Hello!

For those of you that missed it (or perhaps want to watch it again), the recording of the Introducing the Totara Talent Experience Platform webinar presentation is now available for review.

Lars and I had a blast presenting this session, so thank you to everyone who joined us.  Because we had so much to get through, we weren't able to get to all the great questions at the time, so I'm posting responses to those queries below.

If you have any other questions on the Totara Talent Experience Platform, please do post them here and don't forget to check out the great new Totara Academy courses and Help Documentation covering Totara Learn, Totara Engage, Totara Perform and Totara Mobile.

I'm also running dedicated sessions on each of the Totara products that make up the TXP over the next couple of weeks, so do sign up and join us for a deeper dive into each product.  A note that BST is British Summer Time or UTC+1

• Introducing Totara Learn 13: Taking your organization’s learning and development to the next level - 6th October 16:00 (BST) / 11.00 (EDT)
• How Totara Perform can revolutionise your performance management and enterprise productivity - 8th October 16:00 (BST) / 11.00 (EDT)
  
• Fostering collaboration and engagement with Totara Engage - 15th October 16:00 (BST) / 11.00 (EDT)
  
• Presented by Totara Mobile Product Manager Chloe Leon - On-the-go learning with the Totara Mobile app - 20th October 9.00 (BST)

As quite a number of features of Perform have existing equivalents (appraisals, goals, competencies, etc.) in Totara Learn v12, will clients who only opt to go forward with Learn lose functionality with v13 onwards?

We’re aware that the upgrade/re-development of some performance functionality from Totara Learn 12 to Totara Perform will require a period of transition for some Totara customers.  As such, we’ve been working with our Partners to provide subscribers and Partners the time to work together to explore the great new features in Totara Perform.  Please do reach out to your Partner to discuss which approach is best for you and your organisation.

I use the competencies within my current Totara v12.  I am a bit concerned about how or if this function has changed in Totara13 and the introduction of Totara Perform.

No need to worry - you can continue to use competencies in Totara Learn 13 as they are now in Totara Learn 12.  I would add though, the new competencies functionality across Totara Perform is definitely worth checking out.  Being able to assign competencies by audience or individually, the graphical competency profile dashboard and multiple achievement paths are very cool (or as the marketing team would prefer me to say - extremely powerful and flexible :).

Is there now also a possibility / right for other roles to create "rooms" ?

There certainly is.  There is a separate capability for the creation of site wide room (mod/facetoface:managesitewiderooms) and to create ad hoc or activity specific rooms (mod/facetoface:manageadhocrooms).  These capabilities can be set to Allow for any role within the system, at any of the role contexts (Site, Front page, Category, Course, Activity, Block, Program and Tenant).  

NB: For anyone reading this and wondering what all that ^ means - there’s a great activity on the Totara Academy which explains all about roles/capabilities/contexts.

Are there APIs to load [Seminar] attendees?

Not currently, attendees can be added manually or in bulk via csv.  What systems were you thinking of connecting? In the short/med term a link to your preferred user capture/tracking system could be developed by your Totara Partner but we're interested in hearing more.

Will there be other sessions on the additional multitenancy functionality?

Absolutely - the hard part will be getting us to stop talking about this feature! ;)  There is a dedicated session on Totara Learn on October 6th where we’ll talk about this a little more.  If you want a deeper dive sooner rather than later I’d suggest checking out the Help Documentation and keep an eye out for the release of the new MT course on the Totara Academy. 

Additionally, once we’ve finished our scheduled launch webinars, we’ll be reusing our usual 2-3 weekly Community webinar sessions and we could look at bumping a tenancy session to the top of the schedule if there’s demand? 

Good day to you all. Will the Totara Mobile app work over 3G / 4G, or will it require a wifi connection?

And good day to you gentleperson!  Totara Mobile will work over 3/4/5G or a wifi connection and you can use the very cool in-built Offline SCORM player to complete your elearning offline and upload/sync once you’re back online.

Is it possible to have audience based sitewide reports?

Sure is! We introduced audience-based Content filters for the Report Builder back in Totara Learn v12.  You can read more about this at https://help.totaralearning.com/display/TH13/Creating+reports

Are performance activities per-role rather than per person?

They’re both.  Across Totara Perform there is a Subject of the Performance Activity (the person they’re relating to) and there are participating roles within each activity you create.  Additionally, you can assign performance activities by Position, Organisation and/or Audience

How are the different stakeholders in the performance process added. Is it manager, position, appraiser, teachers from courses?

Within each performance activity stakeholders can be added as Responding Participants and/or View-only Participants.  There’s a checklist to select the relevant stakeholders.  But don’t just take my word for it - check out this screenshot: 

Then there’s also a tidy little dropdown where you specify which stakeholders can assign the different participant roles to a performance activity.  You can see there’s a bunch of new options and a huge amount of flexibility in adding and selecting stakeholders within Totara Perform’s performance activities.

How much time & resources will be needed to move from Totara 12 to Totara 13 Learn/Engage/Perform?

That will definitely depend on whether you’re using any custom plugins or have any local changes to your code base.  Like any new version of software, there might be some new system requirements to consider and you’ll need to update any theme you might have, to work with the new modernised theme framework. 

I’d suggest speaking with your Totara Partner to get a feel for the work required - they’ll be more familiar with your installation and will be able to provide better advice.

Totara 13 is our biggest release to date - with the addition of Totara Engage, Totara Perform and Totara Mobile (!!) - but we’re confident the new features, functionality and opportunities the Totara Talent Experience Platform will offer will be worth the upgrade process.  

https://help.totaralearning.com/display/TH13/Upgrading+to+Totara+13