Transitioning to new seminar notifications
    • 08 Dec 2022
    • 4 minutes to read

    Transitioning to new seminar notifications


    Article Summary

    With the introduction of a modern, centralised notification system it may be necessary to transition your existing seminar notifications. The need to transition, and how this will work, will depend on your prior use of custom notifications.

    For new Totara sites

    If you are new to Totara and just starting out then you do not need to do anything to transition to the new notification system. This will be enabled by default, and the old system will be disabled by default. Simply start using the new system, more guidance for which can be found on the Using centralised notifications page.

    For existing Totara sites

    If you have upgraded to Totara 16 or later then your transition path will depend on whether or not you were using custom seminar notifications previously. 

    No custom notifications

    If you were not using custom seminar notifications prior to upgrading then you will not need to transition. If you were just using default notifications for seminars then you can simply switch to the new system and use the equivalent default seminar notification, and even create custom notifications in the new system. Simply disable legacy notifications by following these steps:

    1. Go to Quick-access menu > Seminars > Global settings.
    2. Untick Allow legacy notifications
    3. Click Save changes.

    You can now start using the new system, more guidance for which can be found on the Using centralised notifications page. 

    Using custom notifications

    If you had customised your notifications prior to upgrading then you will need to manually migrate these changes over to the new system. You can read more about the benefits of using the modern, centralised notifications for seminars on the Changes to notifications in Totara 16 page. 

    When it comes to migrating your content you have two options:

    • Move everything at once
    • Gradually transition 

    Both of these options are described in more detail below. 

    Note that custom or amended notifications in the centralised notifications system will not be included when backing up and restoring courses, as these will be inherited from parent contexts instead.

    Transition guides

    There are two main approaches to transitioning (if you were previously using custom seminar notifications). Which one you use will likely depend on how widely you currently use custom notifications for seminars, although the decision is entirely yours to make. 

    Move everything at once

    You could decide to continue to use legacy notifications while you manually migrate your content as a single project. Once you have recreated all of the custom notifications in the new system you can then turn off legacy notifications and start using the centralised notifications system for seminars.

    To recreate the notifications:

    1. Go to Quick-access menu > Notifications
    2. Follow the steps to create your custom notifications.

    Once you have moved the content across:

    1. Go to Quick-access menu > Seminars > Global settings.
    2. Untick Allow legacy notifications
    3. Click Save changes.

    Gradually transition

    You can choose to disable the use of legacy notifications in new seminar activities while you wait for the old seminar activities to expire. As and when you require a custom notification for a new seminar activity you can create it in the centralised notification system. Once you no longer have any seminar activities using the legacy notifications you can turn the legacy system off.

    To disable the use of legacy notifications in new seminar activities:

    1. Go to Quick-access menu > Seminars > Activity default.
    2. Untick Use legacy notifications.
    3. Click Save changes

    To recreate the notifications:

    1. Go to Quick-access menu > Notifications
    2. Follow the steps to create your custom notifications.

    Once you no longer have seminar activities using legacy notifications:

    1. Go to Quick-access menu > Seminars > Global settings.
    2. Untick Allow legacy notifications. 
    3. Click Save changes.

    Notable settings

    As part of the transition process, there are some settings of particular note that you will need to consider enabling or disabling. 

    Navigation pathSettingDefaultDescription
    Quick-access menu > Seminars > Global settingsAllow legacy notifications
    • No (for new sites)
    • Yes (for upgraded sites)
    This setting determines whether the legacy seminar notification system will function on your site.
    Quick-access menu > Seminars > Activity defaultUse legacy notifications
    • No (for new sites)
    • Yes (for upgraded sites)
    This setting allows you to decide if you wish to enable legacy notifications to be used in new seminar activities. If this setting is enabled then you can configure it within an individual seminar activity.
    Quick-access menu > Seminars > Global settingsDisable legacy notifications
    • No

    When seminars are set to use legacy notifications, this setting will enable and disable legacy notifications and ad hoc messages. When seminars are set to modern notifications, this setting will enable and disable ad hoc messages only.

    These are all the possible combinations of states:

    • Allow legacy notifications is unticked (e.g. set to no) in site settings then centralised notifications are sent, can't be 'disabled' globally with a single setting, and legacy interfaces are hidden
    • Allow legacy notificationsis ticked (e.g. set to yes) in site settings:
      • If a seminar is set to use centralised notifications (e.g. Use legacy notifications is set to no) then centralised notifications will be sent, but the legacy interfaces will still be visible and functional across the site
      • If a seminar is set to use legacy then: 
        • If Disable legacy notifications site setting is on then no messages of any type will be sent
        • If Disable legacy notifications site setting is off then legacy messages will be sent

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