What are tags?
  • 25 Apr 2024
  • 3 minutes to read

What are tags?


Article summary

Tags are keywords which can be used to categorise courses and other content to help users find them during a search. They are available for use in both Totara Learn and Totara Engage. 

There are different types of tags:

  • Standard tags are site-wide and defined by a Site Administrator 
  • Tags can also be defined by users for their own use

Once a tag has been defined other users can also select the tag to categorise their content. The tag manager enables the Site Administrator to see all of the tags that have been defined and ensure that tags are consistently and appropriately used.

Note that Totara Engage topics (which were previously a separate feature) have now been combined into tags.

Managing tags

Once site-wide tags have been added these can be managed by a Site Administrator. You can rename tags and decide whether they should be standard (site-wide) or not, as well as add or remove them from collections (or the site entirely).

You can do the following actions:

  • Manage tag collections
  • Manage tag areas
  • Rename tags 
  • Flag as inappropriate
  • Delete tags 
  • Toggle mark as standard (site-wide) 
  • Edit tag settings

User interests tags

On the user profile page users can add topics they are interested in under the Interests heading.

If the tags entered by the user already exist within the system the user will be added to the tag. If the tag does not currently exist it will be created when the user clicks Save changes.

Tag collections

Tag collections are sets of tags for different areas of your site. For example, a collection of standard tags can be used to tag courses, but user interests and blog post tags are kept in a separate collection. When a user clicks on a tag, the tag page displays only items with that tag in the same collection.

There are three default collections:

  • Default collection: Most tags are added to the default collection, including course tags
  • Hashtags: Are another type of tag (often used in Totara Engage)
  • Engage: These are tags for Totara Engage resources

You can also set up your own custom tag collections.

When viewing the tag collections on your site you can perform the following actions:

  • Quickly rename a tag collection by clicking the pencil icon () alongside the tag name
  • Toggle whether a tag collection is searchable by clicking the icon in the Searchable column; if the tick icon () is showing then the collection is searchable
  • Reorder collections using the up () and down () arrows
  • Delete a collection by clicking on the cross icon ()

Clicking on the name of the collection will allow you to enter that collection and manage the tags within it.

Tags can be automatically added to a collection according to the area tagged or can be added manually as standard tags.

Managing a tag collection

Clicking on the name of a tag collection then displays the list of tags, together with information on their creators, how many times they are used, when they were last modified, which tags have been flagged as inappropriate, and which tags are marked as standard.

Reviewing tags in the Default tag collection.

Standard tags are tags which are added by a Site Administrator and are available for others to use. Standard tags are never deleted during clean-up tasks, even when there are no tagged items.

Tag areas

Tag areas are areas of Totara in which tags can be used, such as blog posts, activities and resources. These may be enabled or disabled as required.

For example, if you don't intend to use course tags on your site, the courses tag area can be disabled so that the Tags section doesn't appear on the edit settings page for each course.

Tag behaviour

You can set the behaviour for standard tags in each of the listed tag areas. This will affect whether standard tags are suggested, and whether or not new tags can be entered.

  • Suggest: When entering tags, any matching standard tags will be suggested
  • Force: New tags cannot be entered and only standard tags can be used
  • Don't suggest: New tags may be entered with no standard tags being suggested
Note that Standard tags usage is set to Force for the Engage tag area, meaning typical users are not able to create their own tags. The list of available tags for Engage must be managed by a user with the relevant permissions.

Next steps

Can't find what you're looking for? Contact us at documentation@totara.com. Alternatively, book a call to have a chat about your Totara platform with a dedicated Customer Success Manager.

© Copyright 2024 Totara Learning Solutions. All rights reserved. Some content originally obtained via GPLv3 license and continues to be available under GPLv3. All other content is the sole copyright of Totara Learning Solutions. 

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