to get an idea!! Great Totara community :)
Anyone knows about knowledge center access or supplementary material such as Skillbrief that links to skillsoft courses, do the learner still access skillport to access those or they're part of integration?
Re: Skillsoft integration with Totara
Hey Chris, wondering if your custom built catalog import will automatically retrieve all the metadata for all courses from skillsoft, or if your client will need to link them after the import? Would you mind to share this?
Re: Skillsoft integration with Totara
Hi Mei, yes it does retrieve all the metadata automatically. I'll discuss sharing the plugin with my team, and will get back to you.
Re: Skillsoft integration with Totara
Thanks to our Totara partner we have defined the process/proposal for this integration, thank you all the input above as well!
Re: Skillsoft integration with Totara
Catalyst's code for extending the Skillsoft plugin is available here https://github.com/martinholden-skillsoft/moodle2-skillsoft-activity/tree/dev
This code has not been merged into the plugin master branch, so it is to be used "at your own risk". That said, on Totara 2.7 we have had no issues with it and I consider it stable.
Re: Skillsoft integration with Totara
Hi Chris,
Does this plugin act as a "connector" so that it can reach out to skillsoft and import all of the courses into Totara for you? Any chance it might work with Totara v9 ? Seems odd to me that skillsoft integration hasn't been more of a common feature by now.