Totara Learn Open Discussions

Overall user engagement tracking on a platform level

Welcome to this forum!

Hello!

After almost 1 year of active LMS administration work in Totara Learn, I arrived at the point where I need to provide my management with an easy to understand and relevant metrics for overall user engagement in our LMS (e.g. trends in user activity, most popular courses, etc.).

My first instinct was to take a deep dive into Google Analytics and create a customized dashboard, but before I invest time&effort, I wanted to check with you guys first.

How are you reporting on your user engagement?
What reporting tools do you use?
Is Google Analytics the best way to approach this topic for more advanced reporting?
What other options do you use?

Thanks for your experience and suggestions,

Stjepan

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Hi Stjepan!

I'm in a similar situation and as far as creating this kind of report, here is what I have found so far:

1. You can create a report in the report builder using the Site Logs source. This pulls all of the site activity logs and lets you filter by user, course, organization, etc., and you can see all actions taken in your LMS. You can then export this report as an excel spreadsheet and create pivot charts and tables that will give you some of that engagement data you're looking for, with some visualization options. This is the best option I have found inside of Totara.

2. There are reporting tools out there that integrate with Totara. I have seen them demonstrated but I'm not currently using them, so I can't make a recommendation either way.

3. I use Google Analytics for overall site usage (number of users accessed, pages per session, pageviews etc.,) and we report on them monthly, but I have not yet figured out how to get more granular information about user activity. I think the main problem for us is that Google Analytics doesn't have the information about a user's organization, so it's hard to compartmentalize it the way we want it. Maybe someone else will have more insight.

I would also be interested to know exactly how other Totara implementations are reporting on user engagement. I hope you get some interesting responses!

-Max

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Hi Max,

thanks for your feedback. At least, I can try the internal reporting, as I haven't tried it so far.

The problem I also have with Google Analytics is Citrix environment of my learners, so I can't trust the overall data 'cos it can be misleading.

If I manage to create a useful dashboard, I will share it here.

BR, Stjepan

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Hi Max!

I'm writing again regarding the overall engagement tracking post. I tried to make sense with internal reporting, but couldn't get far :(

Can you provide some useful links you used to setup the reporting in Totara or maybe have a short conference call with me to share your experiences?

I understand if you decline.

Thanks, Stjepan

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Hi Stjepan,

I happened to make a video recently in an attempt to explain to some of my admin users how to create pivot charts & tables from the site logs report. It doesn't explain how to create the report but you should be able to see which columns and filters I have in place. Take a look.

http://www.kaltura.com/tiny/y5dgi

If this doesn't answer your questions, shoot me an email at mwaluk@mccinnovations.com and we can set up a short meeting. Happy to help!

Regards,

Max

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Great video Max!

I have replicated all the steps you showed, even the report. Now it's time to play around with it :)

One additional question for you: you get all stats for last 30 days in your LMS? I see only last 5 days :(

Regards,

Stjepan

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Here's a screen shot of the content tab in the report editor. This is where I selected the "past 30 days" option. Before changing it the report took too long to run because it was pulling all past activity data (which was millions of records). I am using Totara 11.6 and I'm not sure if it's different in other versions.

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Hi Stjepan

Are you able to check your setting for Keep logs for the Standard Log under Site admin > Plugins > Logging > Standard log to see if the logs are not being deleted after 5 days?

Note the message with this setting.

This specifies the length of time you want to keep logs about user activity. Logs that are older than this age are automatically deleted. It is best to keep logs as long as possible, in case you need them, but if you have a very busy server and are experiencing performance problems, then you may want to lower the log lifetime. Values lower than 30 are not recommended because statistics may not work properly.

regards

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Hi Craig,

yes, you're right. My setting was exactly like you described. Now is changed.

Thanks for your insight,

Stjepan

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Hi Max,

Total side note and not relating to the topic here, however, I noticed you used Kaltura to host your video.

Is Kaltura integrated into your Totara LMS, if so, did you have to you use any special plugin or get one written to integrate? Or do you get use embed code?

Please feel free to reply in my Forum thread here: https://totara.community/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=23373

Thanks,

Kind Regards,

Simone Kimber

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Hey Dasha,

I'm still struggling with this question. The data derived from Google Analytics can't be trusted since we use virtual machines, and the data derived via Totara Learn reporting makes little sense to me.

However, it would be useful to track user activities and time devoted to learning, nut just the course completions.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Stjepan

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