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Managing course versioning in programs and certifications

 
Patricia Campos
Managing course versioning in programs and certifications
by Patricia Campos - Monday, 3 November 2025, 5:40 AM
Group Partners

Hi everyone,

I’d like to ask how you manage course versioning needs in Totara. In our case, we have sets of courses that are part of training programs designed for each job position. Within those courses, there are procedures that are updated frequently, which creates some challenges for us.

When a course is updated, we want learners who completed it previously to be required to retake it (as if their completion were “reset”). However, when the course is part of a program or certification, the system doesn’t allow us to “archive” or reset completions.

Have you encountered a similar situation? How do you handle frequent course updates without having to duplicate or recreate the course each time (i.e., versioning)?

Thanks in advance for sharing your experiences!

 
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Kathrin Helling
Re: Managing course versioning in programs and certifications
by Kathrin Helling - Friday, 5 December 2025, 12:51 AM
 

Hi Patricia,

we were testing a lot on how to implement versioning, and here is what works for us:

  1. In our courses, we add the word "Version 1" to the title of all the required activities

  2. There is always one "final quiz" required, with access restriction that require the completion of all other activities

  3. All activities with "Version 1" in the title are added to the course completion requirements

When the content is updated, we do the following:

  1. we move the "Version 1" activities and quiz to a hidden "Archive" section at the bottom of the course

  2. we add the new content, i.e. activities, quiz, with "Version 2" added to the title

  3. we update the course completion criteria with "unlock and delete" and now select every activity/quiz that has "Version 2" in the title

We monitor the completion of the "final quiz" (not course completion, because the course always shows completed for the learner, once it was completed for the first time). Because our quiz can only be accessed, if all other required materials were completed, too, the quiz completion equals course completion in this case.

While it works best with single courses, we also apply it for courses that are part of programs, though, it very much depends on the overall program requirements and set-up, and we have many variations of set-up described above.

As mentioned, this works for us at the moment, but we are curious to hear how others solved it, since we are always looking for options to simplify our process.

Kind regards

Kathrin

 
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