- This course is about an older version of Totara - don't miss out on the numerous new features, improvements and enhancements in Totara.
Ask us
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Totara for beginners V15-17
Topic outline
- General
General
- This course
In today’s rapidly evolving workplace, we must continue to learn new skills, gain knowledge and improve performance. Organisations need the capacity to adapt rapidly to be successful.
Today, your learners aren’t just learners. They’re the individuals who make your organisation tick. So as well as supporting their formal learning, they also need to be engaged with the work they’re doing, and able to perform to a high standard. But they don’t want to go to one system for learning, another for collaboration and yet another for their appraisal. They want to combine their formal and informal learning, collaborate in the same space, and tie their experiences into the way their performance is monitored and supported. In doing so, you’ll have an engaged and high-performing workforce, leading to increased productivity for your business.
So what’s the solution? Well, here at Totara, we call this the Talent Experience Platform.
Totara’s Talent Experience Platform combines a learning management system (LMS), a user-centric learning experience platform (LXP) and a comprehensive performance management system under a single and highly adaptable architecture. So if you’re looking to enhance and streamline your employee experience, you’ve come to the right place.
This course is the start of your Totara Academy journey. And what a place to start. Here you’ll explore the feature set, see how it works in practice, and take a peek into some key features to get you started. Along the way we’ll signpost additional training and resources you can access, for free, whenever you’re ready. The course has been designed to be taken in sequence, but you may also choose to dip in and out of activities in any order. We won’t mind.
If you’d like to complete the course and achieve your course badge, you’ll need to pass the mandatory activities which are marked with an asterisk, although we encourage you to explore many more of the activities available in the course. Your badge is valid for Totara versions 15-17. Are you ready to get started?
Getting to know you
- Before we get started, we’d love to get to know you better. First, tell us more about yourself.
This activity is not available to guest users.
Talent experience in a nutshell
- So what do we mean by a Talent Experience Platform? And why do you need one? Watch this brief explainer video to find out, or check out our Talent Experience Platform product sheet.
This video is best viewed in full screen Duration: 5 mins
Talent experience - Welcome to the future
- In this brief tutorial, you’ll find out what the Totara Talent Experience Platform is, why it’s different to other platforms, and get an overview of all the key components in Totara.
Talent experience in action
- So far, you’ve seen an overview of all the great features in Totara, and some detail on how to start using these features. Explore this scenario to see how one company put a range of these features into practice to meet their onboarding needs.
- Platform features
Regardless of which Totara products you use, you have full access to the platform that supports them. Key features include:
- Reporting: Totara’s report builder tool allows you to create bespoke reports or customise in-built reports.
- User management: Create hierarchies, organisational structures, management relationships, job assignments, roles and permissions to manage your users.
- User profile: Decide what’s shown to your users on their profile and what data is captured about them.
- Theme: Create a branded experience for your users by customising your site’s theme.
- Multitenancy: If your site supports multiple organisations or groups of people, devolve user and content administration and manage content visibility via tenants.
- Audiences: Use audiences to group users based on information held about them, such as their position, or learning they have completed. Then use these groupings to make further learning and performance management content available to them.
- Catalogue (used by Totara Learn and Totara Engage): Totara’s catalogue is the place to go if you’re looking for new formal or informal learning content.
In this section of the course, you’ll explore a few of these platform features.
Key terms
- One of the hardest parts of using a new tool or system can be understanding the terminology. We've put this simple glossary together to help you get started.
Show me: Navigation basics
- Finding your way around your Totara site is the first step. In this short video, you'll explore some of the key navigation elements to get you started. If you want to know more about the look and feel of a Totara site, take our Dashboards and basic theming course.
This video is best viewed in full screen Duration: 5 mins
Show me: Adding a user and assigning a manager
- Although you can enable guest access, in most cases you'll want to add a user for each person who needs to use your Totara site. This allows you to monitor the user's progress and contributions, including moving through performance management activities, working through learning and collaborating in workspaces. Watch this video to find out how to manually add a user to your site. If you have a lot of users on your site you will probably want to use HR import to upload them in bulk. You can find out more about this in our Creating users course.
This video is best viewed in full screen Duration: 5 mins
Show me: Finding content on your Totara site
- It's vital that your users can find the content they are looking for as quickly as possible. In most cases, the best way to find it will be through the catalogue. Watch the video to find out how the catalogue works. For more detailed information, see our Catalogue course.
This video is best viewed in full screen Duration: 5 mins
Show me: Creating a user generated report
- So you have added your users and enabled them to search for content. You probably also want to report on what they’re doing. Watch this video to find out how to create your own reports using report builder. If you want to know more, check out our Reports course.
This video is best viewed in full screen Duration: 5 mins
Show me: Multitenancy in a nutshell
- Do you need to support learners from different groups; perhaps internal and external, or groups of users from different subsidiary organisations? You can support a wealth of extended enterprise structures using Totara's multitenancy functionality. Watch this brief introduction to multitenancy in Totara. If you want to know more, check out our Multitenancy course.
This video is best viewed in full screen Duration: 5 mins
Help me
You might find these pages in our help documentation useful as you work through the activities in this section.
Try me*
- Show us what you know by completing this simulation in which you’ll add a new user in Totara. Duration: 10 mins
You are welcome to attempt this activity as a guest user, but your progress will not be tracked.
- Totara Learn
Totara Learn is a fully flexible learning management system that empowers you to build customised learning environments that meet your unique requirements. Trusted by thousands of customers around the world, Totara Learn is a scalable way to bring learning to your users in their preferred language, on their preferred device, and personalised by audiences, roles and learning goals.
Key features in Totara Learn include:
- Courses: Build online, blended and face-to-face courses using a range of activity types.
- Programs and certifications: Bring together courses into a program of work taken once or repeated for currency over time.
- Course activities: From seminars to forums, SCORM activities to glossaries and polls, there’s a wide range of in-built activities you can customise and build for your courses.
- Learning plans: Build personalised learning plans for individual users, capturing their learning, competencies and objectives in the same place.
In this section of the course, you’ll explore a few of the key features in Totara Learn.
Show me: Adding a course
If you want to deliver formal learning content to your learners, you'll want to set up courses. Watch this video to find out how to add a new course in Totara Learn and start adding activities to it. If you want to know more, why not check out our Courses and categories course?
This video is best viewed in full screen Duration: 5 mins
Show me: Adding an activity
Good courses are an effective blend of different types of content. That's where activities come in. From forums to SCORM objects, seminars to quizzes, course activities are how you add content and interactivity to your courses. Watch this video for an overview of adding a new activity to a course, or check out our Course Creator program for a more detailed look at the different activities available in Totara Learn.
This video is best viewed in full screen Duration: 5 mins
Help me
You might find these pages in our help documentation useful as you work through the activities in this section.
Try me*
- In this activity, you'll be asked to demonstrate your ability to set up a course in Totara Learn in a simulated system environment. Duration: 15 mins
You are welcome to attempt this activity as a guest user, but your progress will not be tracked.
- Totara Engage
Totara Engage is a learning experience platform (LXP) that engages, unites and upskills your workforce to deliver high performance and better results. Through peer-to-peer interaction and social learning, Totara Engage empowers your people to create and curate custom content and collaborate in private or public workspaces, all seamlessly integrated with tools like Microsoft Teams. Not just another ‘Netflix of learning’, Totara Engage enables your people to share and collaborate effectively with real results.
Key features in Totara Engage include:
- Resources: Empower your users to become content generators. Allow them to create or curate content and share it with others. From videos and documents to surveys and links, users can share relevant information quickly and easily.
- Playlists: Users combine related resources into public or private playlists, curating items for themselves or acting as subject matter experts to share with others.
- Workspaces: Make room for your teams to work together through workspaces. Private or public, invite-only or open to everyone, workspaces allow for real-time discussion and information sharing in one place.
- Recommendations: Add the recommendations block to provide personalised content recommendations to your users.
- Integrations: Meet your teams where they already are. Totara Engage can be directly integrated with MS Teams, enabling true learning in the flow of work.
In this section of the course, you’ll explore a few of the key features in Totara Engage.
Show me: Setting up a playlist
- Do you want to enable your users to create and curate their own content, and allow them to share it with others? The benefits of user-generated content and social learning can't be overrated. Watch this video to find out how easy it is to set up a playlist in Totara Engage. If you want to know more check out our course Playlists and resources in Totara Engage.
This video is best viewed in full screen Duration: 5 mins
Show me: Creating workspaces
- Create workspaces to enable collaboration within and between teams, through discussion and sharing resources. Watch this video to find out how to set up a new workspaces, and visit the Workspaces course to find out more.
This video is best viewed in full screen Duration: 5 mins
Help me
You might find these pages in our help documentation useful as you work through the activities in this section.
Try me*
- Put your new skills to the test by practising creating a workspace in Totara Engage. Duration: 15 mins
You are welcome to attempt this activity as a guest user, but your progress will not be tracked.
- Totara Perform
Totara Perform is a flexible performance management system which supports your business’ performance management model, however you want to work. It provides you with the flexibility to design your performance management schedules and processes, harnessing the power of continuous performance management to boost workplace productivity anytime, anywhere.
Key features in Totara Perform include:
- Competencies: Build competency frameworks and assign and track the skills and capabilities you have across your business to enable individual development and organisation-level skill and resource planning.
- Performance activities: Create bespoke appraisals, check-ins and 360 feedback activities using our form and schedule builder, then assign them to groups of users in the system.
In this section of the course, you’ll explore a few of the key features in Totara Perform.
Show me: The competency profile
- The competency profile is a central place for team members (and their managers) to review their progress against assigned competencies, and update ratings and assignments. Watch the video for an overview of the profile. If you want to know more about competencies in Totara Perform, take the Competencies in Totara Perform course.
This video is best viewed in full screen Duration: 5 mins
Show me: Creating a performance activity
- With performance activities, you can build and schedule your check-ins, appraisals and 360 feedback using a flexible form builder. You take control of who contributes to an activity, how often it is created, who can see it, and how it's communicated. Watch these videos to find out how to create a new performance activity in Totara Perform. You can find out more about this in our Check-ins, 360 feedback and Appraisals courses.
This video is best viewed in full screen Duration: 5 mins
This video is best viewed in full screen Duration: 5 mins
Help me
You might find these pages in our help documentation useful as you work through the activities in this section.
Try me*
- Show us what you know by completing this simulation in which you’ll add feedback activity in Totara Perform
You are welcome to attempt this activity as a guest user, but your progress will not be tracked.
- Totara Mobile
- Enable your learners to access their learning anytime, anywhere, via the Totara Mobile app. The app allows learners to search for, enrol and access learning content.Key features of the mobile app include:
- Current learning: Users can access all of their currently enrolled learning via the app.
- Offline SCORM player: Users have the option to download SCORM activities for later offline access. SCORM data is passed back to your Totara Learn site when a connection is next available.
- Theming: Apply your brand’s logo and colour scheme for a branded app experience.
- Find learning: Users can browse and search for content in the catalogue, view Totara Engage resources and access and enrol in new courses.
Watch the video for an overview of the user experience of the Totara Mobile app. Show me: The app experience
This video is best viewed in full screen Duration: 5 mins
Help me
Take a look at the following page from our help documentation to learn more about the mobile app.
- Prove it
Test me*
Ready to show us what you've learnt? This quiz contains ten questions, and you'll need to get 90% to pass. You have two attempts at each question, and we'll give you some guidance along the way if you need it. Good luck! Duration: 15 mins
You are welcome to attempt the quiz as a guest user, but your progress will not be tracked.
Give us your feedback
- Resources
- There's a lot to take in about Totara. But don't worry, we don't expect you to remember it all today! There are plenty of other courses to help you deep-dive into features. And for now, here's a brief summary of what you've covered in this course to takeaway.
You can find more information about Totara features in our help documentation.
Why not take some of our other Academy courses? Go to our catalogue to browse the available courses and programs.
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