Using Totara Help
  • 21 Jul 2023
  • 3 minutes to read

Using Totara Help


Article Summary

Selecting your version

Before you start browsing the Help documentation you should check that you’re on the correct version. By default the latest version will be selected, unless you’ve bookmarked the URL for your version of Totara (e.g. https://totara.help/15). 

On the home page you can change the version using the dropdown in the top-right corner.

Selecting a version from the Help home page.

When you are viewing an article the version dropdown will appear in the top-left corner next to the search bar.

Selecting a version while viewing an article.

Note that if you’re using Totara 13 or older you’ll need to go to the old Totara Help site.

The new Totara Help site uses an AI-powered search engine that allows you to search article titles, content, tags and more. You can either use the search bar on the landing page, or search when viewing an article.

The search bar displaying the top five results for the query 'certification content'.

The search results are sorted by relevance, and include a preview of where your search term appears. The top five results will be displayed, but you can click View all results if you can't see what you're looking for. When selecting a result, you will see the search term highlighted on the page.

An article selected from the search results with the search term highlighted.

Page types

On the new Help site you will find three different types of pages:

  • How-to pages: These pages are short, step-by-step guides that walk you through tasks in Totara.
  • Explainers: These pages outline important concepts and features in Totara.
  • Reference: These pages contain comprehensive lists and tables detailing settings, available functionality, and more.

Using the page tree

The page tree is found on the left-hand side of the page, and allows you to navigate between pages and categories. You can collapse the page tree by clicking the arrow icon.

An article with the page tree expanded.

Items in the page tree with an arrow next to them are categories, which contain articles and other subcategories. You can either click the arrow to expand the category, or click the name of the category to view an index page displaying all items contained within the category. To view an article, simply click its name in the page tree.

Reading articles

Once you arrive on a page you can jump straight into the article content, but there are several useful features to know about. If the article contains headings you can use the table of contents in the right-hand column to go straight to a section.

You can navigate to other pages by clicking links in the article content, by expanding the page tree (see above), or by selecting an article from the Related pages section in the right-hand column. Many pages will also include a Next steps section at the bottom of the page, linking to other tasks that will logically follow on from the current article.

Page information

Under the page title you can see when the article was last updated, and an estimate of how long the page should take to read. In this section you can also click the Share button to share the article on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, or by email.

The page information displayed under the article title.

Page tags

Each page will have several tags, which can be viewed below the table of contents (if the page has one) in the right-hand column. You can click a tag to see other articles that share that tag. For example, if you’re viewing an article aimed at content creators, you could click the Content Creator tag to view all other articles aimed at admin users.

The tags section on an article.

Rate a page

If you found a page useful, or if it didn’t help you, you may want to provide feedback on the page. Next to Was this article helpful? you can give the article a thumbs up or thumbs down. After rating the page you can optionally add a comment and click Submit. If you want us to get in touch you can also leave your name and email address.

We use these ratings and feedback to improve our documentation, so please be sure to rate any pages you find useful, or those you think could be improved.

The page rating section.

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